Self Publishing

Free eBook Shows You How to Self Publish using a Book Template

Become a Published Author on Amazon!

Download the free ebook here: http://book-template.com/51231dsaaADS43SDFd32register.html

A new ebook shows you step by step exactly How To Publish your Ebook as a Paperback on Amazon. The ebook comes with a Bonus Video that shows you exactly how to submit your book to Amazon for free.

Leigh Burke said "Hot off the press is my latest Ebook, ’How To Publish your Ebook as a Paperback on Amazon’.

I guide you step by step through the process of getting your book in the correct format for submission to Amazon, then submitting it and promoting your book on the world’s biggest virtual bookstore. And the best thing of all is submission to Amazon is free, and I show you how"
The ebook is 30 pages, and contains detailed instructions and screenshots guiding you step by step through the entire process.

With your ebooks for sale as physical books on Amazon, you’ll create another stream of income and increase your credibility as an author overnight.

There are a number of other distinct advantages to being a published author.
* You will be quoted in both the media and other books. * You can add the book to your CV, biography and other marketing literature. * You can purchase your own books at a heavily discounted price from the printer, and sell them yourself at seminars, conferences, training events, to customers, loved ones and friends. * When you publish more than one book in your niche you gain credibility and become an expert in your field. This will increase your customers trust in you, and will lead to many indirect sales and consulting engagements.

You can grab your free copy here: http://book-template.com/51231dsaaADS43SDFd32register.html

Once you register free, you will be automatically redirected to the download page.
If you’re looking to self publish your own book then you will also need a book template to layout your book.

You can get one here: http://www.book-template.com/.

Download ebooks on http://www.frenchtheory.com/ - See that post with different algorithms in metabole - See the journal French Metablog with today different posts -PHONEREADER Library - - Jean-Philippe Pastor

Ebook couleur

Alors qu’Amazon souhaite relancer le marché avec un second "Kindle" équipé de niveaux de gris pour faciliter la lecture, le constructeur japonais Fujitsu fait encore mieux en commercialisant au pays du soleil levant, FLEPia, le premier ebook couleur. Embarquant la techonologie "e-ink", l’encre numérique, le modèle ne nécessite pas de rétro-éclairage et offre des économies d’énergie.

La révolution apportée par Fujitsu offre un écran tactile 8 pouces XGA à 260 000 couleurs pour une définition de 1024 x 768 pixels. Le tout se présente dans des dimensions 24 x 16 cm pour 1,25cm d’épaisseur. Poids du FLEPia : 385 grammes. Le modèle est complété par 4Go de capacité interne, un port pour carte SD, le WiFi et le Bluetooth 2.0. Il est compatible avec un grand nombre de formats (PDF, TXT, HTML, Word, Excel pour les textes mais aussi JPEG, BMP ou encore PNG pour les images). Une autonomie de 40 heures est annoncée.

Download ebooks on http://www.frenchtheory.com/ - See that post with different algorithms in metabole - See the journal French Metablog with today different posts -PHONEREADER Library - - Jean-Philippe Pastor

PHONEREADER Iphone

All ebooks on www.phonereader.eu
All books for smartphones since1998
Microsoft OS can be downloaded with XenDesktop software from Citrix.
Download Reader Microsoft on your Iphone and read ebooks phonereader.eu on your Iphone (free of charge).

See le Journal de l'Hypertexte in english (different today's posts)
Connect hypertextual.net l'Hypertexte Principal de la Solution -
See Phonereader.GoogleBooks
Enter the library Phonereader.eu

Jean-Philippe Pastor

FictionWise sold

Barnes & Noble has acquired e-book seller Fictionwise.com for $15.7 million, as it makes another attempt at running an e-book store.

The cash deal, announced Thursday, is part of Barnes & Noble's plans to launch its own e-book store later this year, despite its lack of success with a previous attempt years ago.
Back in 2000, Barnes & Noble teamed up with Microsoft to launch an e-book store with the help of Microsoft Reader software. But three years after its launch and investing at least $20 million into the project, Barnes & Noble discontinued sales of e-books.

Although the company did not disclose the reasons for halting its e-book store efforts, a Nielsen/NetRatings analyst speculated at the time that sales had been minimal.
Barnes & Noble spokeswoman Mary Ellen Keating said Friday that the time wasn't right earlier this decade.

