More Readers Are Picking Up Electronic Books - NYTimes.com

Publishers say these iPhone applications are already starting to generate nearly as many digital book sales as the Sony Reader, though they still trail sales of books in the Kindle format.

Но Kindle пока не догнали.
Вопрос времени.

App Developer Strikes E-Book Deals With Major Publishers | Epicenter from Wired.com
ScrollMotion, a New York mobile app developer, has concluded deals with a number of major publishing houses, and is in talks with several others, to produce newly released and best-selling e-books as applications for the iPhone and iPod touch.
Publishers now on board include Houghton Mifflin, Simon & Schuster, Random House, Hachette and Penguin Group USA.
The first official books will begin to roll out Monday and include titles such as Stephenie Meyer’s “Twilight,” Philip Pullman’s “The Golden Compass” and a number of others by Christopher Paolini, Brad Meltzer and Scott Westerfeld.
There are already several e-book readers in the app store, as well as a number of out-of-copyright e-books, but ScrollMotion’s product is unique in that these are stand-alone and newer in-copyright titles and best-selling novels.
Each book is a separate application using Scroll Motion’s new reader technology called Iceberg and is wrapped only in the FairPlay iTunes DRM, putting Apple directly into the e-book business by allowing them to pick up a certain percentage of each sale.

App Developer Strikes E-Book Deals With Major Publishers | Epicenter from Wired.com
ScrollMotion, a New York mobile app developer, has concluded deals with a number of major publishing houses, and is in talks with several others, to produce newly released and best-selling e-books as applications for the iPhone and iPod touch.
Publishers now on board include Houghton Mifflin, Simon & Schuster, Random House, Hachette and Penguin Group USA.
The first official books will begin to roll out Monday and include titles such as Stephenie Meyer’s “Twilight,” Philip Pullman’s “The Golden Compass” and a number of others by Christopher Paolini, Brad Meltzer and Scott Westerfeld.
There are already several e-book readers in the app store, as well as a number of out-of-copyright e-books, but ScrollMotion’s product is unique in that these are stand-alone and newer in-copyright titles and best-selling novels.
Each book is a separate application using Scroll Motion’s new reader technology called Iceberg and is wrapped only in the FairPlay iTunes DRM, putting Apple directly into the e-book business by allowing them to pick up a certain percentage of each sale.

Книжный бизнес - Книги «провалились» в ноябре
По данным Росстата, в ноябре текущего года производство книг и брошюр (в листах-оттисках) упало на 20,2% по сравнению с ноябрем 2007 года. Падение к уровню октября составило 13,3%. При этом за 11 месяцев рост производства книжной продукции составил 4,1% по сравнению с аналогичным периодом прошлого года.

Mario makes way for Shakespeare on Nintendo DS in HarperCollins deal - Times Online
Nintendo, the Japanese video games company that brought us Donkey Kong and Mario the Plumber, is to announce a deal with the publisher HarperCollins today to make literary classics available to read on its DS portable games consoles.

The 100 Classic Book Collection ranges from Shakespeare and Dickens to Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters. It will cost about £20 and will be available initially only in Britain.

Random House Publishing Group Makes Free Titles Available on Lexcycle’s Stanza Reader | Lexcycle

New York, NY - December 8, 2008 — The Random House Publishing Group and Lexcycle, Inc., jointly announced today that Random House and Ballantine will be the first major book publishers to make full-length books available for free on iPhone through Lexcycle Stanza, the most popular electronic book reader for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch.
This promotion will allow over 500,000 Stanza users to enjoy free eBooks from a varied list of authors including Alan Furst, Julie Garwood, Charlie Huston, David Liss, Laurie Notaro, Arthur Phillips and Simon Rich. The initial offerings will be drawn from each author’s backlist and will include excerpts for any new hardcovers coming in 2009. Random House is providing links to retailers like Amazon, Barnes and Noble.com, Borders.com, Powells.com and IndieBound.org to encourage readers to purchase more books by these authors.
“A free eBook is a great way to sample a new writer, and help spread the word,” says Charlie Huston, whose novels ‘Caught Stealing’, ‘Six Bad Things’, and ‘A Dangerous Man’ will all be available on Stanza. “Besides, it’s good to give things away. They’re books. We write them for people to read them.”
Stanza users already have access to a public domain library which sees nearly 40,000 downloads a day.
“Stanza has clearly tapped into an audience that’s hungry for content, and we’re happy to modify our traditional marketing methods to make use of the new technology available to readers today,” commented Avideh Bashirrad, Deputy Director of Marketing for Random House.
Neelan Choksi, Chief Operating Officer of Lexcycle, added, “We are thrilled to bring Stanza readers a sampling of the wealth of titles published by the Random House Publishing Group imprints. But this is just the tip of the iceberg: we look forward to extending this promotion to make even more free titles available.”

Кажется, это более интересно, чем Penguin 2.0. Понятно, что это рекламы ради, но все равно.

