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...

Here is a reader contribution from author Eugene Woodbury. Gonzo versus the pirates The Anime Almanac reports here and here on how Japanese anime studio Gonzo beat Internet piracy by abandoning DRM. Rather, they responded quickly with a quality product at a reasonable price that was easy to download. This seems painfully obvious, but as Scott VonSchilling points out, getting media execs to grasp the obvious can be painfully difficult. I've long wondered why anime studios didn't crank out a subtitle/dub script at the same time they finished the Japanese master (what U.S. studios do with closed caption scripts). Even in Japan, it'd...

Editor's Note: I received the following email from Murray C. Park in the UK. Thanks a lot! I've not seen it publicised anywhere and I don't think I even got an email from them, but for the benefit of your UK readers the WH Smith ebook store at http://ebooks.whsmith.co.uk/ is currently running a 50% off sale on every ebook and audio book. Usually I make most of my purchases from Fictionwise or Books On Board because their prices and selection are usually much better that the local offerings, but I've already snapped up 25 titles in this sale...

Editors Note: Thanks to Jean Kaplansky, author of the essay below. - Paul Biba. I recently had a friend dare to ask me about eBook hardware. My response:  "Oh, you had to go there..." Followed by my spiel: The choice of eReading hardware depends on what you expect from an ereader, where you are going to use the unit, and how much you want to spend. I've looked longingly at the Sony Reader, but have never been able to justify the cost for what is...

Personally, after looking into the issues of conflicting e-book formats, how people use e-books and costs, here are some things I've concluded. 1. With all the conflicting formats, the key thing is that there's no consistency in formatting and in fact, you lose the nice formatting of a book. Blah! Why do I want that? I like the precision of a nicely formatted book – after all, it's taken us hundreds of years to get to the point where these books look so good – why throw that away? Instead, there's a simple solution: pdf formats. Almost every e-book...

Thanks to Mark Coker, head of Smashwords. We welcome other reader contributions. If you have something you'd like to submit, feel free to send it to paulkbiba@gmail.com. One of my many joys of running Smashwords is working directly with authors every day who share my passion about the promise of e-books. Their feedback, dreams and frustrations are what guide our development. The biggest challenge these authors face getting their book into e-book form is that they're held hostage by their previous conceptions regarding how a book should be formatted. Traditional print formatting is very forgiving. If you use space marks or tabs...

Thanks to Sam Hendrix for the post below! If you have something you'd like to submit feel free to send it to paulkbiba@gmail.com. In an earlier post made last year, I stated that purchasers of e-book readers were also purchasers of p-books and that the loss of p-sales due to e-readers would dramatically affect the publishing industry. The sales figures of e-book readers, no matter how fuzzy, are in the tens of thousands. It comes as no surprise to me that the publishing industry has seen a sudden and massive collapse in printed book sales. At the...

A few reader submitted articles in response to my earlier requests, but we'd love to see more. Next time you're tempted to post  a long comment, why not turn it into a short article instead? Or, even better, come up with a new e-book-related topic. We can't think of everything. Some of our best contributors, such as Chris Meadows, Ficbot and Garson O'Toole, started out as commenters. Whether it's wisdom on e-book standards or tips for novices, we want to hear from you. Just e-mail the the text to readingelectronically@gmail.com. I'll format it, put in a picture...

Moderator's note: Amazon owns both the Kindle and Mobipocket formats. If major publishers are starting to use only Amazon's proprietary formats---just Mobi for nonAmazon retail?---this is a disturbing trend. I'd welcome thoughts from a publisher or retailer. The informative essay below is from Sue Kleiman. Thanks, Sue! - D.R., 1:25 a.m., Nov. 4. I regularly read the blog at teleread.com, but I haven't noticed any recent comments about this... I've bought most of my hundreds of e-books from eReader and Fictionwise. I always buy the e-books in the eReader format if it's available, because the DRM is much less...

I would like to send a message to all large publishing houses reading this. Electronic reading devices are here to stay. Instead of fearing the loss of sales through historic paper publishing venues, publishers should embrace this new technology. Just think of the possibilities! With electronic editions, publishers can offer enhanced e-books with author interviews, photos, music clips, and other inducements to increase electronic sales. Book stores such as Barnes and Noble could offer exclusive electronic editions containing content available only through their outlets. The possibilities are there to drive sales in ways open to the imagination. Printing...