"Consumers were not as quick to embrace the technology, the pricing set by the publishers, or the reading devices," Keating said of the previous effort. "We did have growth in our e-book sales, but the growth was not significant enough to support the business at the time."
Apparently, however, consumer tastes and the technology have advanced enough over the past six years to give it another shot.
"The market has changed since then, and we see this as a growth area," Keating said.
Last month, archrival Amazon.com released Kindle 2, the second version of its e-book reader. And earlier this week, Amazon unveiled its Kindle app for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
Fictionwise, which Barnes & Noble will run as a separate business unit, offers its own eReader app for smartphones, other handheld devices, desktop computers, and laptops. Likewise, competitor Lexcycle has its Stanza app for e-book reading.
While consumer interest in e-books has increased over the years, they have yet to attract a mainstream market. Analysts attribute price as the major barrier to the adoption of e-books.

Download ebooks on http://www.frenchtheory.com/ - See that post with different algorithms in metabole - See the journal French Metablog with today different posts -
PHONEREADER Library - - Jean-Philippe Pastor

New Bebook

The new model of the Bebook has been redesigned to include 3G cellular and/or a WiFi data link, touchscreen navigation and RSS support, said the company in a posting on its Web site.

The device will also get ePub DRM (digital rights management) support over the next few months and is due to be launched in the middle of this year. No other details were immediately available.
The electronic book market recently saw the introduction of the second-generation version of Amazon.com's Kindle e-book reader. That device also includes cellular support but is only available in the U.S., where Amazon has a tie-up with a network operator.
Sony has also seen some success with its "Reader" e-book tablet and has been adding support for a wider variety of data formats to better compete with the Kindle. It supports the BBeB and ePub formats with DRM and unprotected text files in the BBeB, ePub, TXT, RTF, PDF and Word formats. Additionally it can show several types of image files and play MP3 and AAC audio files.
The first-edition BeBook, which was launched in 2008, has won praise for its ease of use and inclusion of around 20,000 classic books with each reader.

Download ebooks on http://www.frenchtheory.com/ - See that post with different algorithms in metabole - See the journal French Metablog with today different posts -

PHONEREADER Library - - Jean-Philippe Pastor

Long tail phrases naturally

As Web Searchers Increasingly Use Longer Keyphrases, Clever Ebook Gives Copywriters 11 Ways to Include Long-Tail Phrases Naturally


ELGIN, SC - The length of search engine keyphrases continues to grow. Rather than a single keyword, searchers are now using three- and four-word phrases as the standard, according to newly released information in February 2009 by Web analytics-company Hitwise.com. These increases make the task of writing natural-sounding search engine optimized (SEO) copy increasingly difficult. Now, SEO-copywriter Karon Thackston has a quick-read ebook that details 11 clever and legal ways to include long-tail keyphrases without destroying the flow of the copy.
In the last 12 months, one- and two-word search-phrase use decreased by as much as 5%, while four-, five-, six-, seven- and even eight-word search-phrase use increased by as much as 19%. What does this mean from a copywriting standpoint? Writing with a single keyword in mind is easy. Using two-word terms is a bit more of a challenge. But, when three- and four-plus-word phrases come into play, the risk of sounding stiff and awkward increases substantially.

"The biggest mistake I find search engine optimization (SEO) copywriters and website owners making is attempting to substitute every generic term for a specific keyphrase," recounts Thackston, who has been at the forefront of SEO copywriting for 10 years. She continues, "This makes copy sound very amateurish and clunky. The reason for this repeated mistake is because copywriters and site owners use the keyphrases the same way every time. They don't realize they have other options. There are numerous ways to make SEO copy sound natural."

Thackston's ebook outlines 11 clever and legal ways to use keyphrases of practically any length without sacrificing the quality of the copy. Complete with real-world examples and screenshots, this quick-read ebook is currently in its 4th edition.
If the trend continues as it has in the past, search phrases will get even longer in the not-so-distant future. However, getting creative with keyphrase use is one way to ensure that longer search terms can be used without sounding awkward.

"Writing With Keywords," published by Marketing Words, Inc., is a 37-page ebook available for immediate download online in PDF format for $39 US. For more information or to purchase, visit http://www.WritingWithKeywords.com. For media interviews, contact Karon Thackston at 803-438-4088. Contact Information:
Karon Thackston
803-438-4088
Email Contacthttp://www.WritingWithKeywords.com

Just a single click for ebooks

Austin, TX – Reading a bestseller on the Apple iPhone just got significantly easier.

Two major barriers to eBook adoption collapsed today with the public launch of BooksOnBoard’s new Qik Clik(TM) technology for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

“With this advance, format guesswork and long checkout forms go the way of analog TV, truly making eBooks available anytime and anywhere for iPhone owners,” said Bob LiVolsi, CEO of BooksOnBoard (http://www.booksonboard.com/). Qik Clik(TM) technology gives iPhone and iPod Touch customers a quick, one click checkout experience at BooksOnBoard, and takes only three clicks from eBook selection to download, automatically doing the format selection for them. And registered customers have no checkout forms to complete after their first purchase – no credit card information, no name and address, just a single click.

