I don't put Digital Rights Management (DRM) software on the ebooks I sell; it doesn't work, so why bother?  So I've never had an issue with Defective by Design and their campaign against DRM.  To be sure, our opinions differ, DbD essentially objecting to DRM on a philosophical level, and me on a practical level, but I never considered the difference an issue. Until I discovered something about the ebooks I was posting to the Amazon website: My product pages were getting vandalized, as far as I'm concerned, with "defectivebydesign" and "drm-infested" tags, despite the fact that my ebooks had no...

Nieman Journalism Lab Editor’s Note: Each week, Ken Doctor — author of Newsonomics and longtime watcher of the business side of digital news — writes about the economics of news for the Lab. We could call this week a paid content free-for-all, but that’s self-contradictory. So let’s call it a pay-for-all, a fray of still-developing schemes that are certain to keep morphing as both competition and publishers’ heads spin ever more quickly. It’s a head-banging adventure to figure out what’s unfolded just this week. Apple offered a proclamation of policy, and given its aversion to talking with the press...

The v3.01 update is now final and ready for download from Amazon servers, for all Kindle 3's.  Apparently, their private feedback was as good as feedback seen on the Amazon forums. See yesterday's original report of the v3.01 update for the details that were in that. At the linked page (above), Amazon also states: ' We're excited to announce that a new, free software update is available for the latest generation Kindle 6" device.  This software update adds the ability to create a new Amazon.com account directly from your Kindle, as well as additional performance...

I posted some earlier comments from Patricia Ryan (pictured at the left), who is part of a wave of emerging self-publishers who are releasing not new books, but rather, their own print backlists. Patricia was kind enough to answer some further questions on how she went from published category romance author to self-publishing indie e-author. Enjoy! THE EXPERIENCE OF PRINT PUBLISHING Patricia began writing category romances in the early 90's. As she explains: "I had read a bunch of category romances that didn't do much for me, a few that were really pretty good, and one--The Black Sheep, a Silhouette Desire...

Amazon wants feedback on an "early preview of the next software update" for Kindle 3 and refers to this update-preview as software update version 3.01. They stress this is offered so that "Customers who want to try this early release of the software and provide feedback can download the update from their servers." Amazon explains that this update will add ' the ability to create a new Amazon.com account directly from your Kindle, as well as additional performance improvements. After installing this update, please share your feedback with us at kindle-response@amazon.com.  We look forward to hearing about...

Within the last 60 days there has been a bevy of announcements of new ereading devices. Amazon announced what is popularly called the Kindle 3 and Sony has announced 3 new models — the 350, 650, and 950. How far behind other makers will be is hard to tell, but the upcoming holiday season should be a good one for device buyers. So the question is this: Is this the time to take the plunge and buy a dedicated ereading device if you don’t already own one? The companion question, of course, is if you own one that is more than...

 Be sure to read the first Kindle 3 Tips and Cautions blog article here. The picture on the left is of my white-bezeled 6" Kindle 3 next to the Graphite 9.7" Kindle DX. The Graphite DX does have a slightly greener tint under certain lighting, but a touch of green can make an image look brighter. Here's the larger image.  Following the larger version is a second, closer shot of the text of both. Further on down the page, I have a tip to get the Kindle text to a closer match with the DX...

While it has been increasingly clear over the past year that Amazon is dominating the market share and price wars among dedicated ebook reader devices, it is now clear that Amazon is also winning its tug of war with traditional book publishers over ebook pricing. Amazon is succeeding dramatically in its efforts to bring an ever increasing number and percentage of all Kindle Store ebooks into its preferred price range between $2.99 and $9.99, inclusive, according to our most recent analysis of the overall pricing composition of the Kindle Store catalog and the "Top 100 Paid" spots on the Kindle Store...

It's been a big news week in Australia in the world of ebooks - as it has overseas. But, for this much-overlooked corner of the world, ebooks have started to take their first tentative steps into the mainstream, and the logjam of rights, content and device issues has started to free up. In short, some important players in book publishing and selling here have evidently been looking at the whole "ebook thing" and decided that rather than a fad, it's the inevitable direction of the book industry. To be fair, I'm sure this happened a while back but, aside from one major...

Elizabeth posting in the Amazon Forum thread about the Kindle 3, quoted an answer she said she received when she asked, though she didn't say who gave the information, but it was an email reply. It looks good. Here is what Elizabeth wrote: ' I asked a few days ago before they upped the date on the product page, here is what they replied per e-mail: Orders placed before 8 p.m. Pacific Time on August 1st will still ship by the August 27th release date. Orders placed before...

Imagine only being able to open one window or application at a time on your laptop. Work for a bit in Excel and when you need to switch to Word, you've got to closer the former before you open the latter. Or what if you want to open two spreadsheets at the same time? Imagine you had to close the first before you could open the second. That's silly, right? On a regular computer, yes, it is. So why do we accept those sorts of restrictions on our ereader devices? I can't open two books...

 I’ve spent too many days this summer visiting this page on Amazon’s Kindle store, waiting for the price of the latest book from Charles Stross to drop to $9.99 (as of the date of this post, it’s $11.99). Clearly, it’s not going to happen until the publisher feels it’s notched as many $12 purchases as it can from eager fans who aren’t as price-conscious as I am. But wait a minute! I too am an eager fan, and because of this pricing issue, I ended up reading the book for free. I’m still a fan but now...