Good e-Reader Radio

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Welcome back to another exciting edition of the Good e-Reader Radio Show! Today we talk about why 2019 was the best year ever for e-readers, more devices were released this year than any other year, ever. Color E-paper is going to be a thing in 2020, vendors are lining up to release next generation devices that will show cover art, display comics in their full glory. Digital note taking devices will have more color options for drawing, highlighting or annotating PDF files. Also on the show, we talk about a few of the newer e-readers that are coming out in November.

There are a copious number of online self-publishing companies that promise aspiring authors the opportunity to distribute their ebook all over the world. Millions of authors publish with Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, Draft2Digital, Kobo Writing Life, Nook Press and Smashwords. Most "authors" who self-publish an ebook never sell more than a handful and over 75% of all authors never earn a living through their writing. We live in a world full of terrible e-book titles that ruin ebook discovery and make it difficult to find a good book. It is no small wonder why e-book sales have plummeted in recent years. YouGov conducted a recent poll that said the most desirable job in is an author  – with 60% of people saying they’d like to do it for a living. This is a 24% higher than those who want to be a TV presenter and a remarkable 29% higher than those who want to be a movie star. I can see why being an author would be sexy, you only have to look at the success of J.K. Rowling. Sadly, being an author does not earn significant revenue. A survey of 1,007 self-published writers – one of the most comprehensive insights into the growing market to date – found that while a small percentage of authors were bringing in sums of $100,000-plus,  average earnings were just $10,000 a year. This amount, however, is significantly skewed by the top earners, with less than 10% of self-publishing authors earning about 75% of the reported revenue and half of writers earning less than $500. Meanwhile in the United States the median household income in the US is $52k per year and the average indie author from the USA earns less than $100 over the lifetime of their book. Self-published indie authors are verifiably capturing at least 24% – 34% of all ebook sales in each of the five English-language markets; it’s not just a US-only phenomenon. When you also include the uncategorized authors, the vast majority of whom are also self-published, the true indie share in each market lies somewhere between 30% – 40%. Sadly the lionshare of the revenue that indie authors generate are by the  quintessential 1% who are generating a few hundred thousand dollars a month and everyone else is fighting over the scraps. Many authors do not derive their primary living from their literary works and are considered chiefly hobbyists. They are simply amateurs who submit books just because they can. There is no quality control mechanism for companies that offer self-publishing solutions, they are just really happy to have as many users as possible. They play the numbers game, the more authors that publish, the more money they will generate from commissions, even if it just a few sales per title, it all adds up. Smashwords CEO Mark Coker will lambast authors who exclusively publish with Amazon, because the more writers that do that, the less money Smashwords will generate. For all of his soapbox proclamations on how it is bad for authors, it is all about money with him. The vast majority of self-published authors will statistically not earn very much from their titles and will be alone and marginalized. They will not join any respectable writing organization, because they are not professionals. Major writing organizations such as the Romance Writers of America, Canadian Writing Union and Published Authors Network all accept indie published authors In order to join these organizations you have to earn ‘x’ amount of money over a single calendar year, where the specified amount for indie publishers is a *multiple* of the requirement for traditionally-published authors minimum income, because it is easier to make money by going indie. The Published Authors Network has strict requirements on who can join their organization. You have to earn $1,000 in the form of an advance on a single Eligible Novel. Or you have to earn $1,000 in the form of royalties or a combination of advance plus royalties on a single published Eligible Novel. Finally, you have to pull in $5,000 in the form of earnings for a Self-Published novel. I seriously doubt less than 100 indie authors have joined these organizations. All major digital bookstores have indie titles listed side by side with traditionally published books. Normally, traditionally published books have an expectation of quality. This includes great editing, cover art, formatting, and foreign translations. I am not saying all traditionally published books are good, but the average indie title is utter trash. This is because indie titles have no quality and control and authors are merely uploading a Word document to Amazon and clicking publish. Having indie books listed alongside trade books is causing massive issues. There are over 400,000 terrible indie titles polluting the Amazon ecosystem and it ruins the discovery process for average readers who are simply looking for a book they might like. I have recommended segregating indie titles from traditional bestsellers, and thousands of people agree with me. “If you’re not an author with a slavish fan following, you’re in a lot of trouble,” self-published author Bob Mayer told the NYT’s David Streitfeld. “Everyone already has a ton of things on their Kindle they haven’t opened.” Chuck Wendig mentioned in a recent blog post “The sheer number of releases is an issue all its own. It becomes increasingly hard to stand out merely by publishing a book in either form. It’s like trying to get a droplet of water to stand out in an entire goddamn ocean.” Many indie authors will read this article and think, Kozlowski is off-base, I am a great author! Charles Darwin begs to differ.He correctly summed up the current state of affairs in the Dunning-Kruger Effect. Indie authors are "unskilled individuals that suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than is accurate. This bias is attributed to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their ineptitude." I think most indie authors have an inflated sense of self-importance and suffer from the American Idol factor. You see it on TV all the time – deluded individuals who are utterly convinced the judges have failed to recognize their genius. “I’ll be back next year and they’ll be sorry then!” Yes, they will. Indie authors are directly contributing to the worldwide decline in digital book sales. Sales of consumer ebooks plunged 17% to £204m last year, the lowest level since 2011 in the United Kingdom. In the United States e-books declined by 15.6% for all of 2016. For the first time in years, publisher revenue for all print formats saw growth: hardback books grew 2.2%, children’s board books grew 7.7% and paperback/mass market grew 4.1% compared to 2015 revenues. Why are users abandoning e-books?  “I wouldn’t say that the ebook dream is over but people are clearly making decisions on when they want to spend time with their screens,” says Stephen Lotinga, chief executive of the Publishers Association.  Traditionally published e-books have also become more expensive due to agency pricing and consumers are spending less money on digital and buying more print.  A bookstore is a thing of beauty, there are hardly any indie titles to be found. It is a lush paradise of books written by established authors or breakout superstars. Browsing a bookstore is great, it is organized to draw attention to a series of titles and it is a utter and complete pleasure to simply spend hours browsing. You cannot say the same thing about any digital bookstore, it is full of crappy e-book covers that look like they were made in MS paint or downloaded from Google and use Comic Sans Font on the title.  Why do you think people browse a physical store and then buy something online? Online discovery on its own is fundamentally broken, thanks to indie authors. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Kobo has just launched an audiobook bookstore that sells audiobooks individually and also provides them on a subscription level basis. Their entire audiobook catalog is powered by Overdrive and this is the first time they have ever been involved in an audiobook subscription scheme. Kobo Audiobooks will cost $12.99 per month in Canada and comes with a 30-day free trial period. Customers will get one credit a month with their subscription and they can be redeemed for any audiobook title on the platform. You can also purchase Kobo Audiobooks individually and shop with confidence with their Price Match Guarantee.  In addition, readers earn Kobo Super Points on their monthly subscription fees or audiobook purchases. The Kobo audiobooks service is available today in the US for ($9.99/mo), the UK (£6.99/mo), Australia ($12.99/mo), and New Zealand ($13.99/mo). Kobo has updated their app for Android and iOS and have brought over a fully functional audiobook player. You can make purchases and listen to your content on Android, and with iOS you can only listen to titles you have already bought or have used a credit on. You cannot make purchases directly on your iPhone or iPad. “We have more books than time, always. Audiobooks let our readers fit the books they love into more parts of their day,” says Michael Tamblyn, CEO, Rakuten Kobo Inc. “Audio lets you be in two places at once—exploring the galaxy on the daily commute, solving a crime while doing the laundry, or wherever you want your favourite story to take you.” Tamblyn continues: “Last year, we built the Kobo Aura ONE eReader with the help of our best customers, and our new offering is no different. What we unequivocally heard was that they wanted the best deal on audiobooks, and we are pleased to offer the lowest subscription price available.” Over the course of the past three years the highest growing segment of publishing are audiobooks. The global audiobook industry is currently evaluated at $3.5 billion dollars and the United States is currently the largest singular market with $1.8 billion dollars in audio sales in 2016 and this was a 31% increase from 2015. The Audio Publishers of America has stated that every year for the past three years 36,000 audiobooks were issued. When it comes right down to it, the retailers are the ones who benefit from the audiobook revolution. The vast majority of the companies that spoke to Good e-Reader have disclosed that they have seen triple digit growth and expect this trend to continue into 2017. Michele Cobb, executive director of the Audio Publishers Association, pointed to the “significant” increase in units and dollars that audio has seen in the past few years; the tremendous popularity of podcasts; and referenced association surveys. Surprisingly, frequent listeners – of at least four audiobooks a month – skew 56% male. I am really happy that Kobo has leveraged their sister company to provide an audiobook solution for their customers. I predicted last year that Kobo would open up an audiobook store and even cited their relationship with Overdrive as the digital content provider. I feel audiobooks was the missing piece to the Kobo ecosystem and this could provide a lucrative stream of revenue for years to come. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

e-Reader innovation has ground to a halt and no new technology has been developed since 2013. This was the worst year on record in terms of overall sales. Many analysts have proclaimed that only 9 million units have shipped this year, which is a decrease from the 12 million dedicated e-ink devices were sold in 2014 and a far cry from 20 million units that were sold in 2011. The e-reader industry is crashing There are many reasons why major companies like Amazon and Barnes and Noble only shipped one new e-reader this year and Kobo debuted two new models. It is the same reason why there were no new 13.3 inch e-readers in 2015, although Onyx and Pocketbook both teased they had one in development, but they are nowhere to be found. I think the main reason why the e-reader industry is in a state of decline is due to the market becoming super saturated between 2009 to 2012. Basically anyone who wanted an e-reader went out and bought one during that time frame.  There is little reason to invest in a new model every year, because there is no quantum leaps in technology, its been utterly stagnant. The second reason is primarily attributed to e-Reader ownership hitting an all time low. Pew Research conducted a study and found 19% of adults reported owning an e-reader, such as a Kindle or Nook.This is a sizable drop from early 2014, when 32% of adults owned this type of device. It seems as though people have shelved their readers and switched to smartphones and tablets. Pew found that 45% of U.S. adults own a tablet – a substantial increase since they began measuring tablet ownership in 2010. Then, only 4% of adults in the U.S. were tablet owners. They also stated that 68% of adults now have a smartphone, nearly double from 2011 when only 35% of adults had a smartphone. The Wall Street Journal also reported this summer that the smartphone continued to be the most adopted piece of technology to read e-books. Their premise derived from a recent Nielsen survey of 2,000 people who found  54% of e-book buyers said they used smartphones to read their books at least some of the time, which is a 24% increase from 2012. There are only a few e-reader companies left standing When Good e-Reader first started reporting on the rise of e-readers and e-books in 2008, the world was great. Within a few short years there were dozens of e-reader and e-paper companies looking to make their mark on the industry. In 2015 there are only a few companies left standing. The only company who is active in e-paper is E-Ink Holdings.  