According to Neelan Choksi, Lexcycle/Stanza COO, “I am very impressed. The BooksOnBoard team deserves a huge amount of credit. They have taken the Stanza catalog format to a new level and greatly improved and streamlined the eBook customer experience.” To access their eBooks, customers must have Lexcycle’s free Stanza application downloaded from the iPhone App Store. “Our Qik Clik technology provides a secure, customer friendly eBook experience on the iPhone and iPod Touch – with the fewest possible clicks,” says Marwan Hassoun, BooksOnBoard CTO. “This is only the beginning. Our eco-friendly technology roadmap will continue to make eBooks easier for customers to access and read. We plan to expand the technology and make it available on almost all mobile devices very soon.”

Harlequin Enterprises Vice President of Digital and Internet , Brent Lewis, said, “We know that more and more readers value the convenience of their mobile device, so BooksOnBoard’s launch of a user-friendly mobile website for iPhone is a timely and welcome addition to eBook purchasing options” Bestselling author Jess Dee reflected the response of many authors when she said, “I’m thrilled to be a part of this innovative venture. Congratulations to BooksOnBoard for the launch of their new iPhone interface.” Jane Porter, acclaimed author of Flirting with Forty, said, "An exciting new way to buy your books today! I’m a fan" Added Renee Bernard, popular author of A Rogue’s Game, “With BooksOnBoard and my iPhone, there isn’t anything else I need to take with me! It’s the best of both worlds and I’m thrilled to have the world’s largest selection of books at my fingertips wherever I go!”

According to Mike Smith, Executive Director of the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF), the trade and standards association for the digital publishing industry, “It is good news for customers that non-DRM format EPUB titles are also part of the BooksOnBoard offering for the iPhone, allowing readers to experience the interoperability of EPUB between devices and reading applications.” More iPhone instructions can be found here: http://www.booksonboard.com/index.php?F=iPhone_ebooks

Download ebooks on http://www.frenchtheory.com/ - See that post with different algorithms in metabole - See the journal French Metablog with today different posts -PHONEREADER Library - - Jean-Philippe Pastor

Shopping downloadable eBooks

We are now living in a digitalized era.

With anything and everything going digital, the books are no exemption. These electronic books have made life convenient than ever before. Now anyone can read the any books without going to the libraries. These downloadable books makes reading so convenient that you can get any book with just a few mouse clicks. The ebooks have gained huge popularity through the recent days as they can be retained for a lifetime without any damage. Moreover, the usage of ebooks saves thousands of trees that are cut down for making paper” says Mr. Mac of Ninjuh.com

Speaking about the features of Ninjuh.com, Mr. Mac said, “Ninjuh is a one stop shop for shopping downloadable books. The site is designed in such a way that even novice Internet users can download the ebooks that they are looking for with just a few mouse clicks. Readers will find it really easy to search ebooks through Ninjuh. You will be well aware of the fact that Internet is the largest library. However, finding the books that you are looking for in this largest library is a neck breaking job. This is where Ninjuh comes into play. Ninjuh has categorized the Ebooks available all over the Internet and have attached them with appropriate tags so that the surfers can find them with ease. Ninjuh is equipped with the most advanced search technology so that you can find the ebooks by just keying in a few keywords. Unlike other ebook searching sites which need the whole title of the ebook to be known, Ninjuh can find you the ebook with just the keywords. If you are an Ebook writer, you can also submit your ebooks at Ninjuh.”

Speaking about the advantages of Ebooks, Mr. Mac said, “The use of Ebook has many advantages. The main advantage is that online shopping of these downloadable books is very much convenient than heading all the way to a book store for buying them. Buying ebooks will also save a great deal of money. If you are interested in writing you can also earn a great deal of money by writing and selling ebooks.”About NinjuhNinjuh is a new search site to find ebooks, ebook, ebook store, Electronic books, Downloadable books, Shopping, Online shopping And More. With the latest technology of ebook search, shopping ebooks through Ninjuh is just a breeze.

Download ebooks on http://www.frenchtheory.com/ - See that post with different algorithms in metabole - See the journal French Metablog with today different posts -PHONEREADER Library - - Jean-Philippe Pastor

Linking

According to Jeff Jarvis, there is a new rule now on the web : Cover what you do best. Link to the rest.

Try this on as a new rule for newspapers.

