Comics As ‘Top-Level’ Category For New iPad

The new bookstore for the iPad (see “Is iPad a Gamechanger?”) will include comics and graphic novels as one of 20 “top-level” categories, according to the blog on AppSlice, a new tool for browsing and finding apps. Manga will be included as a sub-category within the comics and graphic novel category, along with others. The 20 top-level categories will include around 150 sub-categories over-all.

This represents a significant improvement in the merchandising of digital comics as compared to the current sales through Apple’s app store, which will make comics easier to find for readers using the new device.

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Kindle For iPhone Now Available In 60+ Countries

You’re probably wondering what took Amazon so long. After all, the Kindle PC Reader and the international Kindle both came out in October. But it’s not Amazon’s fault. The problem is with Apple, and how Apple allows apps to be made and distributed for the iPhone. With most any other OS (Windows, Linux, Maemo, Symbian, Android, Windows Mobile, DOS*), the reader software would be available everywhere you could download the day it’s released. Not so with Apple.

The funny part about this announcement is that the app has been accessible since forever. All you needed to do to get it was set up an App Store account with a US address.

Kindle DRM Is Getting Even More Frustrating

Amazon needs to work on its Kindle DRM policy, because the following story is ridiculous.

Basically, the way Kindle and the Kindle iPhone app are set up today, users have no idea how many times they can download a book, nor can they easily know how many devices can be used to read said book.

Making the situation even more confusing is the fact that the DRM information actually varies by publisher, and to find out how many times they will allow you to download a book you have to visit the legalese. Sometimes the info isn’t there, either. The worst part is this was all confirmed by an Amazon tech support person:

“How I find out (sic) how many times I can download any given book?” I asked. He replied, “I don’t think you can. That’s entirely up to the publisher and I don’t think we always know.”

I pressed - “You mean when you go to buy the book it doesn’t say ‘this book can be downloaded this number of times’ even though that limitation is there?” To which he replied, “No, I’m very sorry it doesn’t.”

As the author notes, this isn’t so bad if you’re buying a beach book or something you’ll read once and be done with it. Where it does get shitty is with reference books, which the author would like to read today, on his iPhone 3GS, and perhaps in a year, on the theoretical iPhone 4G, powered by unicorn tears. With certain books, you could be limited in such a way that your reading material does not follow your gadget’s natural upgrade cycle.

At the very least Amazon should update its policy so this info is out in the open and easily accessible. The best case scenario would be to allow consumers to actually, you know, literally own the books they’ve just bought. [Gear Diary]

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E-Book Sales Continue To Climb

According to the International Digital Publishing Forum (idpf) and the Association of American Publishers (AAP), E-Book sales have continued to show growth in an overall struggling industry, with more than 200% increase compared to last year.

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Trade E-Book sales were $12,100,000 for April, a 228.3% increase over April 2008 ($3,700,000). Calendar Year to Date sales are up + 154.8% Interesting to note it wasn?t until Q3 2008 that any quarter surpassed the $12,000,000 mark when total Q3 sales reached $13,900,000. Previous high for any single month was March 2009 with wholesale trade sales of $10,000,000

View the complete statistics, historical data and information about the numbers here.

These figures only show part of the picture (see below) however they are extremely encouraging and tend to confirm that E-Books are finally coming into their own.

Quote:

Please keep in mind the following: * This data represents United States revenues only * This data represents only trade eBook sales via wholesale channels. Retail numbers may be as much as double the above figures due to industry wholesale discounts. * This data represents only data submitted from approx. 12 to 15 trade publishers * This data does not include library, educational or professional electronic sales * The numbers reflect the wholesale revenues of publishers * The definition used for reporting electronic book sales is “All books delivered electronically over the Internet OR to hand-held reading devices” * The IDPF and AAP began collecting data together starting in Q1 2006

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Amazon Kindle DX Coming This Summer for $489

Hot on the heels of the Kindle 2, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos unveiled an extra-large e-reader today, dubbed the Kindle DX. The 18.4-ounce device is intended to give users a reading experience closer to paper, with a 9.7-inch screen that measures 8.5 x 11 inches — 2.5 times the size of Kindle 2’s display.

