The RAND Corporation, a nonprofit research organization that provides analysis and solutions for the challenges facing the public and private sectors around the world, has done an interesting study of e-books entitled: Innovation and the Future of e-Books. The author of the study was John W. Warren. According to Mr. Warren, the future of e-books may include enhanced e-books. This concept could prove interesting to authors interested in experimenting with hypertext novels. A hypertext novel would include links in the text that take a reader to various locations either within, or without, the novel itself. In 2002 when my...

Rita Toews is founder of Read an E-Book Week. Meanwhile I hope that the White House will wise up and heed suggestions to recognize the week officially. If Obama wants to promote both literacy and tech, what better way to do this? - D.R. Read an E-Book Week is over for 2009, and it was a roaring success! People are obviously interested in all aspects of e-books and electronic reading material. Web traffic came from the four corners of the globe, including: Korea, England, Russia, U.S.A., France, Spain, Argentina, Iceland, Mexico, Portugal, Egypt, China, India, Turkey and the...

With just a few days left before Read an E-Book Week begins, several notable names have joined the increasingly popular event. Random House's Suvudu portal for science fiction and fantasy has given the week a nod by opening its  Free First Book Library in time for the event. The library will introduce new readers to acclaimed sci-fi and fantasy with free digital copies. The International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) have also joined the growing supporters list. For Kindle users, Kindle Formatting is offering a number of fiction and non-fiction books free of charge during Read an...

The release of the Amazon Kindle 2 has caused a bit of consternation with respect to the text to speech function. The Authors Guild immediately expressed dissatisfaction with the feature, claiming TTS is part of an author's audio rights. They demanded that Amazon disable the feature. Amazon claims TTS is part of the author's e-book rights and refuses. Marilyn Byerly, writer and book doctor for established authors and a NY Times bestseller states in her Adventures in Writing blog: "The major legal problem with TTS is that it has never been clearly defined through a lawsuit or some other legal means....

Mebook, www.myebook.com provider of a free browser-based e-book creation software, is hosting an e-book contest in recognition of Read an E-Book Week. www.ebookweek.com From now until March 14th you are invited to create an e-book, or a book trailer to publicize your book, on the powerful myebook publishing platform. Once you've created your book, add it to the 'E-book Week' community on the site. myebook.com will judge the entries based on best use of the full capabilities of the software tools. The winner's entry will be added to the carousel of books on the front page of the website for...

Smashwords is the newest sponsor of Read an E-Book Week. The company will help promote the initiative, and will work with its authors to develop special book promotions during the week. The list of author and publishers joining the effort continues to grow with an impressive offering of free e-books in most genres on the partners page. One interesting event being considered for Read an E-Book Week would require a bit of planning, but might make it into the record books for the largest number of people reading e-books at one time. E-book fans could gather at 1:00 on Saturday, March 14,...

Moderator's note: Rita founded REW. - D.R. Preparations for Read an E-Book Week (March 8-14, 2009) started early with a complete make-over of the Web site. With Sony and E Ink participating this year we thought it was time for a spiffy Web presence. It's at ebookweek.com rather than the old address. Huge thanks to e-book author Steve Jordan for the new masterpiece. Along with Sony and E Ink, SF and fantasy publisher Tor has shown interest in participating in the event. CNN Business included us in an article last fall, and maybe we can attract another this year. Fact-packed site Since the purpose...

Moderator's note: Rita Toews is creator of Read an E-Book Week, which this year was March 2-8. Meanwhile congratulations to Rita on winning over Tor Books and E Ink Corporation---may the IDPF follow! - D.R. Read an E-Book is over for 2008---having drawn interest from Scandinavia, Central Europe, India, China, Korea, England, Australia and many other points of the globe.  We even had a request for a banner in Spanish.  E Ink Corporation, which recently announced major strides in flexible display technology, added its support this year.  The company will continue to feature a banner and link on its...