Pixel QI, LG and Bridgestone all abandoned their e-paper ambitions a few years ago due the perceived lack of demand.  Meanwhile in the e-reader sector dozens of companies went out of business in the last few years, such as Cool-ER, Entourage, Hanvon, iRex, Greenbook, Spring Design, Kyobo and dozens of others. There are only two major companies left standing in the e-reader space and against all odds they have managed to flourish.. Amazon has the largest market share and they account for 75% of all e-books sold in the US, while in the UK the figure is closer to 95%. The second major global player has to be Kobo. The company has been on an expanding rampage, trying to dominate markets before Amazon can swoop in. One of their biggest secrets to their success is getting their devices in bookstores, where their prospective customers are. Michael Tamblyn – CEO of Kobo told me on a few occasions that they focus on bookstores because their product seems more organic and wholesome, instead of being sold at a big box retailer, where technology is often cold and impersonal.  What is an e-reader discussion without the Barnes and Noble Nook?  The company released a new waterproof e-reader this year, the first new model since 2013. Barnes and Noble has lost money on the Nook aspect for the last four years straight. In total, they have lost over 1.2 billion dollars on having too much inventory and selling too few units. They thought they could solve this problem by contracting out the tablet design to Samsung. The main problem with the largest bookstore chain in the United States is they utterly refuse to enter into new markets and sell digital content. This not only hurts them, but leaves some of their customers in a quagmire. For example, digital library distributor Overdrive sources their digital magazine collection and student newspapers from from Barnes and Noble. Because B&N only sells it in the US, it limits Overdrives capability to sell this kind of content in other markets. It also forces them to find another partner just to sell magazines in countries like Canada or the United Kingdom. While Amazon and Kobo dominated the global stage, there are only a handful of key regional players that have any sort of sales record and established customer base.  One of the most well known is Tolino, which comprises of an alliance of telecom and tech companies that wanted to develop e-readers and open a digital bookstore to prevent Amazon from dominating the German market. Netherlands based Icarus has a fond place in geeks hearts because they were one of the first ones to develop open Android based e-readers, that allow you to install apps just like you would on a smartphone and tablet. Pocketbook tends to dominate Eastern Europe, while Energy Sistem does well in Spain and finally Onyx Boox who primarily focuses on the lucrative Chinese market. 2016 will be better I am hoping there will be a number of new technologies that will debut in 2016, that will help revitalize the e-reader industry. In June 2015 Freescale announced the IMX 7 dual core processor, which will be incorporated into most new e-readers in 2016. This chip was designed by both e Ink and Freescale.  It was chiefly developed to give you a better experience using Carta, Regal or Pearl screens, but was primarily made for whatever new e-paper tech e-ink comes out with in 2016. E-Ink should also announce Regal 2 in 2016, which will work in conjunction with the new Freescale processor. It will finally make Android driven e-readers more viable because refreshing speed will be increased by a few hundred percent, which will make complex animations, such as animated page turns more viable. Look for this to be announced at SID Display Week. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Audiobooks are the fastest growing segment in publishing and everyone within the industry is very bullish about the future of the format.  There are a number of new start-ups that are making waves and retailers are beginning to release that audiobooks are worth investing in. The global audiobook industry is currently evaluated at 2.8 billion dollars and this is primarily due to the sheer amount of new titles that were produced in 2015. 43,000 new audiobooks were released this year, which is a slight increase from the 36,000 that came out in 2014 and a far cry from the 20,000 that were issued in 2013. According to a recent report by the American Association of publishers downloaded audio had the highest growth in the first eight months of 2015. The number of audiobooks sold  increased 43.3% in August, compared to August 2014. This brings the year-to-date growth for this format to 37.8%, compared to the same timeframe in 2014. Since the industry is generating so much revenue many companies that specialize in statistics are beginning to pay attention. For the first time audiobook and audiobook subscription services are being tracked by Nielsen StatShot.  20 publishers proclaimed that the subscription model for audiobooks are actually proving to be more lucrative than e-Books. Approximately 3.88 million audiobooks were downloaded in 2015 compared to the 2.47 million eBooks that were read. New Digital Distribution Models Publishers are willing to experiment with different models for audiobook distribution because they don’t abide by the same agency model that applies to e-books. Companies like Blackstone Audio, Gildan Media, Hachette Audio, HarperAudio, and Naxos Audiobooks have all committed themselves to audiobook subscription services and bundling. Scholastic is one company that has been at the forefront of embracing alternative distribution methods and are willing to take risks. The company currently has over 400 audiobook titles, which is an overall increase by 32% over 2014. One of the big reasons why their catalog has grown is because production costs have decreased by over 50% since 2009.The audio editions that have proven to be the most popular in 2015 were movie driven titles such as the Hunger Games and Goosebumps series. Linda Lee, VP, Publisher Scholastic Audio told me that "The traditional audio customer will find your titles wherever you offer them, however, many of these non-traditional distribution models are targeted to the non-traditional audio user and/or customers who have never listened to an audiobook before.  The hope is that through a subscription or bundling model, a non-audio user will be enticed to try and audio and become a convert.  Additionally, these types of models offer the chance to ‘sample’ your product – I.e. Offering the first few titles in a series – hoping to hook the customer, who will then go to a more traditional full price model to find subsequent titles in the series once they are hooked. " The Audiobook Subscription model It is hard to have a conversation about companies involved in the unlimited audiobook space and not talk about Amazon. Their Kindle Unlimited platform features over 2,500 audiobooks, which is fairly paltry compared to their competition, but they have made it work. Kindle Unlimited has only been available for a full year, but the company already commands the largest market share. A survey report from Peter Hildick-Smith's Codex Group confirmed they have more subscribers than any other company. The report also showed that Amazon's subscriber base grew by 10% between November 2014 and April 2015, while the customer base of its smaller competitors fell by an average of 30% over the same period. Scribd originally launched as a document sharing service almost a decade ago and was one of the first companies that got into the unlimited e-book subscription space. In 2014 the company got bullish about audiobooks and they ironed out an agreement with Findaway to include over 30,000 titles. They expanded their catalog in April of 2015 when they started dealing directly with major publishers. VP of Content Acquisition Andrew Weinstein. said that in Scribd's first year of offering audiobooks, users logged more than 270,000 hours using the companies apps for Android and iOS. The big problem with Scribd is that their audiobook program was too popular and it failed to generate a profit.  This prompted them to pivot from unlimited listening plan to allowing their subscribers to access to a single audiobook title every month and if they wanted to listen to more, they had to pay extra. "Our goal is to connect readers to books in a meaningful and sustainable way," said Andrew Weinstein in an exclusive interview with Good e-Reader. "We forged new ground when we created Scribd, and innovation often requires iteration. We made adjustments to our business model in order to ensure we could continue to deliver a great value to our subscribers and be a long-term partner to publishers." "When we launched the Scribd subscription service, we were entering uncharted waters, and we bore the risk with the contract terms.Two years in, we’ve proven that there is true consumer demand for a reading subscription service. Likewise, we’ve shown that Scribd is a strong partner to publishers. We are open to future iterations of the model provided we reach terms with publishers that are both fair to their authors and Scribd." she said. Playster is the newest entrant in the US market that has just launched a new unlimited service. Unlike their contemporaries they have numerous tiers that give you access to e-books or audiobooks, or you can sign up for their premium package and get access to everything. Their catalog currently features 250,000 e-Books, and more than 60,000 audiobooks. The CEO of Playster Phil Keezer told Good e-Reader why his company got involved in audiobooks in the first place “Audiobooks were always appealing to us, but we were further buoyed by the fact other subscription services had begun to introduce credit systems for audiobooks. This provided an opportunity for us to give our members a better deal than they’d get elsewhere.” He went on to say “The popularity of audiobooks has seen a tremendous growth over the past couple of years, due to how great they are for multi-taskers. Audiobooks have become the soundtrack to people’s activities. In the past year it seems more and more books have been getting audiobook counterparts. In order for audiobooks to grow further in 2016 Phil had some interesting thoughts “It would be great to see bigger name actors and narrators with larger followings – I think this will help audiobooks to grow further. Better production value will also help to blur the lines between audiobooks and other media types such as movies and music, which is hugely exciting. Audiobooks have the potential for great achievements within the next year, and it’s great that they’re already getting recognition through awards and accreditations.” “New features could also make audiobooks more immersive. Synchronization between audiobooks and their e-book counterparts is one example that we’re already seeing, and in the future we could even have listeners choosing their own endings using spoken feedback. Audiobooks with animated qualities tend to be very successful, and while we don’t believe these bells and whistles are always necessary, they will certainly help to make the medium more powerful.” Audiobooks.com does not have an unlimited subscription model but they have been in the business for a really long time. This has afforded them a unique prospective on the inner workings of the industry and recently GM Ian Small sat down with Good e-Reader for an exclusive interview. “I’m a big champion of the unlimited audiobook model. There are many stakeholders involved with audiobooks – Authors, narrators, publishers, customers, and retailers so it’s going to take some time (and obviously trial and error) to find a model that works for all parties involved. But it is becoming more commonplace for the consumer to enjoy their digital media in this capacity. There are perceptions of other industries that are currently using the “all you can eat” model and that it has not worked out favorably for all parties involved (see the music studios). So I understand the reluctance to completely dive in and deviate from existing retail models. It’s going to take some time and a little tweaking to get it right for audiobooks.” Ian than alluded to his company’s future plans in the subscription audiobook space “We’re trying to find a model that can expand the market and lower the barrier for consumers to enjoy audiobooks while trying to avoid mistakes that have happened in other markets and their rights holders. It’s a learning process (albeit an expensive one) to figure out what doesn’t work, and then build on what does.” I think the concept of subscription audiobooks will be slowly refined in 2016, companies like Findaway are looking to limit the amount of risk that retailers. I have heard they are going to be developing new tools and features that will monitor budgets and insure that companies will not spend more than they are financially able. In this audiobook trends and analysis report I have made reference or will make reference to a company named Findaway. This is likely the largest company involved in the audiobook sector with a catalog of over 100,000 titles and they deal with over 200 publishers. They do not sell audio content directly to consumers, but they offer a powerful API system that retailers all over the world employ to sell audiobooks directly to users, your local library or non-conventional distribution models such as bundling or unlimited subscriptions.  You might not heard of them, but their client list is very extensive.  Findaway powers the collections of Scribd, Playster, BITLIT,...

