Get your downloading finger ready: this weekend is your last chance to take advantage of Kaplan’s big January ebook promotion, where over 100 books on higher education and specialty subjects like nursing and law are being offered to readers for free, in multiple formats. You can check out the titles on the Kindle Store, or [...]
books
Why it’s sometimes good for writers to build on each other’s work
Yesterday I spent most of the afternoon writing out my idea for how fanfic and other writers could theoretically use digital technology to bypass copyright roadblocks. What inspired me was the recent story about an unauthorized sequel to “The Catcher in the Rye” that Salinger managed to quash in the U.S. before his death. Now [...]
Is a Kindle bullet proof? There’s one quick way to find out.
“Can a book save your life?” That’s what Tom Shillue of the literary journal Electric Literature asks in the clip above, and you can tell he should be taken very seriously because he does that TV news journalist walk toward the camera at the beginning. (EL’s next clip should test which books are sexual predators.) [...]
Kindle users already forming community lending libraries
There are days when I love the Internet. It’s been less than 24 hours since Amazon rolled out ebook lending, and already there are half a dozen places online where you can lend and borrow Kindle titles with complete strangers. I imagine some Kindle owners would balk at public lending, either because they want to [...]
Kobo has another 50% off code for today
Today at Kobo you can use the promo code “Holiday50″ to take 50% off the price of any single title from a collection of nearly 200. It’s not quite the same selection as what they offered earlier this month–Jennifer Egan’s “A Visit from the Goon Squad” has disappeared, for example. Still, there are some good [...]
My favorite childhood book of all time is now an iPad app
[And now a quick interruption from Kindle posts...] In my opinion, there is one book that surpasses all others in children’s literature, and it involves Grover insisting that you do not turn the page. In fact, that’s pretty much all it is, page after page. And although I’m being a little jokey about saying it’s [...]
A reminder that not everyone likes to receive a book for a gift
That Kindle holiday ad now running on U.S. television warms me like a cup of hot chocolate, but I suspect it’s something of a Christmas miracle. For contrast: Once, while I was working at a mortgage company back in college (this was before the industry destroyed America–we actually verified incomes), I was forced to participate [...]
Jane Austen sale extended another day, says publisher
“We tried, we screwed up, we’re sorry,” writes Dominique on the Sourcebooks blog, in reference to yesterday’s Jane Austen promo that apparently didn’t go as planned. You can read her full post if you want an inside look at how hard it is to pull off a widespread ebook event in today’s market, but the [...]
Lots of free Jane Austen stuff, but only for today
If you’re a Jane Austen fan or know someone with a Kindle who is, make sure you take advantage of this short-term Austen sale on the Kindle Store. But hurry, because it looks like most of these deals are for today only in honor of her birthday. (I’m sorry I’m just now posting about it–I [...]
Kobo holding 50% off ebook sale today
Update – 3pm ET: Kobo’s description of the sale has changed since this morning when it first went live. Now the retailer explicitly states that you can use the coupon code for one title only, not for multiple titles. It’s still an okay deal, but nowhere near as post-worthy as earlier, since Kobo frequently tosses [...]
Author Warren Adler adds 5 new novels to Kindle store, promotes short story contest anthology
This morning, Amazon and author Warren Adler co-announced the release of five previously unpublished novels as Kindle exclusives. Adler is probably most famous for “The War of the Roses”, which was made into a moderately successful Hollywood film in 1989. The new books are exclusive to Amazon but available in paperback as well as Kindle [...]
Why are big publishers ignoring interactive picture books?
Yesterday Scholastic listed 10 trends in children’s lit for 2010, and #6 is in alignment with an October New York Times article on the decline in picture books. From the Scholastic list: “Publishers are publishing about 25 to 30 percent fewer picture book titles than they used to.” From the Times article: “Picture books are [...]