About Penguin 2.0 - Penguin Group (USA)

Penguin 2.0 is a new suite of digital and print-based services that offer readers a new way to engage with and discover Penguin content. These collected services will encompass the entire spectrum of a Web 2.0 world by including aspects of customization, personalization, delivery to mobile phones, as well as eBooks and e-only content. In addition, later phases of Penguin 2.0 will offer community functionality and social networking. The Penguin US website will be the focus and hub for the program.
Individual services, such as Penguin Mobile and Penguin Personalized, are launching in December 2008. Additional Penguin 2.0 features and programs will be rolled out in 2009, with the entire suite of services being phased in over the next 12 months.

ЭКСМО 2.0, Олма-Пресс 2.0, Аттикус 2.0… Страшный сон.

E-Reads: Digi-Newspaper Scoreboard: Kindle 28, Kindle Killer 800

It’s a good time to be alive if you’re a tree. Digitally delivered news is gaining momentum and as we turn the corner to 2009 it’s gotten a rocket boost from the Dutch firm iRex Technologies, which announced it has made a deal with NewspaperDirect to deliver 800 newspapers on iRex’s Digital Reader 1000.

iRex договорился с NewspaperDirect о том, что с 11 декабря 2008 года пользователям букридера iRex 1000 будет доступна подписка на 800 газет со всего мира в электронном формате для чтения на этом устройстве. Газеты сдаются.

Business Technology : Turns Out Sony E-Book Readers Sell After All
Sony for the first time disclosed that it sold 300,000 units of its Reader Digital Book globally since the device launched in October 2006.

Via MobileRead.

Если вы пользуетесь программой Stanza на iPod Touch или iPhone для чтения книг, то в ее последней версии при загрузке из online-каталога русских книг появляется надпись: «The ebook file did not contain any data. It may be corrupt». Такое предупреждение выводится в том случае, если не происходит прямой загрузки книги с сервера при явном прописывании пути до файла.
Однако есть решение — если зайти в опцию «Online Catalog» и там, нажав на «+», добавить свой каталог, то есть ту папку на сервере, где у вас хранятся тексты (с расширением .epub) и, соответственно, тут же прописать путь до неё, то при открытии Online Catalog вы увидите свой, только что созданный. При открытии в нем появится список книг, которые уже и загрузятся без проблем. В том числе и на русском.
Спасибо enot за ценный совет!

Experimental O’Reilly Ebook iPhone Integration with Stanza - Tools of Change for Publishing

Back in August, I showed how to read O’Reilly EPUB ebooks on an iPhone (or iPod Touch) using the popular (and free) Stanza reader app. I’m pleased to announce that you can now directly download EPUB ebooks purchased from O’Reilly on your iPhone to Stanza. The integration is experimental for now, as we iron out some kinks and work to make our own site more iPhone-friendly.

O’Reilly решил не связываться с iTunes и DRM — 57 книг из его каталога доступно для прямого скачивания с сайта в формате ePub через iPhone — прямо в Stanza, на сегодняшний день — самую популярную (и бесплатную) программу для чтения книг на iPhone (ее скачали в большем количестве экземпляров, чем Amazon продал своих букридеров).
Кажется, iPhone действительно становится одним из популярных устройств для чтения электронных книг. Хитрюга Джобс.

E-Books Have a Future in iTunes | Epicenter from Wired.com

Top publishers are revving up their libraries of digital books to capitalize on the presumed success and hype of the Amazon Kindle — actual sales are still based on speculation — but one big name is putting its money on a device that has proven its popularity: the iPhone.

“We’re very bullish on that as a platform. We think it’s gonna be a great competitor to Amazon,” said David Langevin, VP and director of electronic markets for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

«Как продаются книги для Kindle, никто не знает, а вот как продается iPhone - хорошо известно» (волный перевод на русский).
Издательство Houghton Mifflin Harcourt планирует начать продажи своих бестселлеров через iTunes для iPhone в ближайшие выходные. Книга будет продаваться как отдельное приложение (то есть вместе с программой-ридером) с защитой от копирования. Ассортимент будет пока невелик — 15 наименований, но будет расширен до тысячи в следующем году.

Компьюлента. Новости науки и техники.

Издательская компания Random House пополнит свою цифровую библиотеку тысячами книг. Среди прочих в число переведенных в электронную форму попадут произведения Джона Апдайка и Харлана Кобена, а также несколько томов из детской серии Magic Treehouse.

Google Signs a Deal to e-Publish Out-of-Print Books - NYTimes.com:
in the first nine months of this year, book sales in the United States fell 1.5 percent, according to the Association of American Publishers

То есть продажи бумажных книг упали на 1,5%. Ага.

Wholesale eBook Sales Statistics
На сайт IDPF обновлена информация по продажам электронных книг в США (данные оценочные, поскольку в формировании статистики участвуют только 12-15 крупнейших издательств). Продажи в III квартале 2008 года составили $13.9 млн против $8 млн за тот же период 2007 года. Такой кризис.