David Morgenstern has an editorial on ZDNet in which he predicts a grim future for e-book device manufacturers that aren’t Apple. He notes that over the last few days, not one but two high-profile tablets have been cancelled—Microsoft’s two-screened Courier and HP’s Windows 7 slate—and he lays their cancellation squarely at the feet of the iPad. He also suggests that the three million unit guesstimate being tossed around for the Kindle device’s sales may be grossly overinflated, and it might well have sold below one million. (Though, given Amazon’s reticence to release numbers, either guess is probably equally valid.) Meanwhile,...

In comments on a post relating to the announcement that iBooks on the iPad would be able to sync “free” EPUB books through iTunes, a reader expressed skepticism that users would be able to download them without iTunes. Hey iPhone/iPod Touch users: What can you download directly and use without using itunes on a separate computer? Can you download a file to the iPhone/iPod Touch via the web then open that file? If I want to read a Baen epub why do I need to go through iTunes? In fact,...

Another long-standing e-book holdout has finally given in. All 23 novels by popular suspense novelist John Grisham are now available in electronic form via Random House, only 14 months after the initial announcement. On Amazon, new Grisham titles are $9.99, with older titles at $7.99 or less. Kobo (nee Shortcovers) sent an email alerting customers that it has Grisham books for about the same amount (and for two days using the coupon code “grisham” will get $1.50 off of any e-book purchase). They are also at Barnes & Noble, and presumably other places as well. Who...

Received an email from them saying that they will now make the 1.8 million titles from the Internet Archive available free of charge. The Archive includes works in 180 languages, acquired from 200 library partners and scanning locations in 5 countries. More than 1,000 new books are added every day. According to the press release PDF and Epub versions of the Archive material will be available for download this wee, with access via Shortcovers' mobile apps soon after. You can find more info about Shortcovers here. The iPhone app, however, seems to be missing from the Apps Store and the...

Don’t give away your whole book for free. That’s what Ficbot warned new authors yesterday, and I agree. Generous samples are cool. Same for onscreen viewing of the complete book, as opposed to actual freebies of the full files. But should a writer offer a free download of the whole bleepin’ book if it isn’t the first in a series or whatever? No, in most cases. I’d respectfully disagree with Cory Doctorow on that issue. Meanwhile there’s the related matter of freebies in e-stores. Shortcovers President Michael Serbinis notes, in an upbeat interview with...

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! A number of other sites are doing Thanksgiving lists (Ars Technica, Wired, another Wired, and Wired again on things not to be thankful for), and I thought I would assay one of my own. Of course, we all know that we have a lot more to be thankful for than just e-book-related things, but they are this site’s focus after all. There are a lot of people and companies that have made a difference in the e-book industry this year, and I thank the ones important to me below. These are the folks...

  Smashwords announced today that it has teamed up with Canadian publisher Shortcovers which will distribute Smashwords books in 189 countries. Here's an excerpt from the news  release: Shortcovers by Indigo Books & Music, Inc. (TSX:IDG), a leading global eBook service, and Smashwords, a global publisher and distributor of independently published eBooks, today announced a content distribution partnership that promises to democratize eBook publishing for authors and small independent presses around the world. Effective November 18, Smashwords will begin supplying eBooks to Shortcovers, drawing upon Smashwords’ rapidly expanding catalog of...

[caption id="attachment_28779" align="alignright" width="360" caption="The Real World"][/caption] I can't see the point of e-books. They are slower to flick through than real books, you can't lend them or borrow them or give them away, and if you leave them on the train they cost hundreds of dollars to replace. Nevertheless, some people seem to like them, and as a publisher it's my job to offer people what they might want. Here is my first look, as a publisher and a citizen of the real world (see above) at what my distribution options are. A****n In...

Shortcovers is now available on a bunch of dedicated e-book readers. Here is the info: eReading devices have become an increasingly popular way for people to read digitally. The convenience of being able to carry multiple volumes and the ability to create a digital library of thousands of eBooks, as well as additional functionality like annotations, highlighting, text resizing and bookmarking make eReaders a natural choice for travelers, students and avid readers. Shortcovers.com eBooks can be transferred to the following eReading devices: Sony Reader: PRS-300 Reader Pocket Edition PRS-600 Reader Touch Edition PRS-505 Reader Digital Edition PRS-700BC Reader Digital Edition Asktak: EZ Reader EZ Reader Pocket Pro Mentor BeBook: One Mini Bookeen: Cybook Opus Cybook Gen...

“All New York Times bestsellers are now available on Shortcovers for less than ten bucks ($11.99 in Canada)!” – Shortcovers blog....

Now this is good news. Thanks to LJNDawson.com Blog for the link. According to the release "... files are rolling in by the thousands." Here's the release: Shortcovers is excited to announce a new service - the Shortcovers Publisher Conversion Program. Publishers can provide us with their digital source files - PDFs, Quark files, InDesign, .doc, .rtf - and for a shockingly low fee*, we’ll convert them into ePUB files, load them up into Shortcovers and then give back the ePUB file so the publisher can send it off to other vendors who also accept ePUB files. Basically, we wanted...

This is following our unintentional international theme today. Here's one from Canada. From a Shortcovers press release. As far as I know they are the first reader to be available on the Pre. Add eBook Reader to the long list of features for the highly-anticipated Palm® Pre™ phone. Shortcovers by Indigo Books & Music, Inc. (TSX:IDG) today announced the service will available on the newest phone from Palm, the Palm Pre. Shortcovers (www.shortcovers.com) is an integrated online and mobile service that provides access to eBooks from any mobile device. Shortcovers’ catalogue of popular books includes titles from major publishers...