eBooks

Zinio Interviews Judie! (And Dan!)

Zinio recently introduced their Zinio Magazine Minute. In it “Notable figures in magazine publishing and technology share their thoughts exclusively with Zinio. Explore their favorite articles, magazines, and find out what inspires them.” They reached out to Judie and me and interviewed us both. Judie’s interview is already live and I thought I would share it with you. (If you want to see it on the Zinio page click here.) Question: What recent article(s) on Zinio had the most impact on you? Answer: National Geographic, June 2011 – “Too young to wed, the secret world of child brides” Smithsonian Magazine,…


The Line Between Writing as a Business and Writing as an Art

Publishing has had a rough year, and it’s only May! The Department of Justice lawsuit, Barnes and Noble is splitting digital and paper into different companies, and it seems like mainstream media has put a death clock on bookstores. Plus ebooks have hosed the “traditional” model of bookselling: what used to be a yearlong process of hardcover to paperback to mass market is now hardcover/eBook to paperback. The entire business model is in flux, and it’s impacting authors and publishers. Unfortunately, in an idea that must have been conceived in a boardroom and not during the creative process, authors are…


Amazon to Offer the Entire Harry Potter Series Through PRIME Lending

Harry Potter arrived in ebook form earlier this year, which was exciting all by itself. At the same time, if you already purchased the HP series in book form, it can be hard to pony up again for the ebooks. Amazon has come up with a solution, by offering the entire series through their Kindle Prime Lending Library! From the press release: Read all of J.K. Rowling’s iconic Harry Potter series for free on your Kindle Kindle Owners’ Lending Library now includes more than 145,000 books, including over 100 current and former New York Times Best Sellers SEATTLE–(BUSINESS WIRE)–May. 10,…


How Much Gear Is too Much?

I have jury duty this week. My only other experience with jury duty was in Boston, and I remember sitting all day in a cramped room reading a book, and almost escaping being put on a jury. So I am anticipating a long day of “hurry up and wait” and have begun packing for the day accordingly. My original plan for what to bring was fairly extensive: iPad iPhone Computer (for logging into the office) Kindle Eers headphones Extra book Chargers iPhone iPod touch (for games) However, when I realized I was treating jury duty like I was going on…


Are Publishers Fair to Authors?

At Gear Diary, we often cover eBooks and the upheaval of the publishing system from the viewpoint of the consumer. But what about authors? The “traditional” path to becoming a published author usually heads through publishing companies, agents, editors, and other gatekeepers. But ebooks make self-publishing easier, and more critically, appear to make it simpler and more lucrative. And if Kristine Rusch’s report over at The Digital Reader is a typical experience, it sounds like traditional publishing isn’t giving authors much incentive to maintain the status quo! Here were a few areas that made my jaw drop with shock. If…


Target Ends Their Kindle Chapter

  Amazon and Target used to be good buddies. Amazon helped run Target’s website, Target was the first place outside of Amazon.com to sell Kindles. It looks like that friendship is over, as Target has announced rather abruptly that mid-May they will be dropping the entire Kindle line from Target stores due to a “conflict of interest”. However, arch-rival NOOK will be still be carried by Target, making it clear this is specific to Amazon. So what changed? Target isn’t saying, and neither is Amazon, but it isn’t hard to read between the lines here. Amazon was the big winner…


“Book People Unite” Promotes Literacy with a Catchy Tune

Everyone has a favorite childhood book. From fairy tales to Narnia and everywhere in between. Want to help kids experience books in all their glory? Head over to BookPeopleUnite.org, a movement designed to promote literacy through the Reading Is Fundamental organization. They’ve put together an amazing video with a who’s who of artists including Chris Martin, Regina Spektor, Jack Black, and many others behind it.


Are eInk Holding’s Earnings a Sign of a Non-Tablet Reader Slowdown?

Here’s some news to file under the “maybe a concern” category. It looks like eInk Holdings, the company that makes those beautiful eInk screens for NOOKs and Kindles, had a bad quarter. According to DigiTimes, this was their first set of poor earnings in over two years, and the company is saying it was due to “inventory adjustments”, aka they had fewer orders for new screens. This isn’t good news, but I wouldn’t hold a funeral for eInk just yet. Yes, we are coming off a holiday season where the hot items were the NOOK Color and Tablet and the…


Ellen Reads from ’50 Shades of Grey’

If you follow pop culture and popular books at all, you have heard something about the novel 50 Shades of Grey. If not, I’ll catch you up quickly: it was a Twilight fan-fiction which gained interest from publishers but needed a change of characters, which basically puts a young college student and a rich older man together … but rather than vampires and werewolves we have whips and chains. In fact, Christian Grey makes young Anastasia Steele sign a contract allowing him to subject her to his every BDSM whim. And if you don’t know what BDSM is … chances…


Tor Goes DRM-Free, but Does It Change Anything for eBooks?

The big news in ebooks this week is that Tor, a division of Macmillan, is going DRM-free on their whole catalog (including books sold at Amazon and B&N). Needless to say, everyone who follows ebooks is very excited, and for good reason. This is a big step in chipping away at the “walled garden” style eBookstores we have now, where B&N books have different DRM than Kindle books, etc. But who really benefits here? Obviously, we as consumers win here. If this succeeds, ebook libraries will become portable. You won’t need to stress about picking a Kindle and missing out…


What’s Next for eBooks after the DoJ Settlement?

