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 [...]
The biggest threat to local bookstores? Crazy booksellers and their fanboys
Last week, Amazon tried to train consumers to openly treat local retail stores as showrooms for Amazon merchandise. It was a ballsy but ethically shaky move; I believe customers who participated helped Amazon steal resources and sales from competitors for very little compensation. It was, at the very least, retail dirty pool. But then—even though [...]
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 [...]
Set public domain content free from locked PDF files
Lately I’ve been digging around online to find old genre short stories written in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In many cases it’s clear that the works have passed into the public domain, at least here in the U.S., but in other cases there’s a questionable copyright claim, as when a modern publisher slaps [...]
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 [...]
New Kindle weather website launches, competes with other browser utilities
I got an email from Kindle Weather Station this morning, a new service in beta that offers a full screen weather report (via the experimental browser) for your neighborhood. The good news is the weather is presented in a huge, easy-to-read layout that I find quite useful. The other news—maybe not “bad” but not necessarily [...]
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 [...]
SF Gateway launches ebook store for classic sci-fi and fantasy
If you’re a hardcore sci-fi or fantasy reader, be sure to check out the newly opened SF Gateway website at http://www.sfgateway.com/. At present, there are over fifty authors represented (see full author list here), with more to come over time. That’s the good news. The bad news is that those old print-biased territorial restrictions have [...]
Pottermore delayed; no Harry Potter ebooks until 2012
The team behind Pottermore—the official Harry Potter website and online community—made a few announcements this morning that will disappoint those die hard fans who have been waiting expectantly for access to the site and the official ebooks. Phased access starting in late October In a blog post on Pottermore Insider, they refined their original “opening [...]
Amazon Silk, or Amazon Browses the Web So You Don’t Have To
The Kindle Fire doesn’t come with a normal web browser, but with something Amazon is calling Amazon Silk, which is Amazon’s attempt at improving page rendering speed, browser responsiveness, and hardware limitations. Amazon has launched a blog about Amazon Silk, but so far the blog just displays a PR-written post and a Googlefied “here’s how [...]