What news organizations are learning from their e-book efforts (Poynter Online) What's left if B&N sells the Nook division to Microsoft? (The Passive Voice) A 'novel' idea for spreading literature in Africa: The cellphone (Christian Science Monitor) The e-book piracy debate, revisited (NYTimes.com) The fascinating stories behind classic book titles (Flavorwire) Kindle Daily Deals: Subterranean by James Rollins (and 3 others)...

Is it the Best of Times or the Worst of Times for Journalism? Yes (GigaOM) Library eBooks: The Role of Libraries in the Book Discovery Process (Sourcebooks) The Cover That Launced a Thousand iBookstore Sales (GalleyCat) In Nook, Microsoft Sees a Chance to Compete Against Amazon and Apple (Paid Content) Kindle Daily Deals: The House of Rumour by Jake Arnott (and 3 others)   ...

Studying data can turn up surprising information, but it's important to get the best results in what you do. Smashwords CEO Mark Coker recently released the results from data that was mined during an 11-month period from May 1, 2012 to March 31, 2013. This data studied trends of more than $12 million in sales for 120,000 Smashwords e-books. One of the more interesting findings that came out of the study was that longer works actually sell better. “The top 100 bestselling Smashwords books averaged 115,000 words,” Coker wrote on his blog. “When we examined the word counts of books in other sales rank...

Indie Authors Help Each Other with Book Promotion (Good e-Reader) How Graphic Novels Became the Hottest Section in the Library (PW) The Publishing Industry's Secret Sauce is You (Wired) eBook App Creation Demystified: A Case Study (DBW) Kindle Daily Deals: The Ghost Writer by John Harwood (and 3 others) ...

The University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, if you're not familiar with it, is generally agreed upon as being one of the finest graduate business schools in the country. Unbeknownst to TeleRead until just earlier today, however, was the school's online business analysis journal. It's called Knowledge@Wharton, and we've learned that the smart minds behind the website recently teamed up with Ernst & Young to produce a free, video-enhanced e-book titled Mobile Banking: Financial Services Meet the Electronic Wallet.  "Mobile banking is far more than simply online banking by using mobile phones," according to a press release that accompanied the e-book's launch. "Banks...

Over the past two or three months, you may have begun to notice that nearly every time you get around to catching up on your digital publishing news, yet another media outlet is announcing their new e-book division. And that's definitely a good thing—don't get me wrong. But so many of the bigger media companies launching digital imprints today seem to be repurposing much more old content than they are creating new stories. To me, that sometimes comes as a bit of a disappointment. It seems a little cheap, almost. But a new company that refers to itself as a digital...

Wired magazine will be celebrating its 20th anniversary throughout the remainder of 2013, and as something of a celebration, the editorial team has put together Wired @20, an e-book consisting of what the editors consider to be "20 of the most important and mind-blowing stories from the [Wired] archives." Interestingly (and wisely, I'd say), the stories include "all-new epilogues that bring the articles up to date." So even if you've been reading Wired cover-to-cover from day one, you'll probably still find something of interest here. The anthology includes Evan Ratliff's absolutely masterful feature on how to vanish in the digital age, for instance. It also...

Authors and Book Rights: Some More Truths (Future Book) Nook Press Updated: Now Lets Users Edit Previously Published Books (The Digital Reader) Fan Community Calls Out Illegal Comics Sharing (Good e-Reader) Sourcebooks, OverDrive Launch Pilot to Demonstrate Impact of Library Lending on Sales (Paid Content) Kindle Daily Deals: Oracle Glass by Judith Merkle Riley (and 3 others)  ...

Honestly, I hadn't even heard about this until I woke up this morning and checked my phone, but apparently today—that's Friday, May 3, 2013—is something of a holiday in the digital publishing community. It's the fifth annual International Day Against DRM. Huh. The organization behind the holiday—which in reality is more of an awareness-raising movement—is known as Defective by Design. As the DBD website explains, "We are a participatory and grassroots campaign exposing DRM-encumbered devices and media for what they really are: Defective by Design. We are working together to eliminate DRM as a threat to innovation in media, the privacy of...

Kindle for iOS received a major update yesterday, allowing it to work with the VoiceOver features of the iPhone and iPad. This is a good thing for the blind and visually impaired. It also has application for sighted readers who don’t mind computer text-to-speech voices and want to listen to their books on the go. I tested it out for a bit. VoiceOver takes some getting used to, if you’ve never used it. I had to relearn most of the ways I interact with my iPad, but I finally figured it out well enough to get my Kindle app reading to me. If you’ve ever used...

This is kind of a good news/bad news story. The good news is that Hachette is going to be offering its full catalog to libraries, including new releases. No windowing! The other piece of good news is that the books won't expire, unlike library books from HarperCollins, Penguin and Macmillan. I really like the no-expiration part. I always fee a bit guilty when I check out a HarperCollins book, start it and realize I don't like it. There went one of the 26 lends... The bad news is the pricing, although it's not all bad news, considering that the books won't expire. The...

The New Digital Age: A Review (The Toronto Star) 'Out of Print' Documentary Examines the End of Print (Media Shift) Kobo Aura HD Review (Dear Author) Txtr eBooks Cost 60% More in New Zealand (Good e-Reader) Kindle Daily Deals: The Watchman by Robert Crais (and 3 others)  ...