Some months ago Random House, S&S and other major houses said they were buying dedicated e-readers for certain editors, sales reps and others. Have the new gizmos worked out? Which brand is most popular? And how are publishing people using them? Sony Reader most popular among publishers "In general," reports Publishing Trends in the November issue, "e-reader users are happy with the device they currently own." Typically that's a Sony because of the quantity discounts the company offers, unlike Amazon. Also, unfairly, as both PT and I see it, some publishing people are worried...

How many e-books exist already with embedded music soundtracks? I'll guess that some are out there despite a claim by Electric Book Works that Moxyland is the first e-book with one. But I could be wrong. "The soundtrack was compiled by African Dope Records to suit the mood and feel of the book's storyline," says Arthur Attwell, EBW's publishing director. Futuristic plot The plot is set "ten years in the future" in Cape Town and brings together such characters as "a roguish slacker living off his mom" and "a brilliant corporate programmer and AIDS baby"...

Bob Stein, founder of the The Institute for the Future of the Book, shared the information below. Best of luck to the Institute with the project! On November 10th, The Institute kicks off an experiment in close reading. Seven women, ranging from young novelists to publishing executive Harriet Rubin, will read Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook and carry on a conversation in the margins. The idea for the project arose out of my experience re-reading the novel in the summer of 2007 just before Lessing won the Nobel Prize for literature. The Golden...

iLounge is probably the most influential of the iPod/iPhone net publications. It just did an article entitled iPhone Gems, and, laudably, eReader is one of the programs they chose for the honor. Here is iLounge's conclusion: eReader is the best application we’ve seen for reading commercial e-books directly on your iPhone, providing features on the iPhone that rival dedicated e-book readers such as the Kindle. While eReader is obviously geared toward purchased content, the reality is that most avid e-book readers are going to need to purchase their content from somewhere, and eReader and...

Tor has released another free e-book, Spaceman Blues, which is the first in a series by Brian Francis Slattery. You can get the book in Mobi, HTML, Sony or PDF format by registering at the Tor site. I must say that registration is really worth it if you are into the type of books that Tor publishes. They actually have a newsletter that is worth reading, and have plenty of free stories to read on the company's site. Technorati Tags: Tor,Spaceman Blues,Brian Francis Slattery...

Color e-paper will debut in a display from Qualcomm reports Technology Review in their November issue. The publication uses a curious definition for "e-paper". They say it means the display "has no backlighting and thus can be read in direct sunlight." The display consists of "two layers of a reflective material". "Some wavelengths of light bounce off the first layer; some pass through and bounce off the second. Interference between the two beams creates the color, and electrostatic forces control the distance between the layers." So this technology appears to differ from the methods pioneered by E Ink based on...

Moderator: So how long until someone uses Arduino-style techniques to develop e-reading hardware---assuming this isn't happening already? - D.R. What happens when the open source model is applied to hardware?  You get Arduino.  If you're not familiar with the Arduino platform you ought to read this excellent article about it in the latest issue of Wired magazine. This model has the potential to turn the hardware industry on its ear. The phrase "creative destruction" was used in the article and I think it's an excellent way to describe how the open source approach has affected software, now hardware and even...

( XKCD via LISNews, source of the headline. CC-licensed by Randall Munroe.) Technorati Tags: Randall Munroe,XKCD...

Publisher often love to draw a connection between money and the quality of a book---and you can bet that includes e-books. I agree. Editing, design, promo and the rest aren't free, no matter what the medium. But how about the money-quality connection in the case of writers? Random House, it would appear, is taking at least a small step backwards. And writers and society at large will be the losers. Yes, manuscripts abound. But the smaller the rewards for writers, the less incentive they will have to do their very best. Even literary writers like the late Kurt Vonnegut---follow...

Animation would be just the ticket to spice up many a nonfiction book---especially textbooks on, say, physics or auto mechanics. E Ink earlier said this was a goal. And the video to the left demonstrates the advantages of such an approach in the AM300 developer's kit. How much better to see tech in action than just read explanations! Newspaper angle The newspaper industry and others could also benefit from moving ads and other animations, particularly when color is available. The animation-color combo just might show up in E Ink machines costing less than $200, in the next five-ten...

If the gurus are right, Americans voters are about to tell Washington next month: "Enough pimping for special interests!" So here's a question. Can this apply to copyright laws, such as the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, a bipartisan outrage that Bill Clinton signed into law in 1998? The Act extended the period that Mickey Mouse's copyright was protected. Corporations like Disney loved it. But thanks to Bono, you can't read The Great Gatsby and many other classics for free on the Net. Will the late F. Scott Fitzgerald be that much more creative because the act stretched...

Ars Technica has an interesting review of a forthcoming iPhone e-book app called Classics. Not yet available on the App Store, the gimmick of Classics is that it attempts to replicate the page-turning experience of a "real book" as closely as is possible on the iPhone's screen. For $2.99, it will launch with a library of 12 public-domain titles, such as Alice in Wonderland or 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, with the possibility of adding more with later updates. Without actually trying the app out, I cannot agree or disagree with the specific points Ars makes in its review....