Back in April John Hagewood wrote us to tell about his Kindle 2 was losing screen contract and how Amazon replaced it. Now it seems that the problem has recurred, and Amazon stepped up again. Here's what John wrote: Today a friend of mine in the office showed me his brand new Kindle2 (International Wireless, or course, the only one they sell). When I saw the screen I just about blew a gasket. The background color was NEARLY WHITE compare to my smudgy grayish one. I could not BELIEVE IT. He of course had the default font...

The past is always instructive to understanding the present. Human beings adapt to new technologies more slowly than new technologies themselves. Inventors come up with all sorts of ideas, some work, some don’t. Sometimes brilliant ideas fall by the wayside for reasons of cost or inconvenience, or simply timing issues. E-reading is essentially a new technology in a period of tremendous and exciting change. Thousands of people and hundreds of companies are engaged in trying to figure out how people will be engaged and therefore how they can make businesses out of the broad e-reading experience in meaningful ways. I think it’s...

OK readers, it’s time to look at yourself in the mirror and tell the truth. How many print books did you read in the last week? In the last month? How about the last year? Are you reading more or less? Tell the truth. Write down your answers. Here are mine: Print books: Last week: 2 books Last month: 6 books Last twelve months: 60 books Ebooks: Last week: 1 book Last month: 2 books Last twelve months: 8 books My totals of books read are higher now than they have been in the past few years because I realized...

Editor's Note: Herewith a thoughtful piece from Alex Sanchez. Contributions from our readers are always welcomed. Paul Biba There has always existed an intense debate regarding Adam Smith’s pivotal work “The Wealth of Nations.” Those on the left have insisted that Mr. Smith advocated a form of Capitalism that was predicated on “fair play” between customer oriented companies. The counterargument on the right has been that Mr. Smith was the first person to propose a purely free market. For our purposes let’s go with the former as opposed to the latter interpretation of Smith’s ideas. There is substantial...

Editor's Note: Many thanks to reader Lancelot Kirby for this article. Lancelot's bio appears at the end, but his picture appears at the beginning. Paul Biba When I began this article, it was to be nothing more than a review of the new Amazon Kindle I recently purchased. Instead, the period since I acquired it and this writing has given that little time for deeper reflection uncommon in the typical review. However, I will quickly give the appearances of a review. Having tried both the Sony PRS-700, and now its chief rival, they are tied in my heart...

I received this email from one of our readers and reprint it in full: Referring to your post on Brazilian ereader, I have a news which might be also interesting for you. In Poland we will have our own e-publishing platform - eClicto. An e-reading device will be part of it. I'm very excited about this project, as it's gonna support ePub format. That means ePub will finally break into Poland. So far there are only few dozens of Polish language ePub books available on the web. Please find below a post on this topic: Three weeks ago I...

Editor's Note: In May we published an article about Al Katkowsky and how he successfully promoted his self-published work, turned it into an Iphone app and ended up giving a presentation at one of the New York Apple Stores. Well, I asked Al to write us an article about how he achieved this success and he agreed! The article follows. Thanks, Al! Paul Book Event at The Apple Store? Seriously, what's going on here? I tell everyone that my book, Question Of The Day, is an activity in book form. So when the idea was...

Editor’s Note: This submission is from Tracy Falbe, author of The Rys Chronicles epic fantasy series, previewed in video below.  Also see Rich Adin's comments. - Paul Biba As a self-published author of four fantasy novels and one nonfiction book, I can wholeheartedly say that the e-book reading medium is making all the difference as I seek recognition, cultivate an audience, and even make a little money. I’ve been selling the paperback versions of my books at Amazon for nearly four years, and I am satisfied as a book vendor in its Advantage sellers program. However, when...

Cliff Burns Tamas Simon Rita Towes Eugene Woodbury Yakov Shafranovich These readers either sent me a link to an interesting story, or sent me an email which I then posted as an article. My apologies, by the way, to those I haven't listed here. Feel free to join the crowd by being our eyes and giving us your thoughts. A different perspective is a valuable thing and what you feel is important is something that I might just pass over. My email address in in the sidebar to the right. ...

Editor's Note: I received the following email from reader Cliff Burns and found it so interesting I asked him if I could publish it as a Reader contribution. Paul: Read your comments in the Christian Science Monitor article with much interest. The e-book format and digitization of publishing had accorded people like me, an indie writer with a strong distaste for the writing "biz", a newly created and much cherished sense of freedom. I've been a professional writer for 25 years and in that time--thanks, mainly, to the rise of corporate publishing--I've seen literary-quality fiction marginalized in favor of commercial, derivative crap. I no...

Now here's an intriguing possibility. TechCrunch is designing their own touch-screen web tablet. Here's what they say: The idea is to get a new type of device into people...

Editor's note: The following was submitted by Rita Toews, founder of Read an E=Book Week: World-renowned author, Warren Adler has added his support to Read an E-Book Week. Mr. Adler, author of some 29 books -- including War of the Roses which became a movie directed by Danny DeVito, caused a stir in the literary world some years back when he re-acquired the rights to all his novels and short stories. He then converted his complete backlist to e-books. Mr. Adler's thoughts on the publishing industry vis-a-vis e-books can be found in an article on the main page...