We briefly mentioned The Reading Room back in April as an alternative to Goodreads. It’s closely resembles Goodreads, a popular social reading site bought by Amazon last month. The company is changing how it does some things. The Reading Room will now offer print brooks for sale, starting June 1, along with e-books that were already available on its site. “By combining the power of social networking with carefully curated content, recommendations and featured selections, and the ability to buy eBooks and soon print titles in the U.S. (followed later by other parts of the world), readers can now discover books much in...

Tartarus Press is "a small, British independent press founded in 1990. We specialise in collectable hardback limited editions of literary supernatural/strange/horror fiction, and we also publish paperbacks and ebooks. We have been the recipient of three World Fantasy Awards, and in 2010 received a Stoker from the Horror Writers Association." TeleRead recently spoke to Tartarus co-editor and co-publisher Ray Russell about the press's e-publishing program, and how it fits with the rest of its business. TeleRead: You sell your e-books off your own site, in EPUB and Kindle/Mobi format, without DRM. What decided you on that policy? Ray Russell: Tartarus has always been about publishing...

After long campaigns carrying the fight for e-books to the print-only diehards, I’d like to turn back for once to something that can never be put into electronic format and will forever remain print. And for very good reasons. And yet it had to wait over a century until 2004 before appearing in the form its author originally wanted. And it is available online. The work is Un coup de Dés (A Throw of the Dice) , or in full, Un coup de Dés jamais n'abolira le Hasard (A Throw of the Dice Will Never Abolish Chance), French Symbolist poet Stéphane...

Wow, talk about a surprise in my Feedly this morning. From Reuters: In an unusual move before a trial, a federal judge expressed a tentative view that the U.S. Justice Department will be able to show evidence that Apple Inc engaged in a conspiracy with publishers to increase e-book prices. I know what my personal opinions are on the case, based on what I've read in the media so far, and so, yeah, I agree with Judge Cote, but my opinion doesn't matter at all, and I'm thinking this could come back to bite us later. She did go on to say it...

Noted GigaOM staff writer Laura Hazard Owen has just run a piece in paidContent on Open Road Media, the pioneering all-digital publishing house founded in 2009, also picked up here in TeleRead. After my previous pieces on the marketing and promotional firepower now being directed at e-publishing, I decided to take a closer look at Open Road. [caption id="attachment_85647" align="alignright" width="180"] Jane Friedman, Open Road's CEO[/caption] First off, Open Road is no woolly, wide-eyed startup. Jane Friedman, co-founder and CEO of Open Road, was formerly “President and Chief Executive Officer of HarperCollins Publishers Worldwide, one of the world's leading English-language publishers and a subsidiary of...

10 Steps to Creating a Book Based on Your Blog (Media Shift) I recently self-published an e-book based on my blog, and I want to share what I learned. This post focuses on the editorial process; in subsequent posts, I’ll share tips on coming up with a design for your e-book cover, choosing a publishing platform (I went with Kindle, for now) and marketing your e-book. --- Clayton Christensen Takes Closer Look at How Online Learning will Disrupt K-12 Education (GigaOM) A new study from disruptive economics guru Clayton Christensen’s think tank gives more clarity into how online learning could shape the future of education. --- Digital Tools for Crime Writers...

Just in case you've been living under a rock, yesterday Amazon announced Kindle Worlds, otherwise know as authorized, paid fan fiction (sort of). In response to one of my comments on that post, our own Joanna Cabot linked me to John Scalzi's initial thoughts on the move. I have tons of respect for Scalzi, and I agreed with much of what he said, especially with his opinions of the contract terms (which kind of suck). I didn't agree with quite everything, though. In response to a comment, Scalzi expressed a reasonable concern for how the move will affect fandom communities, and to...

Laura Hazard Owen of paidContent brings us this great story about Open Road Media, an e-only publisher that specializes in backlist republications of titles which were not yet available in e-book form. Along with the history lesson on the history of this unique publisher, the article offers six 'lessons' other publishers can learn from what Open Road has done. The lessons include having a marketing plan, playing nice with retail partners, using video for effective promotion, being flexible to changes in the market and in the marketing plan, and knowing when to use good ol' paper. From the article: “The speed of what’s happened...

As reported in The Guardian, the UK and U.S. poetry communities have been seriously upset by a fresh case of plagiarism unearthed online, when British career poet David R. Morgan was found to have copied work from American poet Charles O. Hartman and many others, including apparently Roger McGough. Internet postings of the verse were crucial to the exposure. The Guardian article quotes Northumbria-based poet Ira Lightman, who did much of the online detective work, at length on the value of uploading poetry for cross-comparison. "Put it all online," he told me. "Everyone will be checking for plagiarism soon." Why plagiarize poetry?...

One of the best ways to learn as a writer is to study the work of other writers. And one of the best ways to learn as an entrepreneur is to study other entrepreneurs. So who should you learn from if you are an author who wants to not just write, but sell? Here are three authors whose blogs should be must-reads for you. These authors blog in an engaging, realistic way about not just the craft of writing, but the business side of it too. In no particular order... 1. J.A. Konrath (http://jakonrath.blogspot.ca/) Konrath's blog, affably titled 'A Newbie's Guide to Publishing,'...

13 Lessons from Killing Our College Daily Newspaper and Going Digital (Media Shift) In the seven months since that party, the Revolution has worked in most of the ways we can measure. But we also see flaws yet to be fixed and lessons yet to be learned from our college peers. Here’s more on the results, the lessons and the future of the Revolution. --- Kobo Suspends Google Affiliate and Switches to Rakuten Linkshare (Good e-Reader) Affiliate programs are very popular with booksellers, indie bookstores, authors and online websites. Kobo has been running theirs for a number of years and allows people to earn a...

I'm still loving my Nook HD, and it has become my go-to device. I only use my Nexus 7 for app testing that requires either Jelly Bean or working with widgets. Since the HD goes with me everywhere, I needed a case, and I found a really inexpensive one on Amazon. The Poetic Slimline Portfolio case adds very little bulk to the HD, but it protects it from bumping around in a backpack while still giving access to all ports and buttons. (The picture is a live link to the case on Amazon.) It even offers a magnetic sleep/wake function. I actually...