This latest e-reader has a new trick — its screen can auto-rotate, so when you turn the Kindle DX on its side, an accelerometer will flip your page 90 degrees. It can now directly handle PDF files, with no need to convert them into Amazon’s proprietary format. Also new is the ability to control the line length, making the margins wider or thinner with just a few clicks. Capacity has been jacked to 4GB, though there’s still no slot for a flash-memory card. Like the Kindle 2, the DX has 3G wireless connectivity for getting content wherever you are, and the E Ink screen consumes no power except when flipping pages.

At the same time, Amazon just made a deal with three major textbook publishers to provide content for the Kindle DX: Pearson, Cengage, and Wiley. Also, five universities have agreed to pilot the DX in the fall, including Princeton, Pace and Case Western Reserve. On the newspaper front, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Boston Globe plan to partner with Amazon to sell the Kindle DX at a reduced price in exchange for a subscription contract.

Shipping sometime this summer, the Kindle DX is available for pre-order today for $489.

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Amazon To Charge Per MB To Send Personal Documents OTA To Your Kindle

So far, sending files to your Kindle cost a flat fee — one dime per document for conversion and download over Whispernet. Looks like that honeymoon is over, as Amazon’s announced that as of May 4th, the Personal Document Service will be a variable fee of $0.15 per megabyte, rounding up.

It’s still free of charge if you transfer the documents over via USB, and sending them to “name”@free.kindle.com will return converted files to your email address gratis. If you’re trying to be frugal, we might suggest combining all those pending transfers into one fat PDF and sending it off sometime this weekend.

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The Lord Of The Rings Now Available On Kindle Through Amazon

Amazon now has available The Lord of the Rings (Trilogy) for the kindle.  Published on April 19, 2009 by Harper Collins e-books, this digital download contains the original trilogy written by J.R.R. Tolkien.

The original series was first published in 1954 and has since been reprinted in many languages and has seen millions of copies in print form.

It has now been translated into digital form for the Kindle and is available for the Kindle through Amazon.com.

The Lord of the Rings (Trilogy)

World Book Day : 23rd April

World Book Day is coming up on the 23 April. This international event organised by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) got its start in Spain in 1923, where the commemoration of Miguel de Cervantes’ death by local booksellers combined with the celebration of St. George’s Day to create a new traditional exchange of flowers and… books.

The intent of World Book Day according to the UNESCO :
By celebrating this Day throughout the world, UNESCO seeks to promote reading, publishing and the protection of intellectual property through copyright.

Another E-paper debuts in Japan

Time and time again, we’ve seen technology progress forward more and more with plenty of improvements made along the way. One of those areas in life is the electronic paper, or e-paper for short. While we’ve seen plenty of such e-paper technology in the past as well as a fair number of e-book readers in the market (With the Amazon Kindle 2 being the most famous among the recent releases), there is always room for a new one in this fledgling niche market. Brother Industries Ltd. will be at the helm by releasing its “Brother Document Viewer SV-100B” - what is basically an information terminal equipped with an electronic paper module from June 1 onwards in Japan later this year. According to Brother, this product is meant to “allow users to carry around information equivalent to 10,000 sheets of A4-size documents.” With such a huge weight trade off, I’ll gladly tote one around.

Brother is not targeting the average Joe on the street with the SV-100B e-book reader - no sir, it will actually cater more towards folks like home visit nurses, lawyers and text accountants as it makes it a snap to function as a display manuals for field maintenance services. Since corporate users will make up the bulk of the targeted user base, it won’t come cheap (no matter how bad times are, it seems as though corporate companies will be milked by virtually any party to get that extra bit of income in their pockets) as Brother’s direct shopping website will list it at a whopping ¥139,800 (around $1,423). Read more