In mathematics, catastrophe theory is the study of nonlinear dynamical systems which exhibit points or curves of singularity. The behavior of systems near such points is characterized by sudden and dramatic changes resulting from even very small perturbations. The simplest sort of catastrophe is the fold catastrophe. When a fold catastrophe occurs, a system that was formerly characterized by a single stable point evolves to a system with no stability. The point where stability disappears is known as the tipping point. One of my goals for this past year was to raise awareness of the tipping...

Welcome to my annual Smashwords year in review where I report our progress and plans for the new year. 2010 was a breakout year for us. It was also a breakout year for our indie ebook authors and publishers. Exactly two years ago we were publishing 140 books from 90 authors. We thought that was fantastic for our first year in business. Last year at this time we hit 6,000 books from 2,600 authors and publishers. We were thrilled. Today we're listing 28,800 books from over 12,000 authors and publishers. We released 3,200 new ebooks in...

I’m going to make a New Year’s Resolution to do more e-book reviews. They’re fun to write, and they make a good change in pace from the e-book news that fills these pages. Plus, they make a good excuse to read e-books in new programs or devices. Lately, I’ve decided to go back and reread the entire Honor Harrington series and related works, by David Weber (and friends), in internal chronological order. A few more novels have come out since the last time I did this, with another scheduled for 2011, and it’s been long enough since I...

A couple of years ago, I presented a print-on-demand workshop at what turned out to be the last iteration of BookExpo Canada.  At the end of the trip, severe thunderstorms stranded me in Toronto. After weighing my options, perhaps poorly, I decided to drive home rather than wait at the airport for another 24 hours (or more).  Most of the drive would take place at night, but I wasn’t tired and traffic was light. By 12:30 a.m., I had made it around the lake and was just outside Rochester, NY on the New York Thruway (their spelling, not...

On time too -- year end. This started as a preview of the new Kindle-book lending feature as described by Amazon. I tweeted this development, at about 3:45 PM PST after reading about it on the forums where it was already a busy message thread. That main Kindle Team Forum Announcement is at the Amazon Kindle Community forums, and I'm adding a bit more in this update with modifications to the earlier afternoon report . REMINDER: If your web browser (especially Firefox) drops you onto the Amazon Kindle Forum's list of topics instead of bringing you directly to a forum thread, click on Refresh or Reload to get...

This is a bit different so I thought I'd post it in full - and its free.  It should be of special interest to our European readers: My Cybook Opus Ebook Reader - Adventures of a New User is a free digital reading ebook by Paolo Amoroso of Nostromics. You are encouraged to freely download, use, distribute and share the book under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported license.About the bookThe book tells the author's experience in selecting, buying and using a Cybook Opus ebook reading device. The Opus is a popular digital reader manufactured by BOOKEEN. These devices are...

More opinion pieces based on the reports of declining iPad magazine sales have come to light. One by Mathew Ingram on the GigaOM blog widens the scope to look not just at magazines but at all those who put out content for the iPad. Ingram quotes a blog post by venture capitalist Fred Wilson, who makes a very quotable point about the strange preoccupation some publishers have with getting their content onto the iPad: I don’t understand why anyone would ever think that adding a presentation layer on top of web based content would...

Back in June I covered BarMax, the bar exam test preparation software for iPhone that is the most expensive title in the app store at $999.99. But this is no “I Am Rich”. In fact, it costs significantly less than other bar exam test prep software on the market. What’s more, it actually works: those who’ve used the software have been passing bar exams at well above average rates. And now, TechCrunch reports, BarMax is coming to the iPad, in a new version rebuilt from the ground up to look good on the bigger screen. It includes a number...

RTTNews reports that Borders is going to be delaying payments to some publishers as it tries to conserve cash and refinance its debt. After-hours trading saw the company’s stock price decline by over 12%. Borders is experiencing trouble after a third-party review resulted in a decrease in its inventory’s liquidation value. The shrunken assets resulted in lower borrowing power, and unless the company can find more money somewhere, it could be unable to make payments on its existing credit agreements. Things just don’t seem to be going well for the major e-book chains. First Barnes & Noble puts...

Ebook marketing still needs a lot of work Google ebookstore round-up By Gary Price TeleRead traffic doubles on Christmas day – a lot of ereaders as presents? Could computer games be the journalism of the future? by Chris Meadows R. Scott Raynovich on the top five online newspaper killers – and one from me Ebooks at year-end 2010 by Gary Price Helpful advice for new Kindle owners by Chris Walters First Google Books sales numbers are in for Munsey’s For new and old Kindlers wanting to do more with their Kindles by Andrys Basten Question of the year: does Amazon have too much power? by Rich Adin The online future of...

Amazon has turned on the Kindle book lending program, which allows book owner to “lend” books to anyone with an email address and a Kindle (or a Kindle app for another device). The conditions are that the loan offer email must be accepted within seven days. Once accepted, the loan lasts for 14 days. Presently only Kindle users resident in the US can initiate the loan. Residents of other countries can accept a loan provided the book is available on the Kindle in their country of residence. Personally I have no problem with the lending feature as it stands but its...

From The Standard: It is back to school again, but the book industry in Kenya is reeling under the effects of skyrocketing paper prices in the world market coupled with low purchasing power for their book titles. Citing rising raw material costs for missed earnings, shrinking profits and frequent change of syllabus texts by the Ministry of Education, publishers are sending a cry to the Government to intervene by giving tax waivers on paper and inputs used to produce school books. Publishers warned that free primary and secondary education goal may be jeopardised by the prohibitive cost of books beyond the reach of...