That’s not how newspapers work now. They try to cover everything because they used to have to be all things to all people in their markets. So they had their own reporters replicate the work of other reporters elsewhere so they could say that they did it under their own bylines as a matter of pride and propriety. It’s the way things were done. They also took wire-service copy and reedited it so they could give their audiences the world. But in the age of the link, this is clearly inefficient and unnecessary. You can link to the stories that someone else did and to the rest of the world. And if you do that, it allows you to reallocate your dwindling resources to what matters, which in most cases should be local coverage.
This changes the dynamic of editorial decisions. Instead of saying, “we should have that” (and replicating what is already out there) you say, “what do we do best?” That is, “what is our unique value?” It means that when you sit down to see a story that others have worked on, you should ask, “can we do it better?” If not, then link. And devote your time to what you can do better.
In the rearchitecture of news, what needs to happen is that people are driven to the best coverage, not the 87th version of the same coverage. This will work for publications and news organizations. It will also work for individuals; this is how a lone reporter’s work (and reputation) can surface. We saw that happening with the Libby trial and Firedoglake’s liveblogging of it. As Jay Rosen said at our NPR confab last week — and I’ve heard this elsewhere — theirs became the best source for keeping up on the trial. Reporters and editors knew it and were using it. So those same reporters and editors should have been sending their readers to the blog as a service: ‘We’re not liveblogging it, but they are. We’ll give you our analysis and reporting later. Enjoy.’ That is where the architecture of news must go because links enable it and economics demand it.There’s another angle to this: News is not one-size-fits-all. We don’t get all our news from one source anymore. We get bombarded with news all around us. So we all knew that Anna Nicole Smith was dead (or, in Jack Cafferty’s immortal words, still dead). So that means that not every newspaper needs to cover that story in depth.
It certainly means that The New York Times needn’t. So why did the Times devote considerable space and reporting and editing talent to the Anna Nicole story this week? They added nothing more to the story. It’s not what they do best. At the least, if they felt they really needed to cover it, they should have used the AP. Online, they certainly should have just linked to the many, many other sources that are covering it. And then the paper could have used its resources for news that matters and news that they can do uniquely well.
So why did they do it? They didn’t want to be left behind. They perhaps even didn’t want to seem snotting (as if the Anna Nicole story were below them and their readers). But that’s not the issue. Making the best use of their resources and talent it. They need to take advantage of the link.
Newspapers are getting more comfortable with linking out even to competitors. This takes it farther. It says that the best service you can perform for yourself and your readers is to link instead of trying to do everything.
And once you really open yourself up to this, then it also means that you can link to more people gathering more coverage of news: ‘We didn’t cover that school board meeting today, but here’s a link to somebody who recorded it.’ That’s really no different from saying after a big news event, ‘We weren’t there to take pictures, but lots of our readers were and here they are.’So you do what you do best. And you link to the rest. (Jeff Jarvis)

That is the new architecture of news.

Download ebooks on http://www.frenchtheory.com/ - See that post with different algorithms in metabole - See the journal French Metablog with today different posts -PHONEREADER Library - - Jean-Philippe Pastor

Savings with e-books

The economy is in the tank, and people are looking to cut costs any way they can. An Amazon Kindle pays for itself after the purchase of 20 or 30 books, then starts paying dividends. You save big on books, magazines and newspapers. These savings will grow even more attractive as the recession deepens !

Download ebooks on http://www.frenchtheory.com/ - See that post with different algorithms in metabole - See the journal French Metablog with today different posts -PHONEREADER Library - - Jean-Philippe Pastor

Licensing models: razors and blades

The problem with eBooks remains the content, and its licensing models.

Bookworm is a nice open source reader, but the question remains how big is its book library, and what are the terms under which you access the material?

The Amazon Kindle has found a niche because Amazon makes certain that channel is filled, with the books people want to read. Despite this success only 500,000 of the original Kindles were sold.
Compare that to the number of human readers and it’s clear that eBooks remain at the very front of the demand curve. We’re still with the gadget freaks and the hobbyists, not the mass market.
Before the mass market grabs any eBook reader, whether open source or not, the business model has to become acceptable to book readers, and comparable in value to real books. These eBooks must also become ubiquitous, as real books are.

The short version is we’re still focused on the razors, when we need to look at the blades.

Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for 30 years, a tech freelancer since 1983. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.

Email Dana Blankenhorn

Download ebooks on http://www.frenchtheory.com/ - See that post with different algorithms in metabole - See the journal French Metablog with today different posts -PHONEREADER Library - - Jean-Philippe Pastor

Amazon Kindle 2

Amazon is excited to introduce Amazon Kindle 2, the next generation wireless reading device.

