From the press release from the Canadian company Nubook: Nubook, the leading developer of eBook reading applications, now offers digital books rental to his publishing partners. As a result of developments over the last months, the ebook rental now adds to the Nubook platform services. Publishers can offer their readers to purchase, subscribe, or rent digital books from their catalog. Whatever the chosen method of acquisition, reading is done in an environment optimized for each title, including advanced features defined by the publisher. Partners who already enjoy the Nubook technology can choose to...

From Quill & Quire: With e-books opening up more opportunities for authors looking to self-publish, a newly revived Toronto firm hopes to offer some of the convenience of self-publishing while maintaining the quality associated with traditionally published books. The brainchild of Editors’ Association of Canada president Greg Ioannou (who also runs the editing and copywriting company Colborne Communications), Iguana Books charges authors fees for design and editorial work in advance of publication. However, Ioannou says the start-up, which focuses on e-books, is more selective than many online self-publishing platforms. “When you go shopping for e-books, there’s an awful lot of self-published stuff out...

From the press release: Irwin Law, Canada’s youngest and most innovative law publisher, has signed an agreement with Nubook, the leading developer of eBook reading applications, to distribute its front- and back-lists on tablets. Before the end of the year, Irwin Law’s eBook catalogue will be available in a reading interface designed by the publisher for an optimal user experience. François Guérard, president and CEO of Nubook, said: “We offer publishing houses a new avenue to add value to their books, thanks to digital technology. Nubook’s unique and innovative solution allows publishers...

From the Inside Google Books blog (blockquotes omitted): In the latest chapter of the roll-out of our eBookstore, we're pleased to announce that Google eBooks has just launched in Canada. Readers there can now access our vast online catalogue, including hundreds of thousands of titles for sale and more than two million free books in the public domain. We're excited to announce partnerships with both major international and Canadian publishers, including Random House, McClelland & Stewart, Douglas & McIntyre, House of Anansi and Dundurn. As a result, it’s easy to find popular...

From TheStar: Big changes at Indigo Books & Music have left Canadian publishers nervously anticipating the fall and Christmas retail season. By now, regular customers have noticed lamps, clocks, scarves and other Indigo-brand lifestyle products displayed in priority areas where book tables once stood. But the changes don’t stop there. Canada’s largest bricks-and-motor books retailer has shortened its minimum shelf life for books, taken control away from publishers regarding display space and introduced a marketing charge to publishers on every book sold. “If there is a reduced space for books in the store, then the percentage...

From Quill & Quire: BookNet Canada, the not-for-profit agency dedicated to promoting innovation in the Canadian supply chain, will start tracking e-book sales in addition to print book sales by the end of the year. BookNet has tracked sales of print books since 2005 but acknowledges there’s a rising demand for e-book data. “We have a lot of publishers talking to us about it directly, and we’re also hearing about it in the market,” says BookNet account manager and publisher liaison Pamela Millar. No other agency in Canada tracks industry-wide e-book sales. Nielsen BookScan is working...

From Campus Technology: The Apple iPad-based textbook has arrived--at least in Canada. Eminata Group, which runs six for-profit colleges and universities on 38 campuses in 22 Canadian cities, will be replacing traditional textbooks with digital ones over the next three years in a new deal with Pearson. Starting in September, 1,600 students at CDI College, Vancouver Career College, and Reeves College will receive iPad tablets preloaded with their textbooks running on Pearson's eText for iPad app. Two of those institutions have run pilot programs with the technology. Over the next three years, Eminata representatives say they...

From the press release: Les Presses de l’Université du Québec (PUQ), the vanguard of digital publishing in Quebec, signed an agreement with Nubook, the leading developer of ebook reading solutions, to create their own branded application for iPad. The PressesUQ application, to be launched in September, will give access to the PUQ’s ebooks catalog in the fields of Administration, Communication, Education and Research Methodology; it will allow customers to buy ebooks directly into the application with their iTunes account; and, of course, it will open the PUQ ebooks in a reading interface...

I have always been a buyer of books. It started innocently enough with the fund raiser book sales at Alexander Hamilton Elementary School. Over the years, picture books gave way to “chapter books”, to Russian novels by people with impressively long names and poetry without punctuation. My parents bought me books for my birthday and, later on, when they could no longer keep track of what I liked or had already read, gift certificates to our local bookstore. I haunted the library, as well. In 1974, when I had my first full-time job, I set aside $50 a month for...

From GoodEReader: The long wait is finally over and Canadians who want to access free eBooks with the minimal of difficulty has finally arrived. Starting today Canadians can now borrow over 23,000 free titles via Overdrive and Project Gutenberg. ... These new books will be instantly available without going through waiting lists or holds. Downloading these books are more or less yours to keep. They do not count towards your checkout limit and do not expire. Although they do count towards the library circulation system. What do you need to access these books from your local library? Well firstly verify your branch does digital lending...

A partially sighted law student at the University of Victoria in British Columbia has filed a complaint against the school and six textbook publishers, reports the Times Colonist, over what he says is a discriminatory procurement system for students who need alternative textbook formats. For students to get an electronic copy of a textbook, they must first purchase the hardcopy and submit their booklist to the university. The university places a request for the alternate-format book to the publisher once the student has given them a booklist for all their courses. It may take up to eight weeks to get the book...

Publishers Weekly reported on the third annual Canadian Booksellers Association National Conference.  On the ebook presentations they said: Both presentations on e-book innovations came from Canadian companies. As announced just before the conference, Quebec-based Transcontinental Printing is now offering English Canadian bookstores access to an e-book distribution system that Transcontinental has already been using for clients in France, Italy and Quebec for a couple of years. The system will enable bookstores to sell e-books in Transcontinental’s digital warehouse via their own websites, and the company was demonstrating how it works at a display table during the conference’s exhibitor showcase on Saturday...