Penelope Lively's recent short ebook for Penguin drew criticism for its brevity – but readers should not be put off the genre as a whole"Overpriced", "ridiculous", I feel cheated". Amazon reviewers haven't been wholly positive about a digital short Penelope Lively has written for Penguin Specials. On the evidence of the story itself, it's not Lively's fault. Abroad is about a pair of art students who travel to 1950s Spain in search of picturesque peasants and are disappointed when they don't live up to expectations. It's funny and evocative of a time when rural Europe was still exotic.It also peters out after just 4,000 words, so I sympathise with anyone who felt ripped off by its £1.99 price tag. These days you can buy two whole novels for that. The sad fact is, publishers don't make any money if an ebook costs less than £1.99. Amazon does, because singles are the literary equivalent of a gateway drug.This was brought home to me on finishing Susan Hill's latest effort, Printer's Devil Court (99p), a haunting tale about pre-second world war medical students who experiment with resurrection. More substantial than Lively's, it's a great, old-fashioned ghost story, whose chilling impact was somewhat undermined by turning the final page to find Amazon ordering me to rate, review, tweet, Facebook and buy more books by Susan Hill. Was the ebook I'd enjoyed little more than a trailer?Singles are a clever marketing tool. But it would be a shame if readers short-changed by one... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2013-11-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
Are you ready for a bombshell? Turns out people who read ebooks read more books than those don't. That tidbit comes from the number crunchers at Pew. According to a new report titled "The Rise of E-Reading," the ebook readers read an average of 24 books in the past year, versus the 15 books read... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2012-04-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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One in five American adults read an electronic book in the last year, as gift-giving sped the shift away from the printed page, a Pew Research Center survey showed on Wednesday. Continue reading at Baltimore Sun
[ Baltimore Sun | 2012-04-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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E-books are catching on quickly, with more than one in five U.S. adults having read an electronic book in the last year. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2012-04-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Justice Department is nearing a settlement with publishers over allegations of ebook pricing, but finalizing the deal is proving problematic as Apple and two publishers are balking at the terms of the deal. Amazon will be permitted to once again discount ebooks to its customers as a result.... Continue reading at Betanews
[ Betanews | 2012-04-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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One in five Americans say they've read an ebook in the last year, according to a new poll from the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project. Those numbers come from a late January survey, they're up sharply from a December 2011 survey. Pew says the jump coincides with a jump in... Continue reading at AllThingsD
[ AllThingsD | 2012-04-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Buenas noticias para todos los amantes de los libros que viven en Estados Unidos. Amazon acaba de anunciar una nueva tienda llamada eBooks Kindle en Español. El nuevo servicio dará acceso a más de 33,000 libros que se podrán leer en los diferentes dispositivos Kindle. Esta biblioteca virtual... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2012-04-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Australia and India have joined the UK and the US as world leaders in ebook adoption rates,... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-03-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Hunger Games may have had a heck of an opening weekend, but let's not forget who the top box office spot belongs to: a certain bespectacled boy wizard. Roughly a decade and half after the publication of the first book in the series -- and after several months of promises -- the ultra-popular... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2012-03-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The "Harry Potter" series, which has conquered mediums from books to movies, is finally available in ebook format. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2012-03-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Harry Potter ebooks will go on sale exclusively from the Pottermore website from midday... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-03-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Mobiles24 has removed all ebooks from its website after Hachette UK obtained a court order... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-03-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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An advisory body to the French prime minister has predicted that ebooks are about to shake up... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-03-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Publishers Association is calling for the government to abolish the 20% VAT rate on ebooks... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-03-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Evanston, IL—Agate Publishing Inc., the Evanston, Illinois-based independent press, has entered into a partnership with the Chicago Tribune to produce ebooks created from Chicago Tribune-owned content. The ebooks will appear as pa ... Continue reading at Editor & Publisher
[ Editor & Publisher | 2012-03-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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By encouraging readers to tackle longer, more sophisticated novels, the queen of daytime TV may have hurt overall fiction sales. Continue reading at The Atlantic
[ The Atlantic | 2012-03-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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South Korean novelist Kyung-sook Shin has won the 2011 Man Asian Literary Prize, becoming the... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-03-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Steve Jobs left behind a legal mess for Apple chief executive Tim Cook. Decisions the former CEO made when brokering ebook distribution deals haunt Apple, as a civil price-fixing case moves forward and the specter of a federal antitrust investigation approaches. Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates... Continue reading at Betanews
[ Betanews | 2012-03-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Authors Guild President Scott Turow charges in an open letter about ebook pricing: “Our government may be on the verge of killing real competition in order to save the appearance of competition.” Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2012-03-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Chatto & Windus has acquired a collection of short stories by Nigerian author A Igoni Barrett... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-03-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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European Union antitrust chief Joaquin Almunia says that the Competition Commission is open to a settlement with publishers in the increasingly high-profile ebook price fixing case, but only if the companies address key regulatory issues. Almunia says regulators are coordinating with the Justice... Continue reading at Betanews
[ Betanews | 2012-03-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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