With a sleek and thin design that makes Kindle 2 as thin as a typical magazine and lighter than a paperpack, the new Kindle has seven times more storage and now holds over 1,500 books. It has a longer battery life and faster page turns. An advanced display provides even crisper images and clearer text for an improved book-like reading experience. And Kindle 2 even reads to you, with “Read to Me”, our new Text to Speech feature.

With Kindle 2 we kept everything readers love about the original Kindle—the convenience of reading what you want, when you want it, the immediacy of getting a book wirelessly delivered in less than 60 seconds, and Kindle’s ability to “disappear” in your hands so you can get lost in the author’s words. We’re also excited to announce that the Kindle Store has over 230,000 ebooks available.

You can earn 10% in referral fees on Amazon Kindle 2! To link to directly to Kindle 2 and earn referral fees on the subsequent following purchases, use the following link format.

Let your readers know that Kindle 2 is available for pre-order starting today for $359 at http://www.amazon.com/gp/r.html?R=3A8MF42032MW4&C=PR7WP9DIS7C5&H=8gUxsPuYyXDP925VA6Omo9mvFuIA&T=C&U=http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00154JDAI/ref%3Dpe_1130_11277190 and will ship later this month . We also have a wide variety of Kindle accessories available, including new covers from Cole Haan, Patagonia, and Belkin and more.

Download ebooks on http://www.frenchtheory.com/ - See that post with different algorithms in metabole - See the journal French Metablog with today different posts -

PHONEREADER Library - - Jean-Philippe Pastor

Google and iPhone

Like reading on your mobile phone?

Well, Google just added 1.5 million books to your library, with the launch of a new mobile site that optimizes the text of Book Search’s public-domain (i.e., non-copyrighted) works for reading on your iPhone or Android device.

There are some drawbacks to the site right now. For one thing, since all of the texts consist of printed pages that were scanned using Google’s optical character recognition technology, there are inevitable errors — but if the text doesn’t seem right, you can view the scanned page itself. For another, you won’t be able to read any of the latest bestsellers, and by “latest” I mean anything from the last century. Finally, the iPhone interface doesn’t hold a candle to other iPhone eBook readers like Stanza — there’s too much vertical scrolling, and it’s hard to flip back and forth between pages. (Actually, Stanza-maker Lexcycle’s Neelan Choksi told me the company might sell versions of Stanza to which companies can add their own branding and content. Maybe Google should look into that.)

Basically, this is perfect if you happen to be “buying your postage” (to quote Google’s blog post) and want to read “Moby Dick.” Which happens all the time, right? Yeah, okay, so I’ll probably stick to reading shorter stuff on my phone, like the articles in my Google Reader.
Still, the fact that Google bothered to create this site is another sign that smartphones are becoming a viable format for eBook reading. The new version of the Kindle may not be threatened anytime soon, but as these applications get better, I think that’s going to change. I don’t need both an eBook reader and a smartphone anymore than I need an iPod and an iPhone. (Yes, I know some people have both, but they’re crazy.)

Download ebooks on http://www.frenchtheory.com/ - See that post with different algorithms in metabole - See the journal French Metablog with today different posts -
PHONEREADER Library - - Jean-Philippe Pastor

Kindle as a real success

Amazon sold 500,000 units of its Kindle ebook reader last year and could be on track to generate a $1.2 billion business from the device by 2010.That's the view from Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney. He's delved deep into the latest SEC filings from mobile operator Sprint, which has an EV-DO network used by Amazon to download content to the Kindle device.

Amazon has yet to say officially how many Kindles it has sold and will only say publicly that it's pleased with uptake.Mahaney's revenue figure is based on the public adopting Kindles at a similar rate to the very early days of Apple's iPod, with people buying at least one digital book a month.Last week rumours circulated that Amazon is going unveil version 2.0 of its ebook reader on February 9th.

Download ebooks on http://www.frenchtheory.com/ - See that post with different algorithms in metabole - See the journal French Metablog with today different posts -PHONEREADER Library - - Jean-Philippe Pastor

Words are things

With the development of print, Western culture moved even further away from a hearing dominated sensory world to one governed by sight.

More than writing, "print suggests that words are things" says Walter J. Ong's in his book Orality and Literacy. With the interiorization of this view writing/printing was no longer done with the intent to recycle knowledge back into the spoken world (as it was in, for example, Medieval university disputations); things were no longer necessarily written in order to be read out loud.