One of the most common questions people have with e-readers and e-books is the exact number of pages are inconsistent with the print edition. This is primarily due to the fact that e-books don't have "pages" in the usual sense. Anytime you see a mention of e-book pagecount, it's an abstraction. Sort of like if I told you something was an hour's walk away. The "page count" on e-readers is based on an arbitrary metric and may vary across platforms. It is not set by the publisher, so it will differ from the print edition. Page counts and line-spacing are basically non-standardized. Some e-Book platforms may count 250 consecutive words as a "page", while others may use a different metric. Some also exclude front and back matter, dedications, acknowledgments, author bios, and other non-relevant content. No one actually knows what any single metric is, but there are some approximations being thrown around. The big problem with e-book page numbers being different than printed books is due to software that packages EPUBS. Adobe has a different system for anyone using their Digital Publishing solution than a big publisher that uses in-house tools based on best practices by the IDPF. The other problem is that companies like B&N and Kobo have different way to show progress in a book. Sometimes they will show you how many hours are remaining and in other cases page numbers are based on the chapter you are reading. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

e-Reader ownership is at an all time low according to Pew Research. The company released new data on device ownership and found 19% of adults reported owning an e-reader, such as a Kindle or Nook.This is a sizable drop from early 2014, when 32% of adults owned this type of device. The decline in dedicated e-ink e-readers is directly proportional to the rise of smartphones and tablets. 68% of adults now have a smartphone, nearly double the share that Pew Research Center measured in its first survey on smartphone ownership in mid-2011. At that point, 35% of adults had smartphones. Pew also found that 45% of U.S. adults own a tablet – a substantial increase since Pew Research Center began measuring tablet ownership in 2010. Then, only 4% of adults in the U.S. were tablet owners. Ownership, however, is statistically the same as it was in 2014. There is no denying that smartphone and tablet ownership have usurped market share away from dedicated e-readers. When it comes to reading e-books though, the smartphone is reigning supreme. The Wall Street Journal reported this summer that it is the smartphone that is our technology of choice to read e-books on a regular basis. Their premise derived from a recent Nielsen survey of 2,000 people last December. It found that 54% of e-book buyers said they used smartphones to read their books at least some of the time. That’s up from 24% in 2012, which is a huge gain. Apple has seen an increase in the number of people downloading books onto iPhones through its iBooks app. Some 45% of iBooks purchases are now downloaded onto iPhones, an Apple spokeswoman said. Before that, only 28% were downloaded onto phones, with most of the remainder downloaded onto iPads and a small percentage onto computers. An Amazon spokesman said "Among all new customers using Kindles or the Kindle app, phone readers are by far the fastest-growing segment." Have e-readers had their day in the sun in the US market? Pew only interviewed a few thousand people, which certainly is not indicative of a unilateral consensus. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Barnes and Noble has just released their first e-reader since 2009, with the advent of the Nook Glowlight Plus. It sounds fairly good on paper, with the same high resolution screen found on the Amazon Kindle Voyage and is waterproof, much akin to the Kobo H2O. It also has software not found in any other e-readers on the market, such as  Nook Profiles and Nook Readouts. Has Barnes and Noble hit a home run with the Nook Glowlight Plus and most importantly, will you buy it? The Barnes and Noble Nook Glowlight Plus features a six inch e-Ink Carta display with a resolution of 1430 x 1080 and 300 PPI. This e-reader is waterproof, similar to the Kobo Aura H2o.  It is IP67 certified, which means you could leave it submerged in fresh water for up to 30 minutes at a maximum depth of 1 meter.  There is no word yet on what processor this model has but it does employ 512 MB of RAM. One of the good things about the Glowlight Plus is that it does not have the same limitations of previous models. You used to have only 512 MB of internal memory for your own e-book collection, but this has been since upgraded to 2GB.  In total, you now have 4 GB of available storage, but use it wisely, since there is no SD card.  The Nook Glowlight Plus is a modern e-reader that does not push the envelop with its hardware, but remains competitive. This is very refreshing for the bookseller to offer a compelling alternative for users who have since switched to doing business with Amazon or Kobo. On the software front, there has been some noticeable UI changes and a few new features like Nook profiles and Nook Readouts. B&N Readouts comprises of book excerpts in popular genres and topics, including Fiction, Romance, Mysteries & Thrillers, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Teen & Young Adult, Lifestyle, Books & Ideas, Science & Tech and Business & Innovation. It also offers customers sneak peeks of upcoming books and special bonus content from authors and publishers. There is also featured articles from a myriad of magazines too, giving you a sense of featured stories, without having to actually download or purchase the entire issue. Barnes and Noble Nook Profiles is similar to what they did with the Nook Color and Nook Tablet.  It allows you to setup separate profiles for up to six users, which is ideal for people who share their e-readers. Individual users can decide which titles they want to share with the other profiles and there is some developed parental controls, so that kids can't make their own purchases. Is this an e-reader you will buy? It does offer software features not found on any other dedicated e-ink device on the market. I think its a viable upgrade if you have the Nook Simple Touch, Nook Simple Touch with Glowlight, the features found on the new model will be absolutely huge. If you have the Nook Glowlight from 2013, I think the waterproof nature will be a tremendous boon. There is a large contingent of readers that like to read while soaking in a bath, or are a klutz like me and dump coffee on it.  What do you guys think? Will you buy it, or wait for more reviews before making a decision? Listen to to the audio version of this story. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Amazon has just launched a white Kindle in France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom. This is the first non-black model to be released in Europe since the first generation Kindle that came out in 2007.  It is important to note that this is not a new e-reader, this is simply the same entry level Kindle Basic that was released late last year. The only thing that is different is the color, which should resonate with people who want to standout in a crowd. Listen to the audio version of this story, with expanded commentary. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

The Amazon Kindle Voyage was released late last year and for all intents and purpose the e-reader was a complete flop. It was the least purchased and least reviewed product that the Seattle company has released in a number of years. So what went wrong? Amazon never releases sales figures for their hardware division in all of their fiscal reports. The only way to accurately determine how many units have been sold is to look at verified reviews. The Kindle Voyage has only garnered 7,342 reviews on Amazon since it launched in November of 2014. This is fairly paltry considering the entry level Kindle Basic Touch came out at the exact same time and has 12,389 customer reviews. Things are so bleak for the Voyage, in terms of sales that the 4 month old Kindle Paperwhite has more reviews, clocking in at 7,684. One of the reasons why the Kindle Voyage was such as flop was because of the high price. The device retails at $199, whereas the Paperwhite 3 is $119 and normally can be purchased on-sale for an additional $20 in savings. The Basic is the cheapest of them all, and can be yours at a very respectable $79. When e-readers first rose to popularity from 2007 to 2012, they were fairly expensive. Most new devices cost around $300, and trended upwards depending on the screen size. Over the last few years they have drastically fallen in price, as innovation has ground to a halt and companies are trying to make the cheapest device possible. Customers have been trained that e-readers should be super affordable now and Amazon has realized that once you jack the price up, people are not going to respond. The same thing has happened with e-book pricing, people were trained that $9.99 was the standard and now publishers are charging anywhere from $12.99 to 17.99. This has resulted in e-book sales falling in the high single digits over 2015. Listen to the audio version of this story with expanded commentary. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Over the course of 2015 there has been a number of notable new e-readers that have hit the market. Barnes and Noble released their first new model in almost three years with the Nook Glowlight Plus, while Kobo released two different units. All eyes are on Amazon right now for their Kindle Voyage 2, Kindle Paperwhite 4 and entry level Kindle Basic, which should be announced in the next few weeks. With so many models to choose from, what features is the average customer looking for? We seek to address this question with new research report, from Good e-Reader. Two weeks ago we asked the question What do you look for in an e-reader. 1724 people took part in the survey and they weighed in on everything from the size of the screen, to brand name recognition. The number one feature that is most important to people looking to buy a new e-reader is resolution. In the last two years with the advent of e-Ink Carta e-readers have dramatically increased in clarity and 300 PPI is the norm. This results in crisper text and being able to accurately read a wider variety of digital content, such as manga, newspapers and PDF files. 314 people, which amounted to 18%, said this was most important. 252 people or 14.62% of the vote said that an e-reader that supported multiple e-book formats was most important to them. This is not surprising because there are a number of formats out there, each with their own virtues. Amazon has their own proprietary e-book format, which makes their entire line of e-readers not very viable if you want to borrow e-book from the library or shop around online for deals. Most other devices on the market support EPUB, which is compatible with most e-readers. 242 people, which represented 14% of the overall vote said that screen size was one of the most important feature they looked for in a new e-reader. Almost all of the e-readers currently available in the North American market are six inches in size, which is fairly pocket friendly and cheap to manufacture. Meanwhile, in Europe there are a number of companies making larger screen e-readers, such as the Icarus XL and Onyx Boox i86, but they suffer from viability issues and brand awareness. Other notable features that people look for, is PDF compatibility and a good rendering engine (12.65%) and an SD Card, to enhance internal storage (11.48%). The average user also thinks running Android is important, so they can install their own e-reading apps and not be locked into any one specific ecosystem (7.37%) What surprised me about this data is that some of the features that I thought were important to the current generation of e-readers did not resonate well with our audience. Only 5.74% said audio was important, while 2.67% said Bluetooth was critical for their buying decisions. Finally, 4.81% mentioned that brand name recognition was most important, a Kindle for Kindles sake. This is great data, and should be seriously considered by any company looking to enter the e-reader space or are in the process of designing one. Listen to the audio version of this report, with expanded commentary. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Adult coloring books is the hottest new segment in publishing and everyone is getting involved. Disney has released a new 3D coloring book based on popular characters, to mainstream celebrities such as Kim Kardashian and George R.R. Martin who have jumped into the fray. The current coloring-book craze was ignited in 2013, when Scottish illustrator Johanna Basford published “Secret Garden.” The seemingly obscure offering had an initial printing of 16,000, but has since exploded into a runaway international bestseller, selling nearly 6 million copies — almost 4 million in the past five months alone, according to Debra Matsumoto, marketing manager at Laurence King publishers. This phenomenon has primarily been fueled online with  colorists posting their elaborate creations on Facebook and Pinterest. Here professional and newbies alike debate such issues such as Prismacolor versus gel pens, or how to make that tricky owl in the corner pop.  The coloring craze has even spawned all sorts of offline gatherings — coloring clubs, meet-ups, even coloring parties at bars. There is growing medical evidence that not only are adult coloring books stress revilers but contribute to your overall health. It has been well documented that art therapy is helpful among people dealing with a variety of conditions, such as depression, dementia, anxiety, and PTSD.  One 2006 study, found that mindfulness art therapy for women with cancer helped to significantly decrease symptoms of physical and emotional distress during treatment. Another study from the same year concluded that after only one hour of art therapy, adult cancer patients of all ages “overwhelmingly expressed comfort” and a desire to continue with the therapy. The adult coloring book craze is fairly limited to print and this has resulted in a number of booksellers posting strong revenue. WH Smith has just reported an 8% in profit in the 12 months to the end of August 2015, compared to the year before, with "coloring therapy" books helping to deliver a strong second half for the high street sector of the business. Stephen Clarke said "In the High Street business, our profit focused strategy continues to deliver sustainable growth. In our core categories of stationery and books we had a stronger second half helped by the new phenomenon of 'color therapy' for adults. "We've always loved adult coloring books, featuring them from late 2012 when the 'Colour Me Good' Ryan Gosling and Benedict Cumberbatch titles were selling like hot cakes. But the popularity of the new batch of coloring books has even taken us by surprise -- a nice surprise -- sales are up 1786% year on year. It doesn't seem to be slowing down either. I suppose once you've colored in one book, you need to buy another," Verity Batchelded, Head of Marketing for Book Depository, told The Huffington Post Australia. Bookstores in Brazil are reporting strong revenue too, in April, two adult coloring books were the bestselling books in the whole country with 232,000 copies sold at the nation’s top 12 bookstores. By comparison, the 18 next bestselling books combined sold just 8,000 more copies during the same time period, according to the website Publishing Perspectives, which tracks book sales. By May, nine of the top 20 bestsellers were coloring books including the top eight books in the nonfiction category. Between April 20th and May 17th, coloring books accounted for over 17% of all book sales, and almost 15% of industry revenue. Coloring books has been one of the critical segments in publishing over the course of 2015. This is a niche that traditionally sells better in print form, rather than interactive e-books or dedicated apps. Stay tuned to our blog next week, when I will discuss the best methodologies to self-publish an adult coloring books and how to get it into bookstores. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Welcome back to the Good e-Reader Radio Show! Today you will be taken on a magical journey into the realms of digital magazines, e-books and e-reader news! Today on the show Michael gives you his impression of Texture, formerly Next Issue and Magzter. Additionally Kobo has a new loyalty program called Super Points and has just unveiled its first contest. A great show as always, so check it out. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Google is privately testing a new service that will compete against Apple News and Facebook Instant Articles. The new program is called Accelerated Mobile Pages and 30 different publishers are participating in he closed beta program. Accelerated Mobile Pages aims to dramatically improve the performance of the mobile web. Google wants webpages with rich content like video, animations and graphics to work alongside smart ads, and to load instantaneously. They also want the same code to work across multiple platforms and devices so that content can appear everywhere in an instant—no matter what type of phone, tablet or mobile device you’re using. There are a number of benefits with the Accelerated Mobile Pages program that the established players in the industry can't match. There is support for subscriptions and paywalls. Google wants help in defining exactly what publishers need by their closed beta program. via Google Blog (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Welcome back to another edition of the Good e-Reader Radio Show! Today on the show you will be informed about all of the new devices expected to be released soon, such as the Nook Glowlight 2, Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 for Nook and the Kobo Touch 2.0. Also on the show is plenty of Amazon and digital library news. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Today on the show we talk about all the major deals that Amazon will having for its one day Prime Day event on July 15th. Also, Books-A-Million has announced they are taking the company private and Barnes & Noble has given us a date in which the Nook College Bookstore and educational unit will become its own company. This week has been crazy for authors organizations trying to fight the power. The Authors Guild is demanding a revenue increase from 25% to 50% citing e-books are selling like crazy and they are partners with the publishers. Almost every single organisation that represents authors have simultaneously filed their own petitions to the US Justice Department to look into Amazon and how they control the e-book market. How will this play out and will anything actually happen? Tons of other tech and e-reader news is also on the show! Find out more about the new Kindle Paperwhite 3 and how it stacks up against the Kobo Glo HD. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

There aren't many authors that narrate their own audiobooks, but this is precisely what William Gibson did in 1994. He recorded it on a series of cassette tapes and they were quietly discontinued soon thereafter. The audiobook never got published on CD's or to the digital realm, which is a crying shame. Today, you can now download them and listen to the recording as the original author intended. With 1984’s Neuromancer, William Gibson may not have invented cyberpunk, but he certainly crystallized it. The novel exemplifies the tradition’s mandate to bring together “high tech and low life,” or, in the words of Gibson himself, to explore what “any given science-fiction favorite would look like if we could crank up the resolution.” It may have its direct predecessors, but Gibson’s tale of hackers, street samurai, conspiracists, and shadowy artificial intelligences against virtual reality, dystopian urban Japan, and a variety of other international and technological backdrops remains not just archetypal but, unusually for older technology-oriented fiction, exciting. Now you can not only read Gibson’s cyberpunk-defining words, but hear them in Gibson’s voice: a 1994 abridged edition, released only on cassette tapes and now long out of print, resides in MP3 form online here . Neuromancer (abridged) read by William Gibson Tape 1, side 1 Tape 1, side 2 Tape 2, side 1 Tape 2, side 2 Tape 3, side 1 Tape 3, side 2 Tape 4, side 1 Tape 4, side 2 An on-line copy of William Gibson's Neuromancer (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

In this edition of the Good e-Reader Radio Show you will understand e-book piracy, the moral choices we make when engaging in it and how sometimes its done for profit. Additionally, why did Barnes and Noble go from making $910 million a year on Nook to an estimated $150 million in 2015? Get a sense on the key moments in history where they went wrong and started to drive users away. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Welcome to another edition of the Good e-Reader Radio Show! Today we take a look at all of the big announcements coming out the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference. There are big changes coming with iOS 9, Siri enhancements and Apple Music. Also on the show is my take on a recent book, the Modern Mercenary and Amazon promoting the new Despicable ME movie on their shipping boxes and critics destroying the new Kim Kardashian book. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Welcome to the Good e-Reader Radio Show! Today we feature some of the key audiobook deals that are available as part of Audiobook Month. There are a number of retailers hyping up some big savings, so you want to check it out. The feature stories on the show today are the challenges of self-publishing audiobooks and the lack of competition in this space. There is little to no discovery services or self-publishing companies willing to produce or sell audiobooks on an authors behalf. Why are e-book prices so expensive suddenly? Lots of people have been wondering why the same book that cost $9.99 last year is suddenly $12.99 or more. Finally, summer is on its way and everyone seems to be hyping up various reading campaigns. New research though states the vast majority of kids have never been to the bookstore and fewer have ever received a book as a gift. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Welcome to another utterly compelling edition of the Good e-Reader Radio show, the only show in the world that documents e-readers and how the traditional publishing market is being disrupted by digital. Today on the show I talk about two new e-readers that just hit the market and both are sporting e-Ink Carta technology. You can get a sense on what Carta is, and how it benefits reading. Additionally, these two devices also run Android, which means you can install your own apps. Is Barnes and Noble Nook Press bad for authors? This is an editorial on how their platform has slowly adopted a slew of paid services with non-stop marketing tactics to get indie authors to pay more for their books. I also give advice on how indie authors can form their own squads. This is a great show! Let us know what you thought by dropping a comment below. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Welcome back to another exciting edition of the Good e-Reader Radio Show! Today we talk about the new publishing contract that Amazon and HarperCollins have signed. What does it mean for readers and will e-book prices dramatically increase? Also on the show Michael talks about the new Kobo Glo HD e-reader, how this fits into Kobo's product portfolio going forward and will future models have an SD Card? (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Libraries in all over the world are undergoing a digital renaissance as major publishers have firmly committed themselves to the concept of making e-Books available. Today, we look at some of the biggest trends facing libraries in Canada, US and United Kingdom. A recent report by the Library Journal has stated that 95% of all US libraries have an e-book collection. That’s up from 89% in both 2013 and 2012, when researchers thought that adoption had plateaued for good. The average number of e-books carried was 20,244 by each library, but that of course was skewed toward large libraries. Medium sized libraries statistically had around 10,434 titles. Over 10 different libraries in the US and Canada had over one million digital loans in 2014, with two libraries lending out two million e-Books. This number will likely double in 2015, as companies like 3M Cloud Library and Baker and Taylor begin to gain further traction. e-Books are doing quite well in the US, but over in the UK a sustainable model is still trying to be established by the government, libraries and major publishers.   