BookFinder.com Journal

The Nook e-reader

Released today is Barnes and Noble's entry into the e-reader wars.  Dubbed "The Nook" it combines a color navigation panel (for browsing color book covers) with a 6" e-ink screen, mp3, and support for a number of non-proprietary formats including ePub and PDF. 

Like the Kindle ,The Nook is wireless with the added feature that it seems you can share books with friends over a variety of other devices (iPhones, Blackberry's, etc) if you download some free software. The Nook however does not have the Kindles text to speech, has a shorter battery life, and is a bit heavier.  The one piece of information I have not yet found is if the divice is supported outside of the US, drop a comment if you find out.

Several major news sources have been reviewing The Nook and are suggesting that it might give the Kindle a run for its money.  We shall see what happens this Christmas I suppose.

If you want to see it at work Gizmodo, posted a neat video.  I will be posting some more Nook specs on our E-books page tomorrow.

[Now Reading: Following the Equator by Mark Twain]

Google president lies like a cheap rug

Not sure if any of you read the advertorial op-ed column in the New York Times last week where Google Technology President Sergey Brin voiced his thoughts on the Google books campaign but one sentence really irked me.

Today, if you want to access a typical out-of-print book, you have only one choice — fly to one of a handful of leading libraries in the country and hope to find it in the stacks.

He cannot possibly believe that? All you have to do is type "Out-of-print books" into his own service and see AbeBooks, Alibris, Amazon, Biblio, BookFinder, etc offering more OOP options that you could shake a virtual stick at.  The rest of the article reads like a cheap advertorial.

I'm not even versed enough in the whole Google Books rights controversy to say whether i'm for or against it (note: book lunch with Charlie, learn more) but this essay is trash.

[Now Reading: Our Man in Havana by Grahame Greene]

Sony Reader to adopt ePub format

The New York Times is reporting that Sony will be selling ebooks for their reader in the open ePub format only.  This means that they will also be scrapping "proprietary anticopying software in favor of technology from the software maker Adobe that restricts how often e-books can be shared or copied."

This means that books purchased after the change will be able to be read on a variety of other ereaders, opening up options for consumers.

“There is going to be a proliferation of different reading devices, with different features and capabilities and prices for a different set of consumer requirements,” said Steve Haber, president of Sony’s digital reading unit. “If people are going to this e-book shopping mall, they are going to want to shop at all the stores, and not just be required to shop at one store.”

Sony opening up to a common standard creates a very different playing field in the ebooks market.  As Charlie mentioned last week Sony just came out with a cheaper version of its ereader, and the Times suggests that a reader with wireless capability is also on its way.  It seems the ebook wars are far from over.

(Thanks to GallyCat for the tip)

School books get a little greener

Because I like to start my day out with some good news.  Here is a neat article about a company in the UK who are making school exercise books out of a sugar cane byproduct rather than conventional wood-based pulp, and the best feature is that the books are no more expensive.

From the BBC

Ms Teal said using agricultural crops rather than wood gave the added advantage of reducing deforestation, and helped protect fragile ecosystems that would otherwise break down as a result of logging in forested areas.

"In this instance it costs no more to buy an eco-friendly green product than a conventional wood-based paper product," said Ms Teal.

"The Consortium is the first supplier to source this product and with sustainability becoming increasingly important in the classroom, we think that once schools have tried these exercise books, there will be no going back."

I hope the project has legs, if it works out well we may see publishers start producing textbooks from this material as well.

Introducing Ditto, yet another ereader

Last Friday I told you about Boarder's launching a new ereader in the UK and today we have yet another reader coming to the fold, The Ditto (or Digital Interface Total Text Organizer).

From the Publishers Weekly report it sounds that The Ditto is much like the Cool-ER reader which debuted at BookExpo this year: costs about the same, has similar features (6" screen, reads txt, pdf and mp3, upgradable memory, etc).

One thing the Ditto does have going for it though is that it supports the epub file format.

As I said on Friday, if some of of this sounds like Greek to you, check out our ebooks FAQ page.

Brit's get new ereader from Borders

With the Kindle staying securely put in North America British readers have been complaining about a relative lack of good alternatives to the Sony ereader, with the iLiad device being one of the few other good choices but a hefty price tag to boot.

However I now see in yesterdays Times a review for the new Borders ebook reader, which so far sounds like a good option.

The screen size is the same as that of the Amazon Kindle, but overall the device isn’t as wide. It makes it possible to fit into a large jacket pocket and is easier to hold. Finally, it is a tiny bit cheaper - costing £189, compared with the Sony Reader at £199.

But there’s no love at first sight with the Borders reader. The feel is more matted and plastic than metallic and shiny.

To see and touch the Sony Reader or the Amazon Kindle, is to be attracted to smart and seductive looking devices. You will never desire the Border’s device in the same way. To my mind that is a good thing.

It is just not that special but it doesn’t try to be. It is what is on the inside that counts.

It feels sturdier than its rivals and looks like it can deal with the rough and tumble of travel. It will need to be able to as it does not come in a case.

Since we're book lovers, and gadget nerds, we have put together a little page on BookFinder.com to try and keep you guys up to date on all of the new ereaders, ebook stores, ebook formats, etc.  The technology is still in infancy and there are a lot of different formats and readers out there so hopefully this will at least go part of the way to help you figure out which ereader is the one for you.

