ebooks

We cover Amazon's capitulation to another publisher, and Google's book deal comes under assault from the Department of Justice. Jeff Zucker appears to lie to Congress and Sling implies AT&T lied about their app. And the $9.99 eBook is declared dead by Gizmodo and Rafe declares eInk dead. Just another day on the Internet.

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The $9.99 Ebook Is Dead: Third Major Publisher Hachette Dumps onAmazon http://gizmodo.com/5464742/the-999-ebook-is-dead-third-major-publisher-hachette-dumps-on-amazon

US Department of Justice … Read more

A new software upgrade is now available to owners of Barnes & Noble's Nook e-book reader. This is the second upgrade since the device launched in early December and it appears to be more substantial than the first, which arrived shortly after the product shipped and addressed a handful of small but pervasive bugs.

Barnes & Noble notes that version 1.2 "continues to improve Nook performance to provide enhanced overall reading experience and in-store connectivity for Nook customers to enjoy exclusive content and promotions in Barnes & Noble stores."

Here are the key updates, according to … Read more

Industry trade group Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America is none too pleased with Amazon's dispute with publisher Macmillan over e-book pricing, and says that it is encouraging readers "to seek out new places to find their books."

In an announcement Wednesday, the group--which was founded in 1965 and hosts the annual Nebula Awards--explained that it's removing all links to Amazon from its Web site unless the mega-retailer is the only place where a certain author's work can be found.

"Our authors depend on people buying their books and since a significant percentage … Read more

Publishers aren't wasting any time getting their books onto the new iPad.

Publishers Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Kaplan Publishing, McGraw-Hill Education, and Pearson have signed deals to be among the first to port their textbooks over to Apple's new tablet. Heading to the iPad as well as the iPhone and iPod Touch will be their textbooks, study guides, and test prep manuals.

Announced on Wednesday, the agreements were made with ScrollMotion, a company that develops the iPhone e-reader app Iceberg Reader and works with publishers to digitize their books for the mobile market.

The digital textbooks promise a slew … Read more

I can't believe I'm going to say this, but Amazon needs to stop meddling in e-book pricing and let the free market do its thing.

Over the past few days, a major skirmish in the e-book pricing wars erupted between Amazon and book publisher Macmillan. After a nearly yearlong dispute over electronic book edition pricing, Amazon stopped all sales of Macmillan titles, even print copies, in a pretty shocking display of brinksmanship. Macmillan responded with a full-page ad detailing the fight with Amazon and its hoped-for pricing model. And finally, Amazon released a statement saying it was capitulating to Macmillan's demands … Read more

Amazon said Sunday that, while it still believes a $14.99 price tag for e-books is "needlessly high," it will have to give in to Macmillan's demands to sell electronic versions of its books at a higher rate than Amazon's usual $9.99.

The announcement comes after Amazon temporarily pulled Macmillan books from its Web site in a dispute over e-book pricing. Macmillan and other book publishers have asked Amazon to increase the sales price of e-books on its Web site. But Amazon stood firm in its contention that anything above $9.99 was too high--that … Read more

Though it may have seemed like another of Apple's perfectly timed third-party leaks (and I certainly mistook it for that), McGraw-Hill CEO Terry McGraw's remarks to CNBC earlier this week were nothing of the sort. The publisher tells me that it was not privy to iPad prelaunch details and that to conclude otherwise is a misinterpretation of McGraw's comments.

"As a company deeply involved in the digitization of education and business information, we were as interested as anyone in the launch of the new device, although we were never part of the launch event and never … Read more

If you're among those wondering why Apple's new iBooks e-reader app may have looked vaguely familiar, the answer is Apple may have ripped off the user interface from an existing iPhone app, according to Wired blogger Brian Chen.

The app in question is a popular book-reading app called Classics, which rounds up a bunch of public-domain titles in a slick-looking package that features a user interface with various titles perched on a bookshelf.

The article also suggests that the UI similarities extend beyond the top-level interface. "The pages emulate the look of a printed book page," … Read more

Now that the dawn of the iPad is upon us, the inevitable comparisons between Apple's wundertablet and the Kindle--and what it all means for Amazon--have begun in earnest.

For example, in its write-up of the iPad launch, The New York Times said that Apple's new deals with five major publishers basically amounted to a declaration of war. "The announcement puts Apple on a collision course with Amazon," the Times said. And Steve Jobs, while praising Amazon for pioneering the e-book category, told the world that, "we are going to stand on their shoulders and go a little bit farther."

That may very well be true, especially when it comes to stuff like comic books, graphic novels, textbooks, and interactive children's stories, but the war we're looking at isn't the war we're used to seeing in the consumer electronics world, where one piece of gear simply is superior, sexier--and better-priced--than another.

From the get-go, as soon as rumors surfaced about an Apple tablet, many a tech pundit made his or her readers aware that such a device would make for a very strong e-reader. After all, since the iPhone and iPod Touch are already good e-readers, it was pretty easy to assume that an Apple tablet would be that much better because it had a larger screen. And no doubt it will be.… Read more