In addition, print embedded the word in space more absolutely than did writing . Through print, words become things that can be arranged on a page as they are in indexes, tables of content, lists and labels (an extreme example being the arrangement of w ords in the poetry of e.e. cummings).

Finally, Ong suggests that print encourages closure, a feeling of finality that was never present in, for example, oral storytelling.

Download ebooks on http://www.frenchtheory.com/ - See that post with different algorithms in metabole - See the journal French Metablog with today different posts -PHONEREADER Library - - Jean-Philippe Pastor

Ebooks with freebooks only

Electronic books (ebooks) are becoming more and more popular with Brits, says Hitwise.

Research by the company, which monitors trends on the Web, revealed that searches for the digital devices such as the Sony Reader and the Amazon Kindle, which allow users to read books in an electronic format, have increased by 100 percent since January last year.

The Sony Reader was the most-searched eBook, closely followed by Amazon's Kindle, which is not currently available in the UK, the Iliad and the Cybook.
Hitwise research director Robin Goad: "Searches have followed similar patterns in the US and UK. Interest has been building since September 2008 and there were peaks in November and December in the build-up to Christmas".

Goad also revealed that UK ebook users were keen to get their hands on free files to use on the devices.
"As you would expect, eBook searches are always on the look out for free stuff and the second-most popular search including the term 'ebooks' is 'free ebooks'."

Download ebooks on http://www.frenchtheory.com/ - See that post with different algorithms in metabole - See the journal French Metablog with today different posts -PHONEREADER Library - - Jean-Philippe Pastor

Ebook e-distribution

Arthur Attwell


Ebook distribution and the problems of aggregation

The internet, and particularly the ebook industry, is littered with debates about aggregation and monopoly, and in many of those debates the two concepts are confused. Let’s be clear: aggregation is good, monopoly is bad.

For instance, a serious discussion is finally emerging over the Google Books settlement, a discussion that recognises the value of Google’s aggregation of book content and warns about the dangers of giving Google a monopoly over the control of that content, thereby potentially corrupting power (Tim O’Reilly gathers some of the best discussions on O’Reilly Radar, and Chris Castle is interesting in The Register). What are aggregation, monopoly and power in this context?

Google already pretty much controls Search on the internet, and Search is right now the key to power online. The usefulness of Search is a combination of massive aggregation of content and the ability to return good results to the searcher. Google runs this show not only because you and I use Searches to find what we’re looking for, but because every time we search for something, our search gets recorded, forming over time an immense dataset of people’s interests and contexts, often tied to individual users’ online identities. That dataset is then analysed and sold on in the form of contextual advertising, individualised search results, trend analysis and other kinds of analytics. By searching, we’re adding to Google’s brain, it’s knowledge of us as individuals and as a culture. As Kevin Kelly put it in his TED Talks presentation “Predicting the next 5,000 days of the web” in 2007: “who is searching who?” When everyone is using Google, our searches are microscopic components of a much greater view of the world, gathered in Google’s eye. When I search, I’m Frodo putting on the ring, Sauron suddenly alive to my whereabouts. Because of its massive ability to aggregate content and searches for it, Google has immense power. (So far, thankfully, it has no Nazgûl to unleash. I don’t think it will under its current management, but discussions like the one over the Google Books settlement aim to keep that door closed just in case.)

Google does not, however, have a monopoly. It leads Search because no one else does search as well as Google does it, but Yahoo and Microsoft and others do get a little piece of the pie, and no one’s stopping them from trying for more.
So now Google is adding books to its searchable content and therefore the usage stats from book searches to its brain. The settlement adds a new dimension to this: Google will be involved one way or another in the sale of the books listed in its searches as ebooks and perhaps eventually printed formats too. Much of the discussion around the Google Books settlement is about whether the settlement grants Google too much power by law, where till now its power has largely been earned by its ability to aggregate and filter content well. (For instance, the settlement may give Google undue influence over the book registry whose creation the settlement mandates, and in theory Google could list certain books higher in its search results, in relation to Google’s commercial stake in their sale.) Power granted by law starts looking like a monopoly. The settlement must allow for aggregation, but avoid granting any kind of monopoly.
We like aggregation, even if it leads to one company having a lot of power. In print books, Amazon is effectively the greatest aggregator of content and, as such, offers us a one-stop search for most books. iTunes offers the same for music. A one-stop search is not only useful, it’s critical, because in online retail, convenience and speed are half the value you’re selling. The value of aggregation is often worth the risk of corruptible power. But monopoly, imposed by law, is hard to break down and leads to slack business practices. Monopoly is less common in software and online than in physical goods and, when it emerges it’s often stamped out before long (the best example is perhaps the EU’s tough stance on Microsoft’s bundling Internet Explorer with Windows).