In May 2013 the UK government funded a review looking into the viability of allowing customers to borrow eBook, without all of the drama. The Sieghart Review said publishers should not limit the supply of e-books in the same way that physical book loans are controlled, including the lending of each digital copy to one reader at a time, securely removing eBooks after lending and having digital books “deteriorate after a number of loans”. A pilot project was initiated in four UK libraries in March 2014 that augmented the digital loaning period for up to 21 days and included a number of front-list titles, including bestsellers that just came out. The essence of the pilot is to carry out real-time, real-world research into the impact of eBook lending in public libraries on authors, publishers and on the library service so that a suitable and sustainable model. Its been around six months since the pilot was first initiated and there has been some interesting findings. All four participating authorities have seen a significant increase in e-lending,  with longer loan periods leading to more titles being borrowed. The project has also found the increase in e-lending is not decreasing physical lending or footfall to libraries. They also found customers were not using the "Buy it Now" button to purchase an e-book. Audiobooks to be the next big thing In 2007 a paltry 3,073 audiobook titles were produced and this figure rose exponentially to over 12,000 published in 2011. In 2013 many industry experts proclaimed that over 20,000 audiobooks were now available and in 2014 over 35,000 were released by major publishers and companies like Audible. The global audiobook industry is currently worth 2.6 billion dollars and part of the reason why we have seen a dramatic increase in profitability is due to digital. In a recent  New York Times piece, they said “In the first eight months of 2014, sales were up 28% over the same period last year, far outstripping the growth of e-books, which rose 6%” Digital audiobooks are finally starting to find their stride thanks to libraries embracing them in a big way. There are a number of major players providing audio services to libraries, 3M Cloud Library, Baker & Taylor, Hoopla and Overdrive. For the most part, these are the exact same companies that provide the libraries e-Book portfolio. Many of the top audiobook distributors lean on 3rd parties for a full catalog of content. 3M and Baker and Taylor both get their audio editions from Findaway World, which is current market leader in production. Findaway has a catalog of over 50,000 titles and maintains production studios, narrators and crew in New York. Overdrive has their own internal solution, where they approach publishers directly and don’t do business with companies such as Audible or Findaway World. Tom Mercer, Marketing Manager of 3M Cloud Library said “we see a tremendous opportunity to grow in the Audio space in 2015. Right now we’re two weeks into the “real world” of Audio, but customers really seem to like our solution. Our initial Beta feedback from very positive.” Hoopla is an audiobook solution for libraries that floats under the radar, but are quickly making a name for themselves. The company has a catalog of 13,000 titles with 1,000 added each month. Hoopla deals with over 100 libraries in the US and charges no licensing fees with setting up the system, which is quite appealing to the average library. How does Hoopla make money? The company has employed the Pay Per Use model, which only charges the library when a specific title is checked out by a patron. The San Francisco Public Library said they are are predicting that in 2015 more companies will embrace the Hoopla model, which will lower costs for libraries and get more content in-front of the patrons. How well are the publishers doing in the audiobook sector? Cheryl Herman, marketing director for Penguin Random House’s Books on Tape & Listening Library said. “Our library sales for digital audio are up nearly 35% over 2014, we’re offering more and more titles on audio, and we’re not alone in that. There are also more players entering the market, and more titles overall being published than ever before.” In 2015 digital audiobooks will gain further traction in libraries due to tapes and CD's no longer being economically viable. Overdrive, the current leader in audiobook sales for libraries are developing a HTML5 based streaming solution that will allow patrons to listen to audiobooks without the need of the Overdrive Media Console.  This will be tremendously beneficial to users who employ alternative operating systems on their mobile devices, such as Firefox OS, Blackberry or Tizen. Digital Newspapers and Magazines to gain more traction Thousands of libraries are starting to embrace digital newspapers and magazine content. They are doing this because not only are the latest issues available but also back issues. One of the ways this type of content is really shining is attributed to libraries installing tablets and e-readers in their different branches.  One example of this is the San Francisco Public Library system unveiling their new e-news center at their main branch and has since expanded it to Chinatown and North Beach. The premise is to draw attention to the virtues of reading digital magazines and newspapers on a bunch of Apple iPads. The actual content is provided by Vancouver based PressReader, who is quickly becoming a force to be reckoned with in the library sector. Pressreader might very well be the largest company involved in distributing newspaper and magazine titles to libraries, but the limited competition is prompting new entrants to enter the market. EBSCO Information Services introduced Flipster in October. It  allows library patrons to browse the latest issues of high quality digital versions of popular magazines on iOS. Senior Vice President for Product Management, Michael Laddin says that Flipster is a new way for EBSCO customers to provide content to their end users. “By providing a high quality digital reading experience for library patrons, whether they are at the library or accessing the digital magazines remotely, Flipster offers a unique approach for experiencing content in popular magazines as well as extending library services in an exciting new way. It has been designed especially for library patrons who want to browse the latest issues of popular magazines. Flipster complements EBSCO’s full-text databases (e.g., MasterFILE, MAS, Business Source, etc.) which enable patrons to research topics of interest to them.” Not only are libraries leaning on 3rd parties to provide their digital newspapers and magazines, but some are actually digitizing it themselves. The Brooklyn Public Library system recently announced a new initiative to digitize backlist newspaper archives in order to make them available to the public via their online portal. This initiative, which will make all copies of the original Brooklyn newspaper,The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, available digitally. The original content was stored on microfilm from the Library of Congress. I scan Google News for library news every single day and I have noticed a huge uptick in libraries announcing new partnerships for digital magazines and newspapers. Every week between 5 and 25 locations are buying into this concept and there is obvious value to their patrons. By going digital, they last forever and unlike e-Books there is not a one book, one lend policy. Magazines can be loaned out in abundance, which makes them a stellar value proposition. Likely in 2015, we will start to see even more companies entering this space to compete against PressReader and Zinio. Here and There The Queens Library system in New York has developed their own proprietary app for Android and iOS. It offers library patrons seamless search and access to audiobooks from Acoustik, magazines from Zinio, and eBooks from OverDrive and Baker & Taylor’s Axis 360 platform. Other features include location, mapping, and contact information for each branch, a catalog search, an ISBN barcode scanning function that enables users to scan books in retail environments to see if titles are available at their library, an events schedule that enables registration, an “ask a librarian” live chat service, a contact information form, and even a text-to-donate option. Since the apps launch in July they had 5,400 installations on iOS and more than 3,300 on Android. This has prompted Queens to start marketing the app creation service to smaller branches with little to no IT investment. One app to rule them all, this will be big in 2015. One of the big trends in 2014 was new libraries forgoing books altogether and embracing digital 100%. The first library to do this was the Bibliotech in A

In 2007 a paltry 3,073 audiobook titles were produced and this figure rose exponentially to over 12,000 published in 2011. In 2013 many industry experts proclaimed that over 20,000 audiobooks were now available and in 2014 over 35,000 were released by major publishers and companies like Audible. The global audiobook industry is currently worth 2.6 billion dollars and part of the reason why we have seen a dramatic increase in profitability is due to digital. In a recent  New York Times piece, they said "In the first eight months of 2014, sales were up 28% over the same period last year, far outstripping the growth of e-books, which rose 6%” One of the biggest markets for audiobooks in the world, is not the US or UK but Germany. In a recent annual survey conducted by the Allensbach Institute said that Germans consume more audiobooks than e-books. In the last twelve months, close to five million Germans have purchased an audiobook, which accounts for 7% of the overall population. This is one of the hottest segments currently operating and ironically gets the least amount of attention. Digital audiobooks are finally starting to find their stride thanks to libraries embracing them in a big way. There are a number of major players providing audio services to libraries, 3M Cloud Library, Baker & Taylor, Hoopla and Overdrive. For the most part, these are the exact same companies that provide the libraries e-Book portfolio. In the US, 95% of all libraries have a digital collection and audio content is starting to play a more central role. Audiobooks actually works fairly differently than e-Books do, on a business level. Many of the top distributors lean on 3rd parties for a full catalog of content. 