Today was a big, big day for eBook fans! The Department of Justice agreed with everyone who has been screaming for three years that the “agency model” was unfair, anti-competitive and anti-consumer. They settled with several publishers, though Apple and Macmillan are still fighting the DoJ in court. So, what did the settlement today do? And how will it impact the future of ebooks? Read on for my thoughts! The Settlement: I am going to defer to Wired here, as they quickly had an excellent breakdown of what the settlement states: Terminate its current contracts with Apple within seven days…


Department of Justice Sues Apple and Several Publishers over eBook Prices

Huge ebook news this morning! The US Department of Justice has officially filed anti-trust lawsuits against Apple and Hachette Books, as well as some sort of legal action against MacMillan, Harper Collins, and Penguin. All of these charges are related to the Agency Model, where prices are set by the publisher and discounts at the retail level are disallowed. I am not surprised that it has come to this. All the publishers were very insistent they did not do anything wrong, and that it was purely coincidence that all of them developed the same exact pricing plan at the same…


Final Reminder to Support Dan on Zinio and Help Foundation Beyond Belief Charity!

As you might have read here, Dan is entered into the ‘Biggest Influencer’ contest at Zinio. Each day (well, 24 hour period) you can enter a new vote at Zinio and help him win the vote and by doing so gain a $2500 donation to the Foundation Beyond Belief Charity! Great cause, great way to help out – and all you need to do is click a link! And now we are into the final week – so this is a reminder to hop on to Zinio every day this week and support Dan! Here are his details: Here Is…


Google Books Plans to Drop Independent Bookstores

Google books has never been a major player. They have a few fringe ebook readers, and they do have a few apps, but even on Android Google books is outclassed dramatically by the competition. I am very vocal about how much I dislike iBooks, but at least Apple packs the app full of features to give people incentive to try it. Google Books is so generic there is almost no reason to use it. Their biggest claim to fame was powering various independent bookstore’s ebooks, and Google has decided to end that program. According to Publisher’s Weekly: On Tuesday representatives…


Grab the Entire Synapse Magazine Archive Online for Free!

For so many magazines, unless you kept a copy for your archives the past is gone. Countless magazines and publishers have struggled and gone under in the internet era, and particularly in the latest economic downturn. So it is great when you find an online archive … and even better when it is a legitimate one set up by someone with a great history in the industry! Cynthia from Cyndustries has set up an online archive for Synapse magazine. Synapse was one of the big electronic magazines of the late 70s, though it faded away much sooner than Keyboard or…


Using Tech for My Bible Study

I never really thought about it much, but I do something that for some who practice my faith, might be alien.  Much like my friend Dan, I use either apps or eBooks to do most of my Bible studies. Why It’s Better The app that I use the most when doing my Bible reading on my Android devices is Youversion.com; it’s also available for iOS.  I took to using it because I like to read from different translations.  Sometimes I will read the same verse in three different versions of the Bible, and  I can do this within seconds using a…


Amazon Kindle Newsstand Versus Zinio on iPad

I took the plunge recently and bought a new iPad! One of the first things I looked into was Zinio, based on the exuberant reviews of the other Gear Diary editors. Then I realized I hardly read magazines. So while I peeked at a few prices and poked around, I didn’t really give digital magazines much thought. Today I was doing my usual Amazon Kindle browsing to find some new reading materials, and I stumbled on the price for “Running Times”, one of the magazines I had considered on Zinio. The price was $20/year on Zinio, but only $0.83 an…


Is Pottermore Going to Change the eBook Market?

As Michael told you the other day, the new Harry Potter official site Pottermore has been launched with much fanfare.  Your source for all things related to the Potter universe, including (finally!) electronic versions of all the books.  (And your faithful Gear Diary team has discussed that a bit in other posts as well.) Now, this is a big deal, of course, because the Potter books are insanely popular and Rowling’s going to make a ton of money from the site.  But Matt Yglesias, a man who is almost always thoughtful when it comes to politics, decided to throw his…


Hey Amazon, Can You PLEASE Let Me Change the Paragraph Justification in Your Apps?

Image courtesy of (believe it or not!) furnitureconsignment.com So as you’ve probably heard–Michael posted about it, for example–J.K. Rowling’s latest cash cow, the Pottermore web site, finally went live today (a mere 6-9 months after it was originally promised, but that’s a whole different ranty post).  For me what this meant was that, finally, I would be able to actually buy the eBook version of the Potter books.   Yay! There was a catch, though:  the books aren’t available via iBooks, but only through the Pottermore web site for Kindle, Nook, or straight ePub format.  Which is okay, I guess…


Pottermore Store Now Open, Harry Potter eBooks on ‘Sale’!

In what is a huge surprise (as it isn’t yet April), the Pottermore Store opened up today to the public including ebook versions of all seven Harry Potter books. As noted at the WSJ, the ebooks will spread to the Kindle, Nook, Sony and Google Play shops (but not Apple): By selling the e-books on her own site, Ms. Rowling will keep most of the revenue, rather than sharing much of it with her publishers as is usually the case. Several major retailers will have the opportunity to participate. Mr. Redmayne said that Harry Potter fans will be able to…


The Hunger Games Gear Summary

The Hunger Games fan can find plenty of related gear including a special cookbook, games, watch, bags, water bottles, shirts, posters, knee socks, nail polish, phone skins, in-ear buds, pins, bracelets, trivia, music and mockingjay mp3 download.