A monopoly of any sort in ebooks would be terrible, even if run by Google, the internet’s benevolent dictator. But the ebook industry desperately needs real aggregation. Ebook distribution is highly fragmented, despite the presence of large distributors like Ingram and OverDrive or distributor-retailers like Ebooks.com. As a user, I cannot go to one ebook store and know with any measure of certainty that I’ll find the book I’m looking for. This means that ebook shopping is all browsing-based shopping: browse around till something looks interesting, then maybe buy it. Online shopping, however, is about instant gratification, about search–find–buy in three clicks: no one has time to browse about any more.
Why has this happened? This are several contributing factors and I’m doubtless going to forget some in this list:

Problem: Distributors of ebooks make it expensive for retailers to list their ebooks. By expensive I mean they often charge set-up fees, in addition to a cut of sales. This (a) forces retailers to choose between distributors, at least when starting out, and (b) discourages small start-ups from entering the bookselling market. Solution: We need more automation in the distribution process, something like an open API for retailers to list and sell a distributor’s ebooks. It’s only a matter of time before a distributor drops the retailer set-up fee and provides a quick self-help facility for low-tech retailers, and in so doing encourages a surge in small ebook retailers with instant catalogues. (Interestingly, this is more or less possible already for print books, using a combination of wholesale book suppliers and Amazon’s Marketplace Sellers.)

Problem: Distributors are naively hoping they can become the Amazon or iTunes of ebooks, centralising ebook aggregation to themselves. As long as they’re battling over market share like this, they cannot allow just anyone to sell their ebooks (recently, OverDrive pulled its catalogue from retailer Fictionwise for reasons still unknown but much speculated about). Distributors end up in camps that hamper an end user’s ability to find and buy the ebooks they want. Solution: see point 1.

Problem: Publishers are too concerned about protecting their content with DRM (digital rights management), seemingly oblivious to the music industry’s hard learning experience. DRM adds to distributors’ costs and is almost always detrimental to customers. Publishers’ obsession with security (as opposed to convenience for customers) also forces distributors to gate keep (often with retail set-up fees or laborious registration processes), so that they can monitor the conduct of a manageable number of retailers. Solution: follow Pan Macmillan’s example and start dropping DRM.

Problem: In these early days of digitisation (early for book publishers at least), digitisation companies and distributors often make more money from services to publishers than from ebook sales, so their attention is not focused on competing for end-user ebook buyers. Solution: This is a teething issue and a chicken-and-egg situation: further aggregation of ebook catalogues, easier ebook-buying processes, standardised formats, and inevitable changes in reading habits will create more competition for ebook sales.
Problem: A plethora of ebook formats makes it hard to provide a one-stop shop. Solution: Thankfully the format wars look solved, with only PDF and epub left standing. The next step is solving the DRM debate (or admitting that it’s already over).

The raw power of Google, or an ebook Amazon or iTunes, would provide a useful centralised aggregator of ebooks and would go some way towards solving these problems. But the solutions would come far more easily if we could decentralise aggregation. By this I mean that publishers and distributors could make it possible for anyone to list and sell their books: if anyone could open an online retail store and instantly sell ebooks from any savvy distributor – no set-up fees or overnight processes involved – then we wouldn’t need Google for most of our ebook purchases. All retailers would carry almost all ebooks. And a retail store’s usefulness, and therefore its success, would be determined not by its catalogue but by the convenience and support it offered its customers.

Download ebooks on http://www.frenchtheory.com/ - See that post with different algorithms in metabole - See the journal French Metablog with today different posts -
PHONEREADER Library - - Jean-Philippe Pastor

Mobile readers

Uing the T-Mobile G1 as an eBook reader

by Chris Gampat posted on January 27, 2009 11:39 am

Recently, a company name atrus123 started to release eBooks for the G1 via the Android App Market. I downloaded Dracula and Alice in Wonderland the other day for a test drive to see how they work and how the G1 functions as an eBook reader.

The G1 works out to be an excellent e-book reader on low power settings providing that you keep your finger on the screen and read fast (or set it to not time out.) The text looks great, even better than E-Ink. Users may set the size of the text depending on their preference. With a dimmed screen, text is still very readable.

Users can always keep their power management settings optimized for reading, but their battery may not last long enough to do other things like making a call. In this case, turning off Wifi, 3G, Bluetooth, and GPS could work to the user’s advantage.

