I can't vouch for Michael Pastore's math, or his sources, but if he is correct I think the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, et al. should be out there campaigning for ebooks. Take a look at the full article: In just over three years (the 37 months from July 4, 2006 to August 4, 2009) more than 200 million free ebooks were downloaded from two websites: Project Gutenberg (PG), and the World Public Library's annual event, the World eBook Fair (WEF). Had these 200 million books been made made of paper, how many trees would have been saved? Let's do some math. In the...

The Tablet PC idea---that’s an HP Compaq incarnation to the left---was a big flop for Bill Gates and Microsoft.  But could better displays, more powerful CPUs, smaller sizes and other wrinkles change that?  Microsoft, Apple and CrunchPad are said to have some new tricks up their sleeves---and over at PC Magazine, Lance Uboff is upbeat. If tablets take off---both pure tabs and convertible laptops---will that steal lots of sales from the E Ink readers in the Kindle vein? Are the pickings big enough for everyone? Detail: The Uboff piece would have benefited from mention...

Jobs might be lost if I’m not careful. So I won’t even say which book chain it was---just that this little chat happened recently at a store in a liberal city in the D.C. area. Employees were gracious and apologetic in saying why they probably couldn’t carry even a few copies of my Washington novel. The trade paperback wasn’t on The List from the headquarters of their chain. Why? My very legitimate publisher had used print-on-demand-technology, and apparently I was up against the hoary old returns issue. Praised by the same newspaper distributed in the store---but...

The Financial Times is reporting that the iPhone will go on sale from China Unicom on October 1. WiFi will be disabled on the device at the insistence of the Chinese government. We already know that ereading apps are some of the highest sellers and most downloaded on the App Store. It will be interesting to see how many Chinese apps show up ...

Received this press release from Wattpad. This is certainly good news as Wattpad is gaining worldwide acceptance for its platform. In parts of the world it is becoming a definite force for literacy. The release reads as follows: Wattpad, the world’s most popular ebook community, today announced its support for EPUB, the International Digital Publishing Forum’s XML-based standard for digital books and publications. “We are excited about the support of EPUB, which is quickly becoming the de facto standard for ebooks,” said Eva Lau, COO of Wattpad. “It opens the door to a whole host of content...

While we reported news of the suit earlier, this is the first time that the actual damages have been specified. More details here. French group La Martinière has become the first publisher worldwide to sue Google in court, demanding €15m (£13.8m) in damages for copyrighted books digitised by the search engine without permission. The publisher is also seeking a penalty of €100,000 per day, and €3m for prejudice to its image. The trial opened in France on 24th September and a ruling is expected by 18th December at the latest. La Martinière, which is backed by French publishers association Syndicat National...

Over the weekend some TeleRead folks replied to my post headlined “Should authors have to be talkers? Is multimedia a threat at times to the best lit?” Most disagreed with my concerns. Well, here’s some handy ammo for the folks who say, “No threat to lit.” Russell Brooks, a Canadian writer, paid an actor to read Pandora’s Succession, Brooks’ thriller, to help woo agents and editors. Enjoy the recording here. Yes, this was before Brooks, aka Russell Parkway, sold his book, reports Jeff Rivera at GalleyCat. Brooks still hasn’t made a sale. But...

bookofjoe had a, probably, prescient little piece yesterday about dictionary sites. I can't do better than quote from Dr. Stirt's excellent blog: Chadwick Matlin, in an interesting article in today's Washington Post Business section, took a close look at the current state of online dictionaries and how Google, if it wanted to, could effectively destroy them — in a heartbeat. Long story short: when you put a word into the Google search box, you don't get its meaning but rather a list of sites which offer the definition. With Microsoft's Bing, on the other hand, when you put a word in the...

Found via twitter from Hadrien Gardeur of Feedbooks: the Nintendo DS homebrew e-book reader dslibris has added ePub-reading capability. Is there anyone out there who has a Nintendo DS and would care to review this e-book app for TeleRead? I do not have one myself, and I was not able to find instructions for how to install the app even if I did. Related: Nintendo DSi on the horizon: New e-book possibilities? Technorati Tags: Nintendo,DS,e-book,homebrew,app,ePub,dslibris...

Now this is a huge disappointment. I've been look forward to the native Mac port of the OED for a long time, but The Unofficial Apple Weblog has reviewed it and says it fails miserably. Given that the hard copy costs $1,000 and that the subscription price is a completely unreasonable $300/year, I don't quite know what to do. I wish I didn't have such a respect for the TUAW website so that I could just disbelieve the review. ...The CD-ROM lists itself as "version 4" but this is the first version to be "native" on the...

When the TeleBlog upgraded to the latest WordPress, most people barely noticed---despite an “excuse our mess” notice from Robert Nagle. Behind the scenes, however, Robert devoted many hours to the task from his place in Houston. He’s here in Alexandria, Virginia (second photo), now, part of his D.C.-area visit with friends, and we plan to walk along the Potomac and exchange some book chat---he’s a gifted writer as well as a tech guy, with an MFA from the prestigious program at Johns Hopkins. Along with another volunteer, Brett Fielo, who supplies hosting services, Robert is truly...

Jane, over at Dear Author, has a good post on the failure of publishers to provide color covers on their ebooks. Even if you are reading on a Kindle or a Sony Reader, both have a grey scale level that would allow a decent reproduction of a real book cover: For some reason, many print publishers have this belief that readers of ebooks don’t want the color cover that print readers get. Not only do readers of ebooks get shafted on the color cover, they don’t get back cover copy or a stepback picture. Digital consumers like pictures...