And for thoes of you who would rather have your hadcover pried from your cold dead hands than read off a screen, never fear our database of over 150 million new, used, rare, and out of print books isnt going anywhere.

Indigo to launch Canadian eReader

In what seems to be a daily event these days news of yet another eReader is on the horizon.  Chapters Indigo are apparently in talks with manufacturers and are working out who will make their own version of the product.

CTVs Tech Life Blog explains...

...according to the company's founder and CEO Heather Reisman who appeared on Canada AM this morning for her annual summer reads selection... she divulged the company's plans, willing only to confirm that it won't be the Sony Reader, already available and supported by Sony's own online E-Book store, nor Amazons Kindle which has yet to find a launch in Canada.

Instead the retailer will launch their own service, one that will follow on the heels of their successful ShortCovers service, launched earlier this year. ShortCovers is a mobile app, currently available as a free download for the iPhone 3G, iPod Touch through Apple's Apps Store, the latest generation of BlackBerry devices through RIM's App World, and for Android-powered devices including the HTC Dream and HTC Magic which launched today, through the Android Market.

Yes you can, be a part of Obama's new book

 Sometimes the future comes sooner than you think, Print on demand is entering the mainstream.  It was just last week when I wrote about authors personalizing POD novels as a marketing tactic and how it could help bring print on demand into mainstream aplication.  

This week brings the anouncement of  The Obama Time Capsule, a custom, 200 page, print on demand picture book which allows the customer to incorporate their own images and text into the body of the work.

According to this USA Today article, when you order the book you are given 10 days to customize it to your liking.

After ordering the book at Amazon, you'll receive an e-mail with a link that takes you to the Time Capsule website. You'll have 10 days to customize the book there or it will get shipped as is. You get to write a dedication, and your name appears on the cover (and an inside page) as one of the authors, next to Smolan and co-project director Jennifer Erwitt.

You can upload one image to appear on the back cover and another that will appear on a page next to pictures of Sean Penn, George Clooney, Oprah Winfrey and other celebrities. There's also a place-holder for your kid's Obama-related artwork.

At this point the personalization is pretty basic, but I see the options in the future as nearly limitless. 

Imagine a kiosk outside the Superbowl where after you have watched the game you can upload your personal photos from your digital camera and mix them in with pro shots taken by photographers that day at the game and have a finished book mailed to you a week later.... Or better yet, have something like the Espresso Book Machine on hand and print the copy right there so you have something to look over while you fight your way out of the parking lot.

Publishers Weekly made the announcement earlier this week that the number of Print on Demand titles on offer overtook the number of titles published in the traditional way last year.  The vast (and I mean VAST) majority of these POD titles were super short run books on the extreme end of the long tail, but with the creators of The Obama Time Capsule alerady boasting that they might have the first NY Times bestselling POD in history, its becoming harder to deny that POD really is hitting the mainstream whether we like it or not.

FLEPia the full color eBook reader

I'm working on some research about eBooks for a BookFinder.com info page that we will be posting later on to help you guys muddle your way though all the different readers and file types.  While doing this I came across a neat video that I thought you might want to see. 

It's for the FLEPia, Fujitsu's new full color eReader that was launched last month in Japan.  It seems to have some pretty major drawbacks, such as the $1000 price tag and the 1.8-8 second page load times.  If you can get past the ultra cheesy music, monotone dialogue and glaring camera work the device itself is a pretty monster step in the right direction for eReaders.

Print on Demand offers new possibilities

Print on demand technology is getting better and better by the day, and while it evokes the ire of book collectors, POD has opened a lot of doors.

The most commonly realized beneficiaries are academics and graduate students who are now more easily able to order affordable copies of highly specialized reports and research projects.  The other groups to benefit are emerging novelists and poets who can offer their work to a large number of readers for a limited financial investment giving them a chance to build up their fan base potentially increasing their chances of picking up a publisher.

However one aspect of print on demand which I think is still in its relative infancy is the use of POD technology as a marketing tool for mainstream publishing.

I got thinking about this while reading my morning blogroll and seeing that romance novelist Brenda Novak is setting up an online charity auction for diabetes research where the winning bidder will be flown to a romance convention, have her photo taken with a cover model and get 10 copies of the book with "her" cover. 

Another scheme that has been hatched as of late is authors auctioning or raffling off the chance to name a character in their novel.  Stephen King, Amy Tan, Lemony Snicket, John Grisham, and Margaret Atwood have all done this for charity and today I read in Quill and Quire that Nathan Tyree (The author of Zombie Lust and the New Flesh and How to Make Love Like a Zombie) is taking this one step further and actually writing "you" into his next book, and he's pocketing the money.

The winner will have to provide me with their name, a photo of themselves, a description of their personality and mannerisms, a bio (background info and such). I will write the novel and guarantee publication within one year of the end of the auction. Then they will also receive a free copy of the book.

So my question is how long will it be before we see this kind of marketing translated into POD. 

Just say a regular copy of the new Stephen King book will cost you $15, but for $35 you can have the personalized copy where your name is substituted in place for that of the beat cop who catches the telekinetic werewolf serial killer goes for $30.  The same could be done with Novak’s cover scheme, have a premium option with a personalized cover.  Depending on the author, I could see it being popular.

[Now reading: Brave New World by Aldous Huxley]