3M and Baker and Taylor both get their audio editions from Findaway World, which is current market leader in production. Findaway has a catalog of over 50,000 titles and maintains production studios, narrators and crew in New York. Overdrive has their own internal solution, where they approach publishers directly and don’t do business with companies such as Audible or Findaway World. Tom Mercer, Marketing Manager of 3M Cloud Library said “we see a tremendous opportunity to grow in the Audio space in 2015. Right now we’re two weeks into the “real world” of Audio, but customers really seem to like our solution. Our initial Beta feedback from very positive.” Hoopla is an audiobook solution for libraries that floats under the radar, but are quickly making a name for themselves. The company has a catalog of 13,000 titles with 1,000 added each month. Hoopla deals with over 100 libraries in the US and charges no licensing fees with setting up the system, which is quite appealing to the average library. How does Hoopla make money? The company has employed the Pay Per Use model, which only charges the library when a specific title is checked out by a patron. The San Francisco Public Library said they are are predicting that in 2015 more companies will embrace the Hoopla model, which will lower costs for libraries and get more content in-front of the patrons. How well are the publishers doing in the audiobook sector? Cheryl Herman, marketing director for Penguin Random House’s Books on Tape & Listening Library said. “Our library sales for digital audio are up nearly 35% over 2014, we’re offering more and more titles on audio, and we’re not alone in that. There are also more players entering the market, and more titles overall being published than ever before.” Audible is the undisputed market leader in audiobook production and distribution. Matthew Thornton the Director of Communications at Audible said "Audible content includes over 180,000 audiobooks and other spoken-word programming from leading audiobook publishers, broadcasters, entertainers, magazine and newspaper publishers, and business information providers. Non-audiobook content includes lectures, meditations, language lessons, comedy and periodicals." Audible has added 40,000 titles their store in 2014, a very slight increase versus 2013. In both 2013 and 2014, Audible Studios and ACX productions account for just about half of all titles added to the Audible storefront. Audible has seen a massive amount of success by branching out in international markets, where their is more synergy between Kindle e-readers and tablets. Matthew proudly exclaimed "Audible now operates thirteen global outlets including Audible.co.uk in London, Audible.de in Berlin, Audible.fr in Paris and Audible.com.au in Sydney." One of the big reasons why Audible adds so much content to their portfolio on a yearly basis is due to the Audiobook Creation Exchange. Publishers and authors who own unused audiobook rights can post them on ACX, along with narration preferences (e.g., narrator’s gender, accents, voice types). Audio publishers and audio studios—as well as individual narrators with home studios—can search for titles that interest them and then audition to turn those rights into audiobooks. Rights holders can hire a narrator or producer, or create entrepreneurial partnerships with shared royalty structures that allow audiobooks to be produced without upfront costs. Alternatively, existing audio publishers can simply use ACX to discover audio rights to produce on their own. Production Costs and Star Power Audiobook prices are often drastically inflated and is a financial barrier for mainstream adoption. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green costs $4.99 for the Kindle edition, but the audiobook costs $17.99. Max Brooks seminal World War Z – The Oral History of the Zombie Wars costs $9.99 for the Kindle edition, but the audiobook will set you back $28.00. Why are audiobooks so overpriced compared to e-Books and print? It comes down to billable hours. It comes down to the studio costs, which the publishers call cost per finished hour. Each audiobook is on average around 12 hours, which costs on average $300 and $400 an hour. They also have to account for multiple takes and editing. The finished product after its all said and done is normally $5,000 to $6,000 to make the audiobbook. Some companies ride on the back of star power to draw attention to the digital edition and use them for marketing purposes. The aforementioned World War Z hired 21 different voice actors, such as Simon Pegg, Common and Martin Scorsese. Even hiring just one famous person to narrate the book, drives the production costs up exponentially. The average cost is now $1000 to $1500 per book hour and the final product would cost over $17,000. Matthew Thornton explained a bit on how Audible embraces star power. "One of the ways we've worked to improve the overall customer experience of listening to audiobooks is in elevating the quality of audiobook performance—embracing A-List celebrities (among those who’ve recorded for Audible are Colin Firth, Dustin Hoffman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Kate Winslet and Susan Sarandon) as well as up-and-coming young actors at Juilliard, Yale, Stella Adler and other acting schools where Audible offers narration workshops. We've had great success with celebrity-narrated projects like the Gyllenhaal-narrated The Great Gatsby, Ben Stiller performing The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.  As importantly, high-profile narrators raise the visibility of these terrific listening experiences—something we liken to “theater in your ear”—and raise the visibility of this burgeoning art form." Major Publishes and companies that are heavily invested in audiobooks really have to look at what titles are best suited to make the transition. Any of the perennial bestsellers and books slatted to be made into a major motion picture are often the first ones slatted for production.  They basically have to insure with the other titles can be money earners and not loss leaders. Newspapers Embrace Audio Audio these days is not only reserved for fiction and non-fiction books, but newspaper companies have been embracing this model as well. The Guardian newspaper forged a relationship with Audible. Every week the Guardian Audio Edition will hit Audible, and give you a feel for the UK’s book scene and new book releases. Audible has also sponsored the Guardian Books homepage, its weekly books podcast, and its books review pages, with co-branded advertising across the newspaper’s website and print edition. One of the big trends in journalism in 2014 has been producing audio editions of top stories. The Guardian started do this early last year and regularly garners 17 to 30 thousand listens for each audio edition they post. The New York Times, NPR , New Yorker and hundreds of other publications do this as well.  This is actually a huge trend in the news industry, and likely you will hear more about it, as established journalists try and compete against dedicated podcasters. Good e-Reader recently has been adding audio functionality to our top stories. We have noticed that more people are listening to the audio edition then reading some of the stories. This is primarily due to the audio just not appearing on our site, but also getting distributed to the podcasting system on iTunes.  The first story we did in this fashion got over 5,000 listens in two days. Vancouver based PressReader is also heavily involved with the audio capabilities of newspapers. Every single one of their 3,000 newspapers have text to speech functionality, they will read any story you want aloud. This makes sense for people who can no longer read the tangible paper, without a magnifying glass or have other vision problems. Whats Next? Listening to audiobooks has never been easier. Libraries all over the world now offer the service and Audible distributes their entire catalog of titles not only through their own app and Kindle devices, but also sources everything to iTunes. How can the industry get customers to listen to more digital editions? The largest bookseller in the US,...

When Sony and Amazon first got into the e-reader business, they were considered a new breed of luxury items. The first generation Kindle retailed for $399 and the PRS-500 was $349. Needless to say, only the most hardcore of readers were buying into the new way to consume digital books. In the last few years, you can pick up a ultra modern device for $79. Whats changed? Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Kobo are in the race to the bottom. They are forgoing a number of critical features to be able to compete against each other in the lucrative US and UK market. Overall build quality is suffering, internet browsing has never improved and the lack of audio bucks the trend of technological convergence. In 2011, we started to see e-readers come down in price. The Kindle Keyboard was massively discounted from $189 to $99. Barnes and Noble discounted their Simple Touch Reader to $99 and Kobo did the same. This was the last year that we saw a new reader have speakers and a 3.5mm headphone jack that was capable of playing audiobooks and music files. The lack of audio in modern e-readers prevent them from being rolled out into schools and institutions of learning. The chief reason is because visually disabled people cannot use the devices and feel excluded. The National Federation of the Blind have been overzealous in this regard and have prevented Amazon from starting pilot projects to get e-readers in schools. They went as far as organizing protests right outside Amazons Seattle headquarters, saying at the time "no student should be left behind." The e-reader industry as a whole has lost most of its innovative spirit, the vast majority of companies that were around from 2007 to 2011 are not around anymore. There was some truly interesting e-paper technology that could have changed the game, such as Bridgestone e-paper, Liquavista, LG, Mirasol, Pixel QI, and Plastic Logic. The reason why most of these companies abandoned the e-reader space, was because all of the notable players were risk adverse. After bringing the entry level price from $399 to $99 for an e-reader, the price could never dramatically increase again, which limited their options of dealing with new companies, whose technology would be expensive to manufacture at first. The race to the bottom  has not only limited consumer options, but it has effectively edged out smaller companies that offer alternative e-readers. Icarus, Onyx Boox, Pocketbook and Wexler aren't exactly household names, but have been making e-readers in Eastern Europe, Russia and China for years. All of these guys initially focused on the western market, but they simply couldn't produce enough units, in order to get big discounts at the factory, which effectively relegated them to markets where Amazon and Kobo haven't entered yet. I have been following the e-reader industry since the first generation Sony and Kindle e-readers. I was at CES in 2010 when e-readers were everywhere, there were literary hundreds of companies wanting to enter the space, looking for strategic partner. In 2011, there were hardly any to be found, as the industry gravitated towards multi-purpose tablets. e-Readers were on the cusp of doing some really amazing things, but now we just have a selection of products that all look the same. Put a Kindle Paperwhite 1  side by side to a Paperwhite 2 and see if anyone could tell the difference. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

e-Reader technology has come a long way since the first Kindle hit the market in 2007. Not only have the prices come down from over $300 for your standard six inch device, but e-paper has been polished and more refined. Companies such as Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Kobo invest copious amounts of money in research and development to give customers the best reading experience possible. But, what would constitute the ultimate e-reader? Good e-Reader has been reviewing dedicated e-ink devices since 2008 and we have really seen the industry grow. The devices in 2014 all offer faster page turns and really high resolution to make reading much more intuitive. We have looked at hundreds of different devices that come out over the years and we really have a sense on what customers want in an e-reader and what features everyone yearns for. Today, we look at the e-paper technology, hardware and features that would capture the imagination of millions of digital readers. The Ultimate e-reader Six inches - The most common screen size of e-readers today is six inches, because its more pocket friendly and many shells bought from China price has come down dramatically. Larger e-readers are possible, but the reason they are so expensive is because all of the internals cost more due to the lack of mass production. 