The Bookseller reports that some serious discussion is going on in the UK between publishers and librarians over rules for e-book lending at libraries. Back in October we reported on the UK Publishers Association setting down restrictive ground rules to prevent library users from downloading e-books outside of library facilities—a move that would eliminate one of the biggest advantages e-books have. (It turned out that these restrictions had apparently been brought on by people from China “joining British libraries and plundering their virtual collections for free.”) At the moment, some British publishers do permit library lending (via e-book lending...

MacRumors reports on a new (currently inactive) feature discovered in Safari builds for the next version of OS X, “Lion”. Called “Reading List”, it seems to work hand in hand with the Readability-based “Safari Reader” reformatting feature—allowing people to save web articles for later reading. Some blogs have been calling this feature an “Instapaper competitor”, but Instapaper creator Marco Ament has posted to his own blog that he doesn’t see it quite that way, at least in the current version. He suggests it’s still more of a competitor to Readability, since there’s no sign it’s going to have...

Opinions on DRM vs. piracy are like noses: everyone has one, and they all smell. Lately, I ran across a fairly interesting piece containing the opinions of Roland Denning, a London-based writer and filmmaker, on Self Publishing Review. I can’t entirely agree with it, but it does offer a good basis for discussion. Denning sees problems with both the anti-DRM and anti-piracy arguments, finding that both sides harbor “some surprisingly naïve notions”, such as the idea that “we can stop people downloading, just like we can ‘win’ the ‘war on drugs’,” or that “people will pay for something they...

Below is the press release reprinted in full.  Blockquotes omitted. As businesses explore best practices for success in the changing landscape created by the Internet, some companies have discussed charging for access to online content that was previously free.  Some media outlets have discussed doing this, and The New York Times recently began charging online readers who view over 20 articles per month.  But there may be trouble ahead as a recent Adweek/Harris Poll found that a large majority said they would be willing to pay "nothing" per month to read a daily newspaper's content online (80%). Of the one in five who...

I’ve greatly enjoyed the two 1st-generation iPod Touch pocket-sized media/Internet devices I’ve had over the last few years, and have had my eyes on the 4th-generation iPod Touch for some little while. I’ve been thinking that, come the fall, I might upgrade to a 4th-gen model when the 5th-gen iPod Touch comes out and drives refurb prices down. From a features perspective, the iPod Touch has just about everything I could want: a high-quality, highly-sensitive touchscreen, excellent e-book reading capability (even without iBooks available on the 1st-generation model, I’ve got Stanza so I have no complaints there), great...

Very interesting video about the use of eye tracking in ebooks. ...

Some e-books are published with plenty of errors, and others might have other reasons to be updated over time—especially non-fiction books in fields subject to new discoveries. And it would seem that e-books should be easily changeable at need, given their malleable, re-downloadable nature. But at present, none of the major commercial e-book vendors really supports much in the way of e-book change notifications. On his blog “A New Kind of Book,” Peter Meyers talks about this problem and offers suggestions for ways to fix it. He points out that Apple has a particularly good change notification and explanation...

The Alexander G Public Relations blog has a fairly lengthy interview with self-publishing writer Jason McIntyre, whose works have been downloaded over 33,000 times so far. McIntyre has worked as an editor, writer, communications professional, graphic designer, commercial artist, webmaster, and more, and still works at these jobs in addition to his writing. Like so many other self-publishing writers, McIntyre went into self-publishing over disillusionment with the traditional publishing process after traditional publishers said they liked his books but admitted they could not figure out how to market them. When the iPad came out, McIntyre realized that he...

A number of people have been anticipating the release of The Notion Ink Adam. Using its own modified version of Android, a unique user interface, and a Pixel Qi screen, the tablet promised a user experience that could leave the iPad in the dust. Now Engadget has gotten its hands on one of the devices for a comprehensive review and found that, sadly, it doesn’t live up to its promises. The review notes that hardware, user interface, and software are all fairly lackluster experiences, The display is outdoor-readable, but inside it looks washed-out. The camera is cleverly swivelable...

TechCrunch and the Bookseller have a report on Book Country, a new social-media spinoff project from Penguin, aimed at providing writers and fans of original genre fiction (romance, thrillers, fantasy, and SF) a place to post, discuss, and get reviews of their work. Would-be reviewees are required to read and review at least three other works before they can start getting reviews of their own. The Bookseller calls it a slushpile. TechCrunch is a bit more kind, suggesting it’s a way that people can get discovered. Either way, it seems to be Penguin’s first attempt to co-opt the self-publishing...

That's what The Bookseller is reporting.  Penguin's ebook sales doubled in the first quarter of 2011 as compared to the 1st quarter of 2010. ... Penguin UK c.e.o. Tom Weldon predicted that e-books would make up 4% of Penguin sales in 2011, up from 1% on average in 2010. Penguin also announced at that time it was going to treble its investment in digital content in 2011 compared to 2010. ...

From the press release.  BISG is the Book Industry Study Group which is a research group funded by membership - primarily from the publishing industry: Results from the most recent survey in VOLUME TWO show: Fiction continues to dominate downloads, with literary fiction, science fiction, and romance each comprising over 20% of all format purchases. The most influential factors leading to an e-book purchase are free samples and low prices. “Power Buyers” (respondents who indicated that they acquired e-books at least weekly) have moved away from computers to dedicated e-readers and tablets much faster than the overall pool of respondents.   “While this unprecedented rate of...