Don’t get too excited by the news that Apple has revised its license agreement for iBooks Author. The terms remain exactly the same; they’re just more explicit now.
ebooks
Why social reading apps are doomed to fail
I’ve been testing out some social reading apps on the iPad in recent weeks, and while I hope to post something more in-depth in the near future, I read some items today that corroborate a general disappointment I’ve been feeling. Too many restrictions About a week ago, a study about ebook buying and reading habits [...]
The Atavist: publish to any format you like
It’s not released to the public yet, but longform epublisher The Atavist is putting the final touches on a free version of its conversion tool, which will enable authors to publish to a variety of platforms at once without being tied to any one company’s overly restrictive fine print. (Yes, that’s a jab at iBooks [...]
Apple gives book creators beautiful, golden handcuffs
Today Apple raised the bar on interactive textbook publishing, with the introduction of a revamped iBooks app for the iPad and a free textbook publishing app for the Mac. If you’ve got an iPad, a fairly new Mac, and a big pile o’ knowledge to share with the world, you can now create a really [...]
Eleven free Philip K. Dick short stories
You might not think that the sci-fi author Philip K. Dick, whose brain twisting stories seem to end up as Hollywood movies every couple of years, would have anything in the public domain (he died in 1982), but Project Gutenberg has eleven short stories that are legally free to all, at least in the U.S. [...]
Here’s how a local bookseller tried to get my future business
In my recent counter-tirade against the emotional outbursts that booksellers are frequently guilty of when they should be discussing retail strategies, I mentioned that the last time I contacted a local bookstore to offer feedback on what I want as a customer, I was ignored. I thought it might be nice to publish that email [...]
eReaderIQ improves Kindle deal alert service with new filters and categories
Two days ago I noticed something new in the daily email I get from eReaderIQ. Actually, I noticed a couple of new things. The first was that suddenly the books were being organized according to genre, which makes it a lot easier to skim. The second was this notice at the bottom: I clicked through [...]
How to convert the entire Skyrim canon into a single ebook
If you’ve ever spent any time in the game Skyrim—or its predecessors Oblivion or Morrowind—you’ve probably noticed how insanely detailed the legends, histories, and religious traditions can be, and not just for a game but for any sort of fantasy entertainment. What makes this detailed world-building even more striking, from a game level, is that [...]
Stanza updated! Now works on iOS 5
Clearly I was too pessimistic last week when I wrote about the death of Stanza, the ebook reader app that stopped working on Apple devices with the release of iOS 5. Earlier today an updated version of Stanza was released, and the app now works again. I take back what I wrote in that earlier [...]
Learn write more better from book teachings without money
Oh man, I really should have read these free writing guides before I tried to craft my own headline. Now I just feel stupid. Actually, I feel like an SEO rebel, because from what I hear, writing a nonsensical headline is tantamount to Google search result suicide. Oh well! Someday I’ll learn write more better! [...]
Alternatives to Stanza on iOS
Update: Forget all of this! Stanza delivered a surprise update to the Apple app store on November 10th, 2011, that restored functionality on iOS 5. But only update if you need to: this latest version breaks the app if you’re running an older iOS like 4.3 (thanks to Paula for pointing that out in the [...]