After playing with Quora for a couple of days, I’m starting to see the appeal of it. The format is clear and easy to use, but a bigger draw is that sometimes questions can be answered by people who actually have involvement with the issues. For example, one person asked, “Why does Amazon brag incessantly about Kindle sales but refuse to disclose specifics?” And a response came from none other than Vinay Kruvila, whose by-line states he has worked for Amazon for 5 years and is currently its Software Development Manager. He writes: Amazon...

I mentioned last week that the UK government had eliminated its funding for literacy charity Booktrust with the new budget that takes effect in April. In response to public outrage at this decision, The Bookseller reports that the government and Booktrust have released a joint statement saying that the government will “continue to fund Booktrust book-gifting programmes in the future.” However, critics are still skeptical. Labour leader Ed Miliband calls it only a “partial U-turn” (isn’t that kind of like being “a little bit pregnant”? A “partial U-turn” is just a turn!) and points out that the announcement is...

Amazon is probably the largest bookseller, dollar-wise, in America and the world. Certainly, it is the largest ebook seller in America. And Amazon has spread its tentacles so that it is not only a bookseller, but it competes with publishers as a publisher. Amazon has positioned itself so that, with the exception of the big publishing houses like Hachette, Simon & Schuster, and Random House, authors and publishers believe their books must be available for sale on Amazon or they will never make it. I have yet to hear of anyone cry, for example, that the failure of Barnes & Noble...

CrunchGear is reporting that by rooting the NookColor you can install the Kindle reading application on the device. To root the device you need one of theAutorooter images andWin32ImageWriter for Windows or Mac OS/Linux tools to write the image to an MicroSD card. Then you upload the Kindle app from the Android store and rock out. This process also adds GMail, YouTube, and a number of other standard Android goodies to your previously stripped-down NookColor. The whole process is right here and it should be a fine ride....

Publishers Weekly has an overview report, with the above name, on the iBookstore and its place in the market. Here's a snippet: Not everyone is embracing the iBookstore, though. At this time Oceanhouse Media -- the leading publisher of children's digital book apps on Apple’s App Store, with the exclusive right to make apps of Dr. Seuss’s work -- is not planning to sell there. “We believe that in order to have an effective digital children’s book you need a level of interactivity that cannot be provided for with iBooks,” says Oceanhouse Media president Michel Kripalani. “Only apps can deliver...

European consulting firm, IDATE, has released its 130 page study of the ebook market for Japan, America and Europe for 2008-2015. The report costs between 2,900 and 3,500 euros, but they have allowed me to release part of their principle results (blockquotes omitted): By the end of 2010, the digital book market took off in all of the surveyed countries, albeit under varying scenarios. That year, the United States became the world's largest market with a turnover from e-book sales reaching EUR 594 million, ahead of Japan, e- book pioneer country whose market is evaluated at EUR 527 million. European markets remain relatively modest, but...

I’m a journalist, and a member of the journalists union, the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (of which the Australian Journalists Association, the AJA, forms part). All members receive a monthly magazine with news and in-depth articles about the industry, but this year is special – it’s 100 years since a wily bunch of Aussie scribblers formed the AJA. So, a century into Australian journalism proper, the union has published a report of the state of the industry, and where it expects the future to lay. (SPOILER: online). The report is called Life in the Clickstream II (a similar report came out two years ago),...

According to WWWD Media: ... Vanity Fair sold 8,700 digital editions of its November issue, down from its average of about 10,500 for the August, September and October issues. Glamour sold 4,301 digital editions in September, but sales dropped 20 percent in October and then another 20 percent, to 2,775, in November. GQ’s November edition sold 11,000 times, which was its worst performance since April (when the iPad was released) and represents a slight decline from its average digital sales of 13,000 between May and October. After Wired’s enormous debut month, the magazine averaged 31,000 digital sales between July and September,...

In this third portion of the interview, I asked about the plotting process, plans for the future, and whether Pete had been inspired by particular sources. Previously: Part One, Part Two Me: You talked in the past about how the huge plot that you've woven together in Sluggy over the years has drawn toward a close. You said you didn't want to start any new plot arcs until that was finished. What happens when it's finished? Do you start another decade-long story arc? Pete: That's the thing, I have the freedom to make the...

Picked this up from a tweet by Stephen Windwalker. Amazon has a new page for daily cheap Kindle books. I just checked it out and all of the books listed are $2.99. I bought A Spy's Diary of World War II: Inside the OSS with an American Agent in Europe, by Wayne Nelson. Amazon lists its "Digital List Price" as $24.99 and the print list price as $35.00. I guess I'll have to bookmark this page....

It's annual prognostication time when folks like me stick out their necks and try to predict the future. I invite you to join in the fun. Brush up your crystal ball and share your publishing predictions for 2011 in the comments field below. Earlier today, Jeff Rivera over at MediaBistro interviewed me for my ten book publishing predictions for 2011. I'll list five below, and then I encourage you to click over to Mediabistro for the full ten in his interview, Publishing Predictions for 2011 from Smashwords. If 2010 was the year ebooks went mainstream in the U.S., 2011 will be the year indie...

Bless me, O Biblioblogosphere, for I have sinned. I have betrayed the trust of my librarian people by *gasp* loving my Kindle like I am told I would love a child if I had any interest in being a parent, which I don’t.  But I do have an interest in reading digital content on a sleek, affordable, and easy-to-use device.  Thus the Kindle. In true geek fashion I recorded my Kindle unboxing (complete with Space Invader wall clings in the background). Let me tell you why I love my Kindle so.  But before I gush like a schoolgirl in love with Edward Cullen, let...