General eBooks

A study was unveiled through Brown University concerning war expenses. The research asserts that the wars The United States has fought since 2001 may up to trillions of dollars. The final cost of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq may add up to $4 trillion, and may have resulted in the deaths of up to 250,000 people. Source for this article - Wars cost American taxpayers almost $4 trillion in past decade by Newsytype.com.

Cost in excess of cash

Scholars from Brown University have set about tallying up the cost of battles in Iraq and Afghanistan since the September 11 attacks in 2001, according to Reuters. "Costs of War" was the name of the project. The Watson Institute for International Studies unveiled the project. There is a site for the findings, which were compiled by nearly two dozen students from multiple universities. The research goes off of what Obama said the war would expense. He said that about $1 trillion would be put into it. The expense of both Iraq and Afghanistan is fairly high. It will be between $3.4 trillion and $4.4 trillion to pay for it all. There were about 250,000 people killed. Al Jazeera states the English journal The Lancet, also as others, has been criticized for inaccuracy on death estimates. Still, there were nearly 125,000 Iraqi civilians killed during this time, as reported by states.

Paying for interest Read more »

With the huge popularity of the iPad, not least as a book reading device, it seems that Apple are now looking to put the squeeze on their competitors by restricting eBook sales that don't go through their own store:

Buzz began Tuesday morning when The New York Times said that Sony’s e-reader app had been rejected, citing Apple’s restriction on in-app book purchases. This in itself was not a new policy — Apple doesn’t allow apps to sell content to users unless that content passes through the official Apple ecosystem, where Apple gets a 30 percent cut.

Apple also allegedly told Sony that the app couldn’t access content purchased on other Sony Reader devices, which is where most of the outrage was focused. Amazon’s Kindle app and Barnes & Noble’s Nook app are both popular mechanisms for users to download and read books that they have purchased from the respective stores. Many feared that this supposed change in Apple policy would take their e-books away from their iPads, iPhones and iPod touches.

Apple’s second statement indicates that this is indeed the case — sort of. If an app lets users access content that they purchased via Amazon’s website, for example, then that same app must also let users buy the same book via Apple’s own in-app purchase system. If the app developer doesn’t want to use Apple’s in-app purchases to sell content, then the app can’t access content purchased elsewhere either.

This is notable because it will require Amazon and Barnes & Noble (as well as Sony, whose iOS app is not yet available) to change how their offerings work. Apple wants its 30 percent share of content sales whenever possible.

Wonder if the new Android 3.0 tablets could put a dent in Apple's plans though, if they provide a more open system for users to access books?

Can you see a trend in these quarterly statistics on eBook sales aggregated by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF)?

Not surprising given the debut of devices such as Amazon's Kindle and Apple's iPad. It will be interesting to see whether the trend continues as tablets and e-readers become more ubiquitous.

A thought-provoking video from Ideo regarding the future of the book (which seems to concentrate mainly on eBooks and touch tablets):

What do you think we'll be seeing in the future of books?

The influx of new eReaders continues with the explosion in the touch tablet market - in the past fortnight two new 'big' players have entered the market. First Samsung announced their Galaxy tablet running Android, and then this week Blackberry announced their own long-rumoured 'Blackpad', now officially known as the PlayBook. Certainly seems that tablets (and thus eReaders) will soon be ubiquitous.

Mike Shatzkin has two interesting posts exploring the philosophies and economics of royalty percentage, as it applies to old-style publishing, print-on-demand publishing, and eBooks:

• The royalty math: print, wholesale model, agency model
• The other comparison: ebook royalties versus ebook self-publishing

Do you have anything to add?

Sony has unveiled three new eReaders, one a 'pocket' reader and the other two touchscreen versions, one with 3G capabilities. The company also has a partnership with OverDrive - an e-book provider which does library loans via eBook - which opens up a whole new area for eBooks (and one that you'd imagine mainstream publishers would not be happy about).

Adobe have released a short 'introduction' (read 'promotional video') to the workflow of their Digital Magazine publishing platform. Certainly an eye-opener to the capabilities that will probably quickly become standard in e-magazines:

Visit the Adobe blog for more information.

James Patterson has become the first author to sell a million eBook copies of his work, according to his publisher Hachette Book Group:

The Hachette Book Group says Patterson has moved 1.14 million units of his books for devices like Kindle and the iPad. The big seller, by far, is the most recent: Patterson's novel "I, Alex Cross," which was published both electronically and in hardcover last fall. Since his first novel in 2007, Patterson's books have sold more than 205 million copies.

There's no third-party monitor of e-book sales, so Hachette used its own figures and checked other prominent authors. The publisher didn't find any others who had cracked the million mark.

Any other authors out there that you think might be close to the million mark?

Gina Centrello, President and Publisher of the Random House Publishing Group, says on current trends eBooks will have 50% of the market share within 5 years - and suggests that publishers need to look at ways of adding value to their product:

Her estimates are based on recent growth. She said that last year eBooks represented 3% of the market and this year it will be about 10%.

Because eBooks are the next wave, Centrello questions if digital books should become more than just a channel of distribution and encouraged a room full of publishing industry people to consider adding music and video to books when it makes sense. Still, she thinks that a book will still be about story.