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By David Rothman

image Will the Kindle or even a Kindle II e-reader hit the U.K. later this year? Will the Readius—an e-reader and GSM mobile phone combo shown here, with a five-inch rollable E Ink screen—appear in Britain in mid-2008?

And will Sony wait until the third quarter to launch its Reader over there, a far cry from the spring launch that some had once envisioned?

Kindle II—or just fun speculation?

That’s quite a juicy collection of tidbits tucked away in a Bookseller article, which says the Kindle II “may feature both e-books and digital audio downloads?” Hmm. Did the Bookseller instead mean that the II would offer better audio-related navigational capabilities or other improvements over the existing Kindle, which already can do audio? And why the specific reference to the II when even the original Kindle isn’t on sale in the U.K. yet? Was the Bookseller just looking ahead, or was it really on to something?

Meanwhile, as much a booster as I am of the idea of phone-e-reader combinations, given the fondness of many people for consolidating their gadgets, I can’t wait to get my hands on a Readius. “After seeing this device, I will be skipping the Kindle (unless Amazon can come out with something like this) and buying this much more pocketable device that can also serve as a phone if I need it to,” writes Matthew Miller in The Mobile Gadgeteer blog, where this video appeared. “There doesn’t appear to be a way to buy and download content from just the device, but that may be coming in the future since it does support the 3.5G HSDPA networks.” For now, let’s remember that the Readius may not even be able to function as a plain old cellphone at first in the U.S., considering the different standards and commercial issues; I don’t know, either way.

Main focus of the Bookseller piece is on the e-rights battle between authors and publishers. The Society of Authors wants 25 percent royalties on net receipts, according to the Bookseller, which reports:

“The gauntlet was thrown down in February by Random House c.e.o. Gail Rebuck, who in a meeting with agents proposed a royalty of 15% of net receipts on digital sales. That’s higher than the standard 10% royalty rate on hardbacks, but significantly lower than the 25% currently received by authors in the US for e-book sales.

“Little, Brown c.e.o. Ursula Mackenzie followed suit, writing to agents to say that the Hachette publisher would also be seeking to pay 15% royalties on digital editions. Both publishers emphasised that the rates would be short-term and subject to break clauses.”

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