1430 x 1080 resolution - This is currently the benchmark established by the Kindle Voyage for the highest resolution in the world. Most e-readers on the market have 1024 X 758 which look quite a bit dated by 2014-2015 standards. The future of e-readers is super high resolution and at least 300 PPI. e-Ink Mobius  -  Mobius uses a TFT technology that will enable the development of much lighter and rugged products. Mobius displays can weigh less than 50% of an equivalent glass based TFT. This is particularly important for mobile products requiring larger display areas, such as the Sony Digital Paper and Pocketbook CAD Flex. Capacitive Touchscreen - Many e-readers still employ Neonode IR touchscreen technology which provides a diminished experience for people used to interacting with their smartphones and tablets. The ultimate e-reader would have the same type of capacitive touch with the screen flush with the bezel. Notable e-readers that have this are the Kobo Aura and Tolinio Vision 2. Front-Lit Display (Glowlight) - Smartphones and tablets use LCD screen technology that have the light emitting from behind the screen into your eyes. A new study from the Lighting Research Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute shows that a two-hour exposure to electronic devices with self-luminous “backlit” displays causes melatonin suppression, which might lead to delayed bedtimes, especially in teens. Front-Lit displays have 4-6 LED lights that project light evenly across the screen, not into your eyes. The 3rd generation lighting system has been very polished and refined. Flexible rubber housing - Only the Pocketbook CAD and Wexler Flex One have flexible rubber housing and it allows it to be more durable for transportation and daily use. Hybrid Magnesium Alloy - The Kindle Voyage has this new technology on the back , it prevents finger oil from staining it. 1.2 GHZ Duel Core processor - In  order for a more optimized experience when opening books, accessing menu features and running apps, a dual core processor is a must. 1 GB of RAM - Many of the most popular e-readers out there only have 128 or 512 MB of RAM. Having additional RAM would step up the performance and allow for larger buffering system for multitasking. SD card - Many e-readers these days forgo the SD card in order to promote their own cloud services. SD Cards are really important because you don't need to rely on WIFI to download content. Audio - e-Reader companies these days have all abandoned audio in order to provide the lowest cost device possible. The ultimate e-reader would have stereo speakers, preferably Dolby Audio and a 3.55 mm headphone jack. This would allow users to listen to music and audiobooks. Microphone - This would allow people to interact with the e-reader and give voice command prompts. It would also allow people to use the audio chat feature found in apps like Skype or Whatsapp Messenger. Ivonna Text to Speech - One of the big reasons why schools have not embraced e-readers in a big way is because of the lack of accessibility for people who are visually disabled. The Ivonna system would allow every single aspect of the interface to have audio. Disabled people would be able to say "Open Audio Player" and "Play Audiobook X". If they don't have any audiobooks they could simply buy e-Books via audio command prompts and then have the books read to them. Camera that takes pictures in e-ink - The Pocketbook Ultra is the only e-reader in the world with a built in camera. It has built in OCR software to be able to scan books or just snap selfies. Sadly, when you take pictures and export them to your computer, they are not in high resolution greyscale e-ink, but full color. The ultimate e-reader would take pictures and export them in black and white. Duel Band WIFI - Wireless internet access has never really changed in e-reader technology and smartphones/tablets have all embraced duel band WIFI. This allows for content to be downloaded faster, such as larger dictionaries or apps. 3G/4G Micro SIM - Amazon is the only company left that still provides data access, so customers can buy eBooks while outside a WIFI zone. Having the ability to buy your own low-cost data plan through your local provider would not limit you anymore and you can buy content on vacation, at the cabin or beach. It would certainly allow for more impulse buys and offload the cost of the data to the customer. Extensive Dictionary Support - Many e-readers ship with a single dictionary, depending on the region you live in. The ultimate e-reader would have all of the major European and Asian languages available to download. Expanded Font Support - Many e-readers only ship with six different font types and 12 variations of size. I think its important to have a lower selection of fonts, to not confuse your average user but borrow a page out of Kobos playbook by allowing users to load in their own fonts they buy or download online. Reading a newspaper is far more effective in Times New Roman, than generic font #8. Android OS - The biggest trend of 2014 has been the shift from Linux based operating systems for e-readers to Android. Icarus, Onyx and Pocketbook have been the only companies laughing modern  devices with a vanilla version  of Android. This is very important, as it doesn't lock users down into any one specific ecosystem, but instead gives them freedom. Bluetooth and GPS - There are not many e-readers at all in the world that have GPS and Bluetooth technology, but they should. This would allow users to transfer books from their computer to their e-reader without having to plug it into their PC. It would also allow people to plug in external speakers, like a Beats Pill or keyboard. In addition the GPS aspect would allow people to use new technology to prevent theft. Anti-Theft Software - Taking advantage of the GPS technology in the ultimate e-reader a simple app, such as "Find my e-Reader" would allow people to track down their device if they misplaced or lost it. It would also be able to remotely wipe all personal information if it were to be stolen, limiting the possibilities of identity theft (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Welcome back to the Good e-Reader Radio Show! Today, we bring you the latest happenings from the e-reader world! This week you will get the most essential stories, such as the recent firestorm that erupted over news that Adobe is sending personal eBook information in plain text to their servers, breaching privacy laws.  In addition, Amazon announced a new crowd sourced publishing platform called Kindle Scout. I  like the fact that readers are responsible for what books get published, rather then as million unknown books flooding the market. Finally, Kobo has confirmed they are exiting the tablet market. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

The Good e-Reader Radio Show was on a brief one month hiatus and we are back with a vengeance! Lots of new electronic readers have been announced and have either come out or will imminently be released in the next few weeks. On today's show I discuss all of the new Kindles, the Samsung 4 Nook and Kobo H2O. What device is the best of the bunch and which ones should you not consider? In addition,  the Blackberry Passport has been announced and we have some idea now on what other new phones they have up their sleeves for 2015. We have been doing the Good e-Reader Radio show since 2009, covering the entire digital publishing, e-reader and e-paper sector! This is the only show of its type, where we dive deep into the issues and provide honest and candid information on the brands we write about. Join in on the fun and listen for free.

Welcome to the Monday edition of the Good e-Reader Radio Show! Today the show centers on all of the latest news from the past week. There has been a TON of e-reader news coming out with new devices being announced and slated to be released in the next few months. I will give you a preview of the new Kindle, Nook, Icarus, Pocketbook and other major brands. In addition, Sony is refocusing their efforts on business devices with the advent of the Digital Paper e-reader. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Welcome to the Monday edition of the Good e-Reader Radio Show with Michael Kozlowski and Mercy Pilkington. Today, we talk about the new Amazon Credit Card Reader and how its a boon to indie authors to accept mobile payments while at events. Scholastic has announced the closure of their Storia eBook platform and is transitioning to a subscription system. Finally, many eBook resellers have gone out of business in the past few years, is your purchases protected? (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Welcome back to the Monday Edition of the Good e-Reader Radio Show with Michael Kozlowski and Jeremy Greenfield of DBW. Today on the show we talk about Kindle Unlimited, an overview and if its good for indie authors. We also talk about non-conventional eBook distribution methods such as Twitter, Facebook and Bittorrent. Finally, we talk about the Forbes sale, bundling eBooks with print and Author Earnings as viable data. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Amazon prematurely unveiled Kindle Unlimited yesterday morning. This is a new subscription service that costs $9.99 and will allow you to read as many books as you want on a monthly basis. Kindle Unlimited will launch with 600,000 eBook and audiobook titles. Each title will be available to read on multiple devices, such as Android and iOS. A free 30 day trial will also be available when the service launches later this year. Major publishers such as HarperCollins, Hachette, Macmillan, Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster will not be contributing content with Kindle Unlimiteds launch. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos did meet with CBS CEO Leslie Moonves earlier in the week to talk about eBooks, maybe contributing backlist and midlist titles had something to do with it. Smaller publishers will play a major role in Unlimited with Algonquin, Bloomsbury, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Open Road, Scholastic and Workman. Amazon intends on paying them a wholesale rate for each title opened and read. This direct agreement is also being made to all of the Harry Potter Books via Pottermore and also the Hunger Games Trilogy The bulk of the 600,000 titles that are available for Unlimited will be contributing by self-published authors who enrolled in Kindle Direct Publishing Select. Writers who participate under this program will automatically be opted it and paid out whenever someone reads 10% of the book or more. The money will be paid to the authors through the one or two million dollars that is added to the KDP Select pool per month. Existing eBook subscription sites stand to gain in the short-term as most of them will be referenced in Unlimited. Scribd, Oyster and others will be mentioned in the same sentence and they all have major publisher support. Amazon is mainly launching with smaller presses, but most of the big five all support the smaller companies with their backlist and midlist titles. Today on the show, Michael Kozlowski and Mercy Pilkington break down all of the news from yesterday. You will get a sense on concerns indie authors have on payments and royalties. Will KDP Select be a compelling value proposition for authors, outside of the Kindle Lending Library? Finally, will Kindle offer yet another cool feature that will be the deciding factor on your next e-reader purchase? (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Welcome back to another exciting edition of the Good e-Reader Radio Show. Today Editor Michael Kozlowski talks with Digital Book World's own Jeremy Greenfield about the Amazon/Hachette dispute and if publishers should circumvent their retail partners and sell books directly. Amazon and Hachette has been the top story for a number of months, with new revelations by the New York Times. Many experts agree that we may see an end to this ongoing feud very soon. In the meantime, Amazon is trying to win over authors to their side by offering 100% royalties to Hachette authors. This is pissing off many people, including the American Authors Guild. If you missed any of the new developments in this saga, drop eveyrthing and listen to this show immidiately. In other news, HarperCollins has started selling tangible books from their entire catalog, in addition to eBooks on their website. This follows the store within a store concept that Hachette made with Books-a-million to sell books directly. Many bookstores in Canada and the US are not doing that well and contract disputes with retail partners will only get more complicated as time goes on. Is the future of publishing selling books directly to readers and circumventing the established retailers? Finally, should libraries call for a boycott against Simon and Schuster's new terms? If a library wants to include the S&S catalog in digital format, they must also opt into selling the book on their website. Libraries as retail is a very polarizing issue, and the ALA administration is just happy they are finally onboard. Were negotiations done too quickly at the expense of libraries abusing the public trust? Is it time for a grassroots effort to boycott buying titles? (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Welcome back to a jampacked edition of the Good e-Reader Radio Show with Michael Kozlowski and Jeremy Greenfield of Digital Book World. Today on the show we talk about the new Samsung and Barnes and Noble tablet partnership, and what it means for the bookseller going forward. Also on the show is a riveting discussion on YA Books and why Adults are reading them in record droves. The Audiobook industry is currently worth over two billion dollars globally, which is a far cry from $450 million in 1997. Publishers are wanting to accelerate growth further and we discuss how they intend on making it happen. Amazon has announced a new mobile subscription platform today, S&S has announced a new social network and Entitle has developed a new Christian solution. This is a great show with lots of excellent discussion, check it out! (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Welcome to a short week in review edition of the Good e-Reader Radio Show! Today Michael talks about Amazon pulling pre-orders from all future Hachette titles and how executives from the publisher are in Seattle right now for emergency meetings. Also, Pocketbook has announced two new e-readers that will be out soon. If you want to get a sense of the top 10 new e-readers of 2014, check out our preview HERE. A 13 minute show to kick off your long weekend and a small preview of IDPF and BEA 2014. