Now that that the iPad announcement excitement (and screams of “I lost sound, do you have sound?” from across the office) have died down, let’s take a look at the iPad as an e-reader.
iPad, iBooks, iAwesome?
As some of you may have heard, Apple had their big tablet announcement today. What? Apple tablet announcement? Crazy, I know. And, no, Steve Jobs didn’t ride out on a unicorn as we all (ok, maybe only the BookNetters) had hoped.
Here’s a breakdown of the details plus a more extensive look at the ebook element.
Bookselling Innovation That Will Save the Industry
EBooks, eReaders and eBooksellers are all the rage in publishing reporting. Amazon announces that Christmas Day 2009 was the first Christmas where eBooks outsold their print counterparts. Kobo announces a new global strategy.
Robert Wheaton 2009 in Review: The Big Three
Robert Wheaton is a Director for Inventory Management at Indigo Books & Music Inc. He contributes to http://www.datachondria.com Datachondria and can be found online at http://www.rjwheaton.com
Mark Leslie Lefebvre 2009 in Review: Plus ça Change, Plus c'est la Même Chose
Mark Leslie Lefebvre is a blogger, a writer and an innovative bookseller at McMaster University. There’s a rumour going around that he also plays a mean jazz flute.
Consumer Book Trends 2009: Get It While It's Hot
Employee of the Month
Adam Hodgkin of Exact Editions has an insightful blog post that ties in the mythic Apple tablet with App store as bookstore business model. In light of that I thought if that happens then inevitably they will need a robot to help shelve the books—preferably one that can jump stacks and stacks of unpacked inventory and returns! Behold Kyoto-based Robo Garage has unveiled Ropid [JP] today, a mini robot that runs on two legs and can jump as high as 8cm:
New Publishing Business Model #8: Gamers Become Readers
While it’s not exactly a new thing for publishers to publish game manuals (whether of the video variety or other, like Magic: The Gathering which all the SUPER-cool kids were really into when I was growing up and, frankly some of my friends kind of still are), the game (punny!) changes when big entertainment companies like Nintendo start opening up shop within bookstores.
B&N Officially Joins E-Reader Race
After the announcement earlier this summer of the new Barnes and Noble eBookstore, it was only a matter of time before a device partnership was made formal.
Shortcovers Introduces EPUB Conversion Program
Shortcovers has entered the eBook conversion game. Last week, the eBookseller announced that they will help publishers get their books ready for digital consumption no matter what format they are currently in (PDF, Quark, InDesign, .doc, .rtf—whatever).
