This is from the Kobo blog. It's important stuff and worth reprinting in full: From next week onward, April Fool’s Day will also be known as Agency Day or “The Day We Turned the eBook Market Upside Down and Shook It Until It Rattled”. Not that this will necessarily be a bad thing, but there will definitely be some changes. We’ve been blasting through new contract paper for agency publishers at a fairly frantic pace*. When the dust settles, it’s going to be a different world, whether you’re an ebook reader, industry watcher, publisher, or retailer. So to get you...

The Wolfire Games Blog has an interesting post about online-only DRM of the sort we mentioned a few weeks ago, that keeps soldiers and others with poor net connections from playing the latest Ubisoft games. Wolfire points out that Valve created a very similar system in the form of Steam, the on-line installer/game catalog through which Valve sells its and others’ games—but with a couple of crucial differences. For one thing, Steam allows people to play its games off-line. For another, Valve added considerable value, making Steam useful to gamers as well as content providers. ...

Back in February, I mentioned that Victoria Espinel, the Obama administration’s new Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (IPEC) or “copyright czar,” was seeking public input on how to carry out the duties of her office. The deadline for submissions recently passed—and as usual, almost everybody responded on the very last day, so that other groups would not have time to read and respond to their arguments. Ars Technica covers filings by the content-creating industries, such as the RIAA, MPAA, and so forth, in which they suggest that Espinel should concentrate her efforts on “online copyright theft.” As...

I received a Facebook message from writer Greg Stolze today extolling his latest project. Stolze, probably best known for his work on role-playing games including Unknown Armies and NEMESIS, has taken to writing reader-funded fiction using the Kickstarter fund-raising website. Prior to short stories, Stolze also wrote some role-playing games using this method of funding, which he terms “the Ransom Model.” At the fund-raising site of his latest effort, “Two Things She Does With Her Body,” Stolze has posted a video of himself explaining the idea, as well as links to the PDFs of the two previous stories that Stolze successfully...

According to Publishers Lunch, a Smashwords email sent to its authors reveals the pricing of books on the Apple bookstore: Under $22.00 = $9.99 or less $22.01-$24.00 = $10.99 or less $24.01-$25.00 = $11.99 or less $25.01-$27.50 = $12.99 or less $27.51-$30.00 = $14.99 or less $30.01-$35.00 = $16.99 or less $35.01-$40.00 = $19.99 or less According to Publishers Lunch there is an additional provision that moves the price down to $12.99 when the hardcover makes the NYT bestseller list, regardless of the print price....

InformationWeek has a look at the current frontrunners in the e-book device market, listing statistics and giving a rundown of the pros and cons of each device. Covered devices include the Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, Plastic Logic Que, Skiff Reader, Sony Reader, Spring Design Alex, and Apple iPad. The article goes into a fair amount of detail about each device’s strengths and weaknesses. It’s a great resource for people just considering getting into e-book devices....

The Inquirer is reporting this result of an NPD Group survey. According to the survey 66% of respondents will not buy an iPad and 60% of those who already own Apple equipment will pass. Only 18% of consumers said they were interested. A VP of NPD said that consumers felt that the iPad was too expensive and wanted to use it primarily for music and internet browsing, however most of them already have cheaper devices that will do this. More info here....

So says Irish Publishing News. In a speech given in Ireland a Penguin Managing Director reported this, but went on to say that Penguin Ireland has sold over 1000 ebooks so far this year. Michael McLoughlin said that Penguin, as a whole, expects digital sales to reach at least 15% over the next five years. In a wide ranging speech McLoughlin said that change would come to Ireland and that Publishers ‘can’t wait another year or two, because everything is changing so fast’. He finished his speech with the thought that this Autumn would see the ‘first digital Christmas, the question...

If you want to see something really impressive, or at least I think its impressive, head over to Alexx Henry's blog and take a look at his motion magazine cover and feature spread for Viv Mag - an all digital magazine. The content is not "work friendly", nor is it for kids, so I haven't embedded the video here. It shows you what someone really creative can do with a magazine. I wonder, though, if this type of production it too expensive for "daily use," so to speak. ...

The IEEE Spectrum has a great overview on current ereader screen technologies, how they work and where they will go in the future. It's well worth reading. It’s 2020, and it’s sunny outside. In fact, it’s so bright in your kitchen that you have to squint to see your grapefruit. You flip on your e-reader and the most recent e-issue of IEEE Spectrum pops up on-screen, the colors and text sharp and brilliant in the sunlight. There’s e-mail to answer, but you want to make the early commuter bus, so you roll up your e-reader and stuff it in your...

The Book Industry Study Group (BISG) and Book Industry Communication (BIC) today co-published for public comment a discussion paper on the International Standard Text Code (ISTC) intended to foster understanding of the unique book identifier and provide clarification as to its potential benefits. The paper, entitled The International Standard Text Code: A Work in Progress, is the first in a new series of BISG discussion papers that will be published online for real-time reader review and comment. (via Resource Shelf)...

The Financial Times is reporting that its own iPad app will be first released in Europe and then in the US in late April. The first two months of free access will be sponsored by watchmaker Hublot, and thereafter it will cost the same as the FT website. Time has signed up six advertisers, each paying about $200,000 each and the WSJ has six, each paying about $400,000 each. FedEx will have ads appearing in the WSJ, Newsweek and Thomson Reuters. The Thomson Reuters app will be free and FedEx will be the exclusive advertiser until July. ...