I've fielded some questions lately on the options people have for an ebook reader intended for children. Now that they have come down in price so much, many people seem to be contemplating rounding out the family library with an ebook reader or two for the kids. But nobody has made this easy for them! Why do none of the major ebook vendors have special kid accounts? I think they would be so useful because parents want their kids reading, and they want their kids reading independently, but they also want to control (to an extent) what they read and...

Of all the many hundreds of benefits of this e-age, one of the most joyful and under-rated ones is that of influencing the younger generation. I teach a little grade 1 student who is book-crazy. Nine times out of ten, when I ask her about any book that comes to mind, her answer is 'oooh, I loved that one!' The other one time in ten, it will be 'can you write that one down on a piece of paper and give it to my mom?' Recently, they had to build a community building in a social studies project for their homeroom...

Dear Publishers, I want to start off by apologizing for the generic greeting; in spite of my best efforts to determine just who is actually responsible for the problem I'm having, nobody's saying a word about whose job quality control of ebook editions actually is. I have asked authors when I have written to them about errors in their books. I have asked the president of Kobo himself, both in person and via email, to give me an email address, a contact number, a job title, anything. And everybody shrugs because it isn't their problem; so I am addressing this generally...

Just for some pre-long-weekend fun, some stats to entertain you :) I currently have 283 ebooks tagged in Delicious. This represents full-length books only; if I count magazines and other ephemera, my total 'ebooks read' are 348. Of those 283 books, 51 of them have been tagged a 'favourite.' 11 of these are commercial DRM'd titles 17 of them are indie DRM-free titles from Smashwords and Fictionwise 19 of them are classics in the public domain There are currently 57 ebooks listed in the Indie eBook Hall of Fame. These are books which are available DRM-free and have received at least three positive reviews from independent bloggers. There are 124 books currently...

Last year, I wrote a post for Teleread on the true cost of ebooks, using my own collection as an example. The recent dialogue between Rich Adin and I on the relative costs of print books (in which real estate for paper book storage is a factor) vs ebooks (in which device costs and higher list prices due to no secondary markets are a factor) had me re-examining this issue. So, how did my ebook costs net out? PART 1: HOW MUCH DOES A PRINT BOOK COST? I’ll start by setting some baselines for the typical cost, to me here in Canada,...

If you read any 'ebooks versus print books' article, you'll soon come across the print fetishists. These are people who acknowledge the rise of ebooks---grudgingly---but then insist that 'real' book lovers surely prefer paper, or that paper is 'nicer' or a 'better experience' or in some way superior. I am starting to get really annoyed with these people! Overlooking the obvious 'print and pixel really can co-exist and there is no need for an either/or mentality' argument, I am starting to grow a little offended by the economic snobbery that I perceive in some of these arguments. What I think a...

I'm deep into a drama unit with my grade 1 and grade 2 classes, and my iPad has been indispensable. When I read fiction that is non-work related, I prefer a more straightforward reading experience. But with teaching, the more interactive iPad has been so helpful to me. I can customize my teaching materials, display them and annotate them in ways that help my students learn better and help me manage all the administrative details involved in helping them do so. How am I using ebooks to teach these units to my ...

Something about being off for March break brings out the nesting/cleaning instinct in me, and after almost a week off, my home is now sparkling---and my digital home is too! Among other spring cleaning chores was the purchase of a new backup drive, the deletion of a bunch of digital clutter so I wouldn't over-fill said drive, and a virtual pruning of the digital bookshelf. Lessons learned this time around? Keep reading! 1) LESSON LEARNED: NO SAMPLE, NO PURCHASE Before there was Smashwords, the big indie goldmine was the Fictionwise multiformat book, and I used to get suckered in to spending on...

Teleread has posted several viewpoints in the past few weeks on the subject of piracy. Clearly, this is a hot-button issue for many people, with passionate opinions on the side of both authors and readers. But what many of these dialogues seem to overlook (and where they tend to get bogged down in circular discussion) is this: it's not just one problem. There are actually two separate piracy 'issues' and if you lump them all in together and pretend they are the same thing, you don't actually address the issues that drive either...

Boycott websites and on-line petitions are springing up all over the place over the recent decision Harper Collins made to start limiting library ebooks to 26 loans. I've heard my share of conspiracy theories over this one, all of which are a moot point in the face of the reality that this move (and the backlash) may hurt Harper Collins more than they realize, because it's true, they are the only game in town as far as the authors they represent, but not all of those authors are equally name-brand status. Think...

I love my single-purpose Kindle for distraction-free novel reading, but for educational uses, a multi-function device can be a real time and space-saver. Take as a case study the afternoon I had with my iPad today! LUNCHTIME: NEWS, BOOKS AND MORE I had a lunchroom duty for the first half of lunch, so I didn't have much time to get any work done. Following a quick bite with a co-worker, I had ten minutes between classes to squeeze in a to-do item. I spent it using the Gwizz app to check my Google news feeds, then popping into the Kobo app for...

Three stories are occupying my techie RSS feeds these days, and they are all alarming ones. Readers, I urge you to keep abreast of the news on these and stay tuned for any on-line activism that may arise. There are some pivotal issues being decided upon in the next year or so. What are my top stories? 1) The Borders/Red Group Closures Oh sure, I hear you saying. You read ebooks now. Why should you care? Here's why: because the world is full of non-Americans, and the bugbear of geographical restrictions means these people may be more screwed than you think. When...