eBook Suggestion of the Month: The Battle of $9.99

Looking for an educational, fascinating read on how the E-Book industry has revolutionized our reading an purchasing habits?  We suggest The Battle of $9.99:  How Apple, Amazon, and the Big Six Publishers Changed the E-Book Business Overnight by Andrew Richard Albanese. 

Free E-Book Promo on Smashwords During July

Yes, you can believe it. Pigs do fly (for a limited time).

eBook formats on SmashWords.com:

• My Inflatable Friend - EPUB, iPad, and Sony Reader download
• Rubber Babes EPUB, iPad, and Sony ebook versions

Pre-Christmas E-Reader Wars Heat Up

See also: It's Going To Be an E-Reader Christmas



Sony Reader is now (finally) running a consumer-oriented TV ad, and the NY Times reported yesterday on the iRex launch. You can bet Amazon will hype Kindle to the max in the coming weeks, along with its promotion of the Kindle 3 large format in the college textbook market.

Apple is conspicuously absent, although you can use apps like Stanza to read ebooks on your iPhone. But that's hardly a competitive strategy for Apple. I'm betting they come out with a docking screen for some or all of the iPod models.

I decided to join the club and beefed up my membership and presence on ebook distribution service Smashwords.com, which supports open-source EPUB and Sony LRF, as well as lots of the other formats.

And then of course there's the proliferation of more general-purpose netbooks, palmtops, PDAs, and tablets. (See Maggie Ball's previously posted article on this blog.)

I'm thinking a big consideration for ebook buyers should be the long-term cost of buying content. Prices of ebooks vary widely, but many Amazon Kindle versions are advertised at just under ten bucks. Lots of Smashwords EPUB versions range from free to a buck or two, although bestsellers typically cost more. Then too, there's the public domain library offered by Project Gutenberg, where everything is both free and about a hundred years old. But if you're looking for Charles Dickens rather than Dan Brown, you can find him and thousands of other famous authors there in EPUB, HTML, and "plain-text" formats.

My Inflatable Friend and Rubber Babes, the first two books in the Rollo Hemphill series of comic novels, have been available in Amazon Kindle, Mobipocket (PDA), and Adobe PDF (Ingram) formats since the day they came out in paperback.

I'm jumping into the other formats now on Smashwords by offering Rubber Babes for $1.99 in EPUB, Sony LRF, and a variety of other non-DRM versions.

Ebook sales (and free downloads) seem to be taking off. For example, I just read today that a healthy percentage, if not a huge one, of The Lost Symbol sales have been ebooks. Perhaps the dominant business models. platforms, and formats in this new marketplace will now emerge, and quite soon.

Kindle the Yule Log and Ignite Rollo's e-Life!

I notice that Amazon.com has released a Kindle version of My Inflatable Friend, something that I did not expect but am thrilled to see. It's lonely on the bleeding edge, but hey. I have often said (and written in various blog posts) that an iPod for books is long overdue. And I don't mean as a replacement for the sweet smell of paper and ink, either. But it's sure to be a real boon to students or travelers who hate lugging backpacks full of textbooks or guidebooks. So that's ease of storage, for starters, something iPod users now take for granted.

Not to mention that e-books are also much cheaper and easier to obtain than traditional books. Many is the time I've departed for a business trip and searched in vain at the airport bookstore (or not had the time to browse) for something to read. With that Kindle wi-fi link (Whispernet, they call it), I stand to be instantly gratified (at least, to the extent that any reading material can satisfy my longings).

However, I don't own a Kindle yet (are you listening, Santa?). So I'm really curious how my product looks, displayed on theirs.

So I will offer a NOT INCONSIDERABLE PRIZE of Rollo Hemphill memorabilia -- personalized and shipped to you promptly at my expense -- to the first person who e-mails me at mailto:inflatable@lapuerta.tv that you've downloaded Rollo's adventure onto your new Kindle.

Come now -- you don't want him to unwrap his new Kindle only to find Merriam Webster inside!



Kindle Version ASIN:B000NY14KI My Inflatable Friend: The Confessions of Rollo Hemphill