Empire of the Word will premiere on November 25 on Canadian television station TVO. It is 4 part series with the final part being about the future of reading and electronic texts. Here is the blurb from the TVO site: Eight years in the making, Empire of the Word is a compelling look inside the act of reading and traces its impact on more than five thousand years of human history. Introduced and narrated by one of the world's great readers, Canadian writer Alberto Manguel, the series traces reading's origins; examines how we learn to read; exposes censors' attempts...

A couple of weeks ago I got an evaluation copy of an Astak 5” e-book reader. I’ve been reading books on it over the last week, when I haven’t been busy doing other things, and I’m just about ready to start writing my reviews. But first of all, here is the unboxing video I recorded the other day, in which I take it out of the box and take a first look at it. Enjoy. Technorati Tags: Astak,Unboxing,Pocket Pro,e-reader,e-book reader,e-ink...

That's what Publishing Perspectives is reporting. Macmillan is the parent of Tor, St. Martin's, Farrar Strauss, Henry Holt and others. The article states that the "usual" ebook royalty is 25%, and the reduced royalty is applicable to "all exploitation of the content of the book in digital form". ...

Stephen Windwalker's Kindle Nation Daily is reporting that Amazon now can sort Kindle books by language. Here is what he has to say: Here are several sorts of the Kindle catalog by language, with the number of titles available to U.S. Kindle customers in each language as of today. Please note that the number of titles available varies from country to country. Kindle Books in Spanish (1,644 as of October 29, 2009) Kindle Books in French (1,094 as of October 29, 2009) Kindle Books in German (508 as of October 29, 2009) Kindle Books in English (284,813 as of October 29, 2009) All Kindle Books...

Here's the release I received. You can find the full information here. The panels look very interesting. If time permits I hope to be there and report on it for you. WHO: The Self-Publishing Book Expo WHAT: Expo for Self-Published Books & Authors   WHEN: Saturday, November 7 9:30 am - 5:00 pm General Expo admission: $15.00 Includes admission to the Exhibit Hall only Expo and Panel admission: $30.00 
 Includes admission to the Exhibit Hall and all panels, lectures and discussions throughout the day (admission to all panels is on a first come, first serve basis). WHERE: Sheraton Hotel & Towers, 53rd...

Speaks for itself. The original is here....

While I don't think that most of our readers will be buying a scanner, I cover this because I find the technology extremely interesting. It's one thing to read an ebook, it's another to find out how one is made. The new scanner uses digital SLR cameras, so if improved cameras appear they ca be just swapped out, instead of having to replace the entire unit. Their Pro version will supposedly scan up to 700 pages an hours, but I presume this is only with books in top condition. The v-shaped cradle was designed to put less strain on...

Independent bookseller, Foyles, will begin stocking Sony Touch and Pocke ereaders and the BeBook Mini 5" reader. Additionally, the bookseller will open its own ebook webstore with 57,000 titles in EPUB and PDF formats. The ebook supplier, Gardners, will set the prices and Foyles will establish the discounts. Given the earlier KPMG survey that says that about 4% of 1,000 British consumers surveyed have read an ebook in the past month, it makes sense for the independents to get into this market. You can read more at The Bookseller....

With all those zillions of public domain books out there---not to mention more recent e-books---what if you could double your reading speed in five days? The QuickReader iPhone and Touch app, promoted in a just-issued news release, claims to be able to do that. Is this the reading equivalent of, er, certain enlargers touted in spam-mails? I’ll actually be open minded. I found that the interface is better than most e-readers’. And QuickReader comes with wonderful font possibilities, such as Georgia Bold (offering me the perceived text-background contrast that I enjoy). The “how” issue: “You need...

John Einar Sandvand is an exceptionally smart guy when it comes to exploring online media trends, which is good because that's the tagline of his BetaTales blog. He's got a fascinating piece of coverage today, under the title Kindle’s user terms violate basic consumer rights, about a possible initiative by Norway's Consumer Council to apply the same standards to Amazon's Kindle catalog that it applied to Apple's iTunes music catalog. The “Forbrukerrådet,” which is the name under which you may have heard of the council before, was successful in getting Apple to promise to open its music catalog to music...

Dear Author has started a thread for authors so that they can post and talk about piracy and related issues. Jane says that some authors believe they need more of a forum to discuss their frustrations. A laudable goal, and I, too, wish we had more author postings in the comments and in articles on the site. Any authors want to send me their thoughts? Here is a quote from her post, a quote that makes a lot of sense to me: Yes, publishing is tough these days. Publishers are turning away books they may have bought...

Jim---no last name given---wrote this comment in agreement with Senescence, death and e-books: Could an e-library help?, Alex Sanchez’s moving essay that we published earlier today. – D.R. By Jim I myself am a stage 4C cancer patient, and I spent six weeks of my life in daily radiation therapy. Everyday while waiting for treatment, I suffered through boredom reading ancient magazines that people had dropped off. It really would have been nice to have e-book readers available for use. In fact, that is where I saw and touched my...