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Welcome back to the Monday edition of the Good e-Reader Radio Show with Michael Kozlowski and Jeremy Greenfield of Digital Book World. Today on the show they talk about how the Hachette/Amazon contract negotiations will likely play out and how authors have seen a dramatic decrease in book sales The RT Booklovers conference just occurred in New Orleans and Indie Authors have busted out the flaming torches and pitchforks due to segregation from the traditionally published, Michael and Jeremy break it down on what exactly happened. This is a jam packed show with a riveting discussion on who exactly is the spokesman for indie authors. The two most notable is Mark Coker and Hugh Howey, Michael has some interesting thoughts on the matter. Finally, Jeremey interviewed Trip Adler of Scribd to get an indication on how their eBook subscription site is doing and much more! (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Welcome to another installment of the Good e-Reader Radio Show! Today Michael Kozlowski and Jeremy Greenfield of DBW talk all of the latest news in publishing, eBooks and e-Readers. Today on the show Michael and Jeremy discuss the current state of Christian Publishing industry and the latest news. HarperCollins just purchased the suite of Olive Tree Apps and what a savvy move it was. There is also a discussion on romance publisher Harlequin and what this move means to readers and writers. Finally, DBW is launching a brand new debate series which sounds very compelling. Many luminaries in the publishing industry are going to talk about the merits of eBook subscription services. You can find out more or watch the stream for free HERE. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Welcome to a breaking audio edition of the Good e-Reader Radio Show! Today Michael Kozlowski and Mercy Pilkington discuss the merger between HarperCollins and Harlequin. The entire deal is for $455 million in cash and will likely give HC the international distribution it needs to make a serious play in overseas markets. What does this mean for self-published authors or authors wanting to branch out from Romance into Mystery? This is the show that dives deep into all of the issues. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Welcome to another jaw dropping edition of the Good e-Reader Radio Show! Today Michael Kozlowski and Mercy Pilkington give you the essential stories that transpired over the course of the last week. Recently Mercy attended a self-publishing conference called Pub Smart Con and gives her impressions of the entire event. Also, Smashwords unveiled an aptly named Indie Author Manifesto and implemented a new promotion with Scribd. Kobo has slowed down their international expansion into new markets and is looking to focus more on app development and their e-readers.  The company has fired over 63 people at their head office in Toronto and we look into the reasons why. Finally, Comixology and Amazon has come to terms on a new business relationship. iOS users are up in arms about not being able to buy comics anymore and instead are prompted to visit the website. This is similar to what Amazon did when they pulled the ability to make in-app purchases, rather than give Apple 30% of each transaction. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Welcome back to the most captivating edition of the Good e-Reader Radio Show! Today Michael Kozlowski and Jeremy Greenfield of DBW discuss all of the major digital publishing events of the last week. Today on the show Michael and Jeremy discuss Barnes and Nobles latest eTextbook platform called Yuzu. The Founder of B&N has also been selling a ton of stock this year, what are the reasons? They also talk about the newfound synergy between Amazon and Goodreads, with the ability to add paid Kindle books to your shelf.  A great show as always, with a special feature on people editing open source and royalty free eBooks to get a quick sale. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Welcome back to another utterly compelling edition of the Good e-Reader Radio Show! Today Michael Kozlowski and Jeremy Greenfield talk about all of the major news coming out of the London Book Fair. In addition, we talk about Barnes and Nobles expansion plans for Nook Press, what challenges they face with relying on Windows 8 and Amazon purchasing Comixology. Jeremy Greenfield was live in London last week for the London Book Fair. This is the largest event held in Europe where publishers bid on rights fees, talk shop and network. You will all get a total rundown of the major sessions about self-publishing, Nook Press, Amazon being the villain you love to hate and more! The biggest story last week was Amazon purchasing Comixology. This was a strategic investment for their Guided View technology to incorporate into their own ecosystem and replace their older version. There is an air of uncertainty in the comic publishing industry right now. Publishers are worried that Amazon may employ strong arm tactics to get lower rates on graphic novels and single issue comics. Will Amazon abandon the Comixology app and incorporate of the content in their own ecosystem? Will publishers start relying less on Comixology and start developing their own end-to-end solutions? Only time will tell. Did Apple, B&N and Kobo miss the boat on buying Comixology? We discuss all of this! (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Welcome back to another awe inspiring edition of the Good e-Reader Radio Show with Michael Kozlowski and Jeremy Greenfield. Today on the show, we discuss the merits of Barnes and Noble taking advantage of their publishing unit to stock self-published titles in their bookstores and distribute them to libraries. Also, we talk the London Book Fair, Kids Reviews, digital reading surveys and eBook subscription services. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Welcome back to the Good e-Reader Radio Show, your definitive broadcast on digital publishing, eBooks and e-Readers. Today on the show, Michael Kozlowski and Jeremy Greenfield discuss Apple's market share in the US with eBooks and how residents of the UK might be paying more for them in 2015. You will be taken a trip around the world on today's show with an emphasis on the book markets in Canada, US, UK and China. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Welcome back to another utterly compelling edition of the Good e-Reader Radio Show! Today editor-in-chief Michael Kozlowski talks to Digital Book World's Jeremy Greenfield. They talk about Nook Press expanding to the UK, Microsoft putting the kibosh on Nook Windows 8 Development, indie authors making the bestseller list in record numbers, the new Divergent movie and tons more! (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Welcome back to the Good e-Reader Radio Show, your definitive news broadcast on the world of publishing, eBooks and e-Readers. Today, Michael Kozlowski and Jeremy Greenfield discuss the recent attempts to quantify authors in a more simplistic way. This is ruffling the feathers of indie authors that feel they should be called whatever they want. You can weigh in on the discussion HERE at Good e-Reader and HERE at DBW. Jeremy recently conducted a great interview with the CEO of Harlequin. They discussed the current business climate and how most romance/ertoica writers are self-publishing. This is creating a problem where not enough new writers are publishing the traditional way anymore and is forcing the publisher to get lean. The DOJ case against publishers in the USA is having reverberating effects on Canadian based Kobo. The Government of Canada is mandating that Kobo abide by the DOJ settlement terms, outside of the USA. Kobo contends the DOJ does not have jurisdiction in Canada to impose their will. We might see Kobo's catalog dimmishing very soon. DBW is hosting a series of web lessons to help indie authors. You can find out more information on their latest one HERE. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Welcome back to the Good e-Reader Radio Show! Today, Michael Kozlowski and Jeremy Greenfield of Digital Book World talk about the latest news in publishing! Today on the Show Michael and Jeremy discuss Barnes and Noble's latest quarterly results. The company has fired 190 people, with more cuts to come and have announced a new Nook Tablet. What is the full storey? They discuss market positioning and their place in the USA eBook industry. Finally, there is lots of digital education news today with Ingram purchasing Coursesmart and new initiatives from Amplify. A great show as always, so check it out.

Welcome to the Good e-Reader Radio Show, week in review. Today, Michael Kozlowski of Good e-Reader flies solo, talking about the biggest stories of last week. Canadians will soon get lower eBook prices, due to a new agreement with major publishers. Sony and Kobo are become strange bedfellows, with Sony customers being transferred to Kobo in March. LJ Smith, is well known for writing the Vampire Diaries that has undergone a renaissance. She was let go by her publisher and decided to write Fan-Fic of her own franchise via Kindle Worlds.  Lots more stories and some new tunes, a great show as always, so check it out. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Mercy Pilkington and Michael Kozlowski are live with a breaking news audio edition of the Good e-Reader Radio Show. Today, they talk about all of the news surrounding Sony and Kobo joining forces on eBooks and how it affects indie authors and self-publishing distribution platforms, such as Smashwords. This is a jam packed show with tons of news and exclusives. Many companies spoke to Good e-Reader today about the merger between Sony and Kobo's ecosystems and we lay it out, on what it all really means for readers all over the world. Mercy discusses some of the pitfalls surrounding on a USA wide digital library and why it is failing and how Norway gets it right with their government funded approach. Finally, Bro-mies? Bro-Bras? We lay out how Fan-Fiction is taking over the world and some of the more interesting moves coming out of Amazon. This is one of the funnest shows in Good e-Reader History! If you have always wanted to see Cobra Commander win the day, listen to this show, immediately! (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Welcome to another exciting edition of the Good e-Reader Radio Show! Today Michael Kozlowski of Good e-Reader and Jeremy Greenfield of Digital Book World discuss the new Kobo CEO, if Nook e-Readers will have collector value, the problem with eBook samples and author survey results from a recent DBW feature. This is one fun show, Michael and Jeremy talk about a myriad of subjects from all over the digital publishing and e-reader world! A fun time as always, so check it out. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});