I’ve got nothing against Amazon prospering---in fact, I want it to thrive since my publisher is selling my novel there. Just the same, in the wake of Amazon’s acquisition of Stanza, a leading e-reader for the iPhone, do we really want this one company to dominate so much of the book business? I’ve already documented how difficult Amazon is making it to find the nonKindle version of my book via the company’s search engine if you omit the “the” in the title. And speaking of baffling search results, how about my frequent problems using my iTouch’s Safari browser...

Hmm. Just the other day I was speculating that Lexcycle---the developers of Stanza for the iPhone---might be fodder for an acquisition by Adobe or Google. Was Amazon reading the TeleBlog just then? Guess who’s just snapped up Lexycle, perhaps in part to forestall the possibility I had in mind. Yes, we’re past April 1. This is da news, really. It is, frankly, too early to say what will happen to Fictionwise, Adobe and other partners of Lexcycle. The New York Times quotes a Lexcycle blog post: “We are not planning any changes in the Stanza application or user...

This is certainly a surprise, especially since Amazon has its own iPhone/iPod application. From the Lexcycle blog: We are very excited to announce that Lexcycle has been acquired by Amazon.com! It has been an amazing experience to see Stanza grow out of our brainstormed ideas into one of the most downloaded iPhone applications. Throughout this period we have attempted to listen to and innovate for our customers to provide a great ebook reading experience. We are not planning any changes in the Stanza application or user experience as a result of the acquisition. Customers will still be able to browse, buy, and read ebooks...

This is the second in my “Paleo E-books” series looking at Internet writing communities that were producing electronic literature well before “e-books” were first popularized in the late 1990s. In this entry, I will look at the Legion of Net.Heroes (and, to a lesser extent, rec.arts.comics.creative). Like Superguy, the LNH is a shared universe centering on comic book superhero parody. However, perhaps owing to its different origin, the approach it takes is very different. The Legion of Net.Heroes The LNH had its genesis in April, 1992, in one of the free-wheeling discussions that took place on Usenet newsgroups (forums) at the height...

The New York Times is reporting that the heirs of John Steinbeck---as well as other heirs and still-living authors, along with musician Arlo Guthrie---are officially asking for a delay in the implementation of the Google book settlement. The group of authors seeking the delay has not come out against the settlement. They argue that given the complexity of the agreement and its long-range implications, the May 5 deadline should be extended by four months to allow authors to make informed decisions about how to proceed. Editor’s note, 1:48 p.m.: Glad...

A little morsel to help your Kindle 2 reading...a way to change the spacing between the lines. No, you can’t change the kerning (space between letters) or font (not easily without involving a hack). But you can alter the line height, the distance between the lines. Adding more space may make it easier for some to read, and adding less allows more content per page. The command SHIFT + ALT + NUMBER changes the line spacing from less on the 1 side to more as the number increases. The default is 3. While 1 is too small,...

“Speaking at the Book Fair, Richard Palk, Sony's new business contents and services manager, said the company was ditching its proprietary format in the UK: ‘ePub has become the de facto UK consumers' format of choice,’ he said, adding that Reader and ebook sales were above expectations. ‘We see demand for ebooks and digital readers growing in the UK. It's clear that a reading revolution is beginning.’” – The Guardian and TechRadar, via Mike Cane. Hello, Amazon/Kindle?...

In the last few years, e-books have stopped being an early adopters’ toy and started attracting more general interest. People are starting to get the idea that perhaps reading off of screens—especially LCD or e-ink screens held in the palm of one’s hand—may not be so bad after all. But for a small yet active number of people (mostly college students), “reading off the screen” has been going on for as long as twenty-two years. Before the term e-book was in common use, before the World Wide Web was widespread, college students with too much time on their hands were...

The Kindle prevents you from learning more about the stranger sitting next to you on the subway, or so this New York Times article suggests. Gone are the days when you could tell whether that person was into sci-fi, sports or politics, for example. Well how about just knowing they're an early adopter who loves the portability, power and flexibility of an e-reader?! I've had more people ask me about my Kindle (in airports, conferences, etc.) than I've ever had ask me about the print book I happened to be reading; and don't forget I've had a Kindle for less than...

Here's another post from the Kindle 2 Review. In our older post on Amazon's Kindle costs, I commented that I didn't believe these figures for a minute: These cost things are pretty useless in telling what the overall profit of a product is. By the time you add on all the other overheads, costs, depreciation, etc. they can come up to more than the cost of the unit itself. I’m sorry, but you can’t infer anything from this figure. Well, here is a much more realistic approach. The Review takes into account labor, shipping, advertising cost, Whispernet costs, etc. to...

From our prolific correspondent, Michael Pastore, comes this article on Epublishers Weekly: Story Summary: Print publishing has one foot in the grave and the other foot on a banana peel. Can ebooks — part of the electronic publishing revolution that has often been blamed for print publishing's troubles — be a significant factor in the paper's resurgence? ... A gruntled author, whose upbeat book about ebooks has been ignored by the Times, explains the causes of newspapers’ demise, and then offers 11 solutions for renewal, including a New York Times-owned ebook reading device: the NYeTBook....

There is quite a flap going on about the supposed inferiority of the fonts on the Kindle 2 as compared to the Kindle 1. Owning both machines, I must say that I never even thought about it until I started noticing the posts. My Kindle 2 is just fine, as far as I'm concerned. However, for those of you who are having a problem the Kindle Boards Blog has an excellent summary of the issue. It also points you to K Design Works that has a "fix" for the problem, by means of installing new fonts. I don't intend...