Turning pages is as easy as flicking your finger across the arrows along the bottom of the screen. There is even a sound built in for pages being turned. This can be turned on or off. Don’t flick through pages too quickly though as the app may crash your G1 or make it force quit.
Unfortunately, there isn’t a way to turn the page without using the touchscreen although scrolling through pages can be done with the ball. Users will get a different experience opening up the keyboard and reading the books horizontally. It’s not quite as nice as reading it vertically, but it does allow a user to pause for a longer period of time without having to scroll down often.
Whenever you exit the app and restart the book, you can immediately pick back up from where you were as the app remembers where you left off. This is nice when you need to switch back and forth between IMs, email, or browsing the web if you’d like to look a word up. If not, the books have a table of contents and you can select whatever page you would like to view. Additionally, users can share their opinions about the book with other users.
It’s not all perfect though, the app can be slow to load at times and also can be laggy. Android may also force quit the app at any time for no real reason.

It is extremely pleasing to use the G1 as an eBook reader though, if it is plugged in then users can get even more power to their screen without having to worry about draining battery.
I’m not sure if this is a problem with the touchscreen or the app, but sometimes scrolling through a page can be a pain to do. The app (or the screen) doesn’t always seem to be very responsive. My guess would be that it is the app as it can be faulty at times.
The main drawback to using your G1 as an eBook reader is (as I’ve mentioned) battery drainage. It isn’t terrible, but if you’re using the power manager app you’ll steadily start to see the power level go down.

There are only three eBooks out at the time of writing this article for the G1: Dracula, Alice in Wonderland, and Call of the Wild. All of these books are public domain, so that means that more public domain titles should be coming to the G1. As far as other books go, we have yet to see if they will be available for download in the App Market as the market only allows for free downloads.

Download ebooks on http://www.frenchtheory.com/ - See that post with different algorithms in metabole - See the journal French Metablog with today different posts -PHONEREADER Library - - Jean-Philippe Pastor

2009 Year of the eBook

Is 2009 finally the year that the eBook comes of age?

For too long it has been regarded as the spotty faced upstart but now with slicker software and greater distribution channels it appears to have finally grown up.

Caffeine Nights Publishing is pleased to announce the publication of its first eBook. Tripping is now available in electronic format and available to download from www.cnpublishing.co.uk and a number of Internet bookstores. Caffeine Nights Publishing have used the latest page turning software for their eBooks to give the reader as real an experience as they can have while reading from a screen.
The publication in this format follows the Kent based company's announcement last year that their books will be available later this year to download direct to mobile phones. Darren E Laws, author of Tripping, is excited with the prospect of these digital editions. 'I am pleased that we are being innovative with our books and looking at new delivery platforms. It does seem that 2009 might well be the year eBooks finally come of age and be accepted in the mainstream. More and more people know of devices such as the Kindle from Amazon and Sony's eReader, and the technology available now to make eBooks is definitely bringing another level of experience to readers everywhere. Multimedia aspects such as video and audio/mp3 files will broaden the whole book reading experience.

'One of the key benefits eBooks brings is also an environmental bonus with trees being spared the axe and thousands of road miles of transportation being removed from the equation. eBooks also bring a price benefit and in these times of economic worry readers can still subscribe to their favourite authors at a fraction of the price as many eBook are up to 50% cheaper than their paper equivalent. Many publishers are also offering parts of the books for free as tasters.Tripping is now available for only £3.99 with the first 30 pages free-ENDS-Caffeine Nights PublishingBased in Kent and publishing contemporary and crime fiction. We aim to make you laugh, thrill you, scare you, have you on the edge of your seat with your fingers gripping the pages tightly, but most of all, we want to entertain you with fiction aimed at the heart and the head-

Editorial Enquiries for Caffeine Nights Publishing & Darren Lawsinfo@cnpublishing.co.ukwww.cnpublishing.co.

Download ebooks on http://www.frenchtheory.com/ - See that post with different algorithms in metabole - See the journal French Metablog with today different posts -

PHONEREADER Library - - Jean-Philippe Pastor

iPhone once again

Shortcovers to make an ebook reader out of iPhone

Shortcovers is a division of the Indigo Books & Music based in Canada.

The company has announced that they are soon going to launch their application on the Apple App Store which would enable the iPhone users to read books on their mobile devices.
The application would provide access to content such as books, short stories and other written works.

The app would be free. The company aims to generate by charging 99 cents a chapter. The first chapter of these books would be free to let the user device which ones are worth reading.
The company said: “People aren’t reading less, they are reading differently. Their attention spans are shorter.”

Download ebooks on http://www.frenchtheory.com/ - See that post with different algorithms in metabole - See the journal French Metablog with today different posts -
PHONEREADER Library - - Jean-Philippe Pastor