eBooks

Barnes and Noble have entered the eBook market with their own reader, the Nook. Here's the promo video:

The Nook runs on Google's Android, and supports PDF and e.pub formats. I haven't been able to find a lot of details at this stage (apart from this article), but I'm sure we'll hear much more in coming weeks.

The New York Times has a news feature suggesting that eBook devices are leading readers to up the number of books they consume. Amazon says that people with Kindles now buy 3.1 times as many books as they did before owning the device, while Sony says that its Reader users download about eight books a month. Of course, someone had to say that people aren't likely to read more in the modern age of movies and the Internet...but you'd think it wouldn't be a publisher...

“Given the fact that people now have the Internet, almost 24-hour football entertainment in the fall, tennis matches from around the world, TV shows out the wazoo, and movies, do you really believe that people are going to be reading more because they can get it on a screen?” said John Sargent, chief executive of Macmillan, owner of imprints like Farrar, Straus and Giroux and St. Martin’s Press. “I don’t see the scenario.”

Way to sell the book industry John.

Here's a fine little article on the idiocy of pricing eBooks the same as 'real' books: "10 Reasons that eBooks Should Be Priced Lower Than Paper Books". Not much else to be said really, except I think a key issue is the 'disposable' nature of modern culture. People are happy to buy lots of things at cheaper prices, because to them it won't matter if they don't get good value. Cheaper eBooks will mean greater volume, I am sure.

For the past week I've been learning how to publish on the Kindle. Which basically amounts to stripping away all the nice typesetting a layout you did, and coding it as best you can in HTML. So nasty.

And to suit my mood, the Kindle itself is drawing fire from all sides. Here's some links:

• Controversy mounts over Amazon's decision to silently delete certain books from customers' Kindles.
• The New Yorker's "epic takedown' of the Kindle.
• Barnes and Noble announced a partnership with Plastic Logic (maker of a new eReader), which will allow them to challenge Amazon's dominance in the eBook market.
• The Guardian wonders about the extreme influence Amazon may be able to wield if they come to dominate the eBook market.
• Even Engadget has started disliking this particular gadget.

After the pain of the past week, working my butt off to make my book look crappier, all I can say is that I hope eReaders eventually move to supporting PDFs properly (or some other format equally as good at preserving print layout).

Recent developments seem to show that Amazon is moving away from a tight bonding between the Kindle book formats and the Kindle reader - the new Kindle DX features support for PDF files, rather than just Mobipocket and AZW, and the new 'Kindle for iPhone' program lets Kindle book buyers use the iPhone as their reading device if they prefer. Indeed, Jeff Bezos has now explicitly said that Kindle books and Reader are two separate businesses:

The device team has the job of making the most remarkable purpose-built reading device in the world. We are going to give the device team competition. We will make Kindle books, at the same $9.99 price points, available on the iPhone, and other mobile devices and other computing devices

Can't help but feel that the unexpected success of the iPhone as a reading device, using third-party apps, has swung Amazon's strategy somewhat...

Miscellaneous links with interesting reading pertaining to publishing's digital future...

• Wired discusses monopoly concerns about the Google Book deal.
• eBooks finally 'get some respect' from BookExpo America.
• Google to take on Amazon's eBook dominance with new online publishing model.
• Will Google's entry into the digital book fray cause a standards war?

Who wins, who loses?

Amazon seems to have acknowledged the ongoing 'adoption' of Apple's iPhone as a portable reading device, indicating a growing acceptance within the book retailing behemoth that multi-platform Kindle reading will not damage their growing domination of the eBook market: they've released an iPhone-friendly version of the Kindle bookstore.

This optimized Kindle store offers iPhone and iPod touch app users quick and easy access to the Kindle Store’s 280,000 books, including 106 of 112 New York Times Best Sellers and most New Releases that are available for $9.99 or less.

The Kindle for iPhone application was released on March 4 and within days became the most popular books app in the iPhone App Store. iPhone users can shop Kindle’s massive selection of books on the iPhone and iPod touch using Apple's Multi-Touch user interface. Amazon's Whispersync technology saves and synchronizes Kindle customers’ bookmarks across Kindle, iPhone and iPod touch, so you always have your reading with you and never lose your place. Kindle customers can read a few pages on their iPhone or iPod touch and pick up right where they left off on their Kindle.

Apple has to be happy about this development, strengthening the claim that the iPhone is not only a phone, personal organizer and iPod, but a book reader as well.

A few detailed reviews on the Kindle 2:

• Wired: "Kindle 2 Brings Books Closer to e-Nirvana"
• Good: "Reviewing the Kindle 2"
• Washington Post: "Amazon Kindle 2 E-Book Reader"
• Engadget: "Amazon Kindle 2 Review"
• Gizmodo: "Kindle 2 Review: Sheeeyah, More Like Kindle 1.5"
• CNET: "Amazon Kindle 2"
• USA Today: "Amazon e-reader Kindle 2 is a nifty, if costly, second act"

No shortage of reviews out there if you hit the Google, but the above should provide a good, balanced overview for anyone interested.

Here's some interesting news - is Apple's iPhone more popular as an eBook reader than Amazon's highly publicised, dedicated eBook device?

The excellent 'Print is Dead' blog has a series of articles which look into Amazon's Kindle book reader in depth - 'The Kindle Kronichles' - which is well worth checking out. The series is:

• Part 1 - Meet the Kindle
• Part 2 - The Device
• Part 3 - Books
• Part 4 - Blogs and Newspapers

Still holding off on an e-book reader personally - but man, it would make my bedside table look a lot neater!