PaidContent reports on a Harry Potter multimedia e-book app from ScrollMotion, Harry Potter Film Wizardry, that at $12.99 is one of the more expensive book apps in the iPad store. Timed to coincide with the release of the latest movie, it includes behind-the-scenes looks at the filming of the movies, trivia, and other information. Packed with multimedia, it takes up almost 1 gigabyte of device space. Despite the price, it comes in at #3 in the iPad Book Apps store. But as big as the Harry Potter fandom is, this really isn’t a great surprise. Though I haven’t looked...

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Publishing Perspectives posted an article yesterday by Kristen McLean, executive director of the Association of Booksellers for Children (ABC), about the benefits that computer technology has had and e-books are likely to have for child literacy. (There is also a related editorial/discussion topic by Edward Nawotka.) McLean notes that studies have shown literacy rates for children have already increased considerably over those for children of the same age prior to the computer. But reading literacy is only one kind of literacy that children are going to need in coming years. Participation, collaboration, intuitive problem-solving,...

From the press release: Wattpad ... today announces an ebook distribution agreement with Sony Electronics. A selection of top unique Wattpad titles will be available on Sony’s Reader Store starting today. Titles available immediately include award-winning “Dinner with a vampire. Did I mention I'm vegetarian?” by Canse12 (http://www.wattpad.com/user/Canse12), “Destined To Happen” by lovemehunni (http://www.wattpad.com/user/lovemehunni), “Bye Bye Virginity” by Just-Krissy (http://www.wattpad.com/user/Just-Krissy) and many more. Many of these titles have been read over 1,000,000 times on Wattpad and are the top picks from Wattpad’s library of over 250,000 ebooks created by the community....

Now we know what McGraw-Hill’s CEO was talking about when he leaked that the iPad existed and would support his company’s textbooks. As mentioned by Engadget, the Wall Street Journal reports that a number of textbook publishers including McGraw-Hill are partnering with e-book app company ScrollMotion to put their content on the iPad. (We previously reported on ScrollMotion’s appbook format, and McGraw-Hill and ScrollMotion teaming up to put content on the iPhone.) The Journal suggested that possible use in schools might have been one of the considerations during the iPad’s development stages. However, it will face competition...

ScrollMotion will be releasing 30 titles in their new Iceberg Reader Kids formats. The new reader will include image exploration, audio book recording and interactive controls. All the books will be separate apps and will be activities for the kids, as well as books. It certainly looks as if the new reader will have a number of cutting edge features, including the ability for parents to record themselves reading the book to their children. For full details see this Publishers Weekly story here....

The Sony eBookStore shown here has been around for a few years for Sony Reader owners. But now comes word from BusinessWeek that Sony will also sell e-books elsewhere---in the new Sony Online Store, the current name. This one will sell music, movies and downloadable apps, too. The feeling among Sony watchers is that the new Sony store will use an iTune-ish approach.No startup date has been announced.  I’m curious if or how the new Sony store may works with the existing eBook Library software. What’s more, might the current eBookStore vanish? I...

During the rest of 2009 over 600 full interactive McGraw-Hill titles will be added to the App Store. They will cover such areas as medical, computing, education and more. The first two titles will be bestsellers How to Make Money in Stocks by William J. O'Neill and Leadership in the Era of Economic Uncertainty by Ram Charan. You can find the news release here. Thanks to ResourceShelf for the link....

Today ScrollMotion and LibreDigital will announce a deal that will deliver the first 100,000 books, newspaper and magazine titles to the iPhone from popular publishers like HarperCollins, Hachette, Simon & Schuster, and more. These books and publications will be available for sale as part of the ‘in-app” purchasing capabilities of the new iPhone 3.0 platform. Here is the press release: ScrollMotion, creators of the Iceberg Reader and a leading developer of original iPhone applications, today announced agreements with dozens of major book, magazine and newspaper publishers to create new digital content for the iPhone. Central to the announcement...

A pattern here? Rupert Murdoch and friends want the Wall Street Journal to cost more, and for his other properties on the Web to start charging. And we already know about the sneaky news summit that media barons held in Chicago, with dollar signs in their eyes, even if anti-trust risks may loom ahead. Not to be left behind, some in the the book industry keeps hoping they can use ScrollMotion apps to jack up e-book prices---a fantasy, even if ScrollMotion can improve the interfaces of its Iceberg e-reader. Aaron Pressman, meanwhile, has documented the gaps between the...

Imagine---if you like a publisher’s book you can use the same app to buy other titles. What’s more, without leaving a book, you can e-mail part if to friends. ScrollMotion is releasing an iPhone/iPod Touch app with those hyper-useful features. A strategy for other Kindle/Amazon rivals to use? ScrollMotion will also offer newspapers and magazines. Now if only ScrollMotion will have a more sensible ‘tude toward DRM and also spiff up the interface. E-book-savvy people complain that ScrollMotion’s fidelity to the looks of print books means a lot of unneeded scrolling. (Via Engadget. Also see other...

Stanza is certainly doing a good job of covering the e-book market. It has just been announced that Smashwords content will now be available through Stanza. This is a major outlet for independent authors to get their work published. You can read the Smashwords press release, in full, here. Given Stanza's huge uptake this is an excellent outlet for new authors. You can also find an interesting interview with Smashsords' Mike Coker at the Mercury News here. Contrast this to the approach taken by ScrollMotion. In the name of DRM they lost the entire holiday season. According to Publisher's Weekly, ScrollMotion...