iBooks

Lending coming to the Kindle

In a forum post today, Amazon made a couple of small but significant Kindle announcements. First, it's soon going to make Kindle newspapers and magazines readable on any Kindle app, "so you can always read Kindle periodicals even if you don't have your Kindle with you or don't yet own a Kindle."

Second, the company said that later this year a lending feature will come to the Kindle, though it has the same restrictions as the current lending feature on the Barnes & Noble Nook.

"In the coming weeks, many newspapers and magazines will … Read more

Apple hiring marketing manager for iBookstore

Perhaps signaling that it's getting more serious about selling e-books, Apple is in the process of hiring a U.S. marketing manager for its iBookstore.

The position is based in Cupertino and according to the job posting, "It will be this Manager's responsibility to drive awareness and sales of iBooks through co-marketing programs with publishers and authors, strategic partnerships, and via online and direct marketing tactics."

Apple is very specific about the type of person it wants. It says that, "The role requires an entrepreneurial self-starter with the creativity and enthusiasm to deliver innovative, impactful, … Read more

iWork update enables iBooks self-publishing

Apple on Thursday released an update for its iWork suite of productivity applications, adding a new feature that enables authors to add books to its iBookstore application.

While all of the applications in the iWork suite were updated, the most significant change comes in Pages 4.0.4. The word-processing app now includes compatibility with the ePub format, which Apple uses for iBooks.

Apple published a document on its support site giving users tips on creating documents in the ePub format that covers everything from using paragraph styles in your Pages document to providing a downloadable template to use.

You … Read more

iAds in iBooks may be closer than you think

The Wall Street Journal reports that iAds may appear in iBooks as publishers watch their profits dwindle amid technology advances like Apple's iPad. The publishing industry has been less than supportive of these advances and the result could come at the expense of its content.

From a business standpoint, though, this makes total sense. Ads have been queued and served in every other form of digital technology for as long as I can remember. Why not add them to books? With heavy competition in the e-book market, prices are dropping and with it, profits. Enter Apple's iAds.

With … Read more

How to put PDFs on your iPad

Though the iPad is a fantastic universal e-reader able to handle multiple formats, you're often better off using PDF files than the EPUB format in many situations. This How To video is, if nothing else, a reminder of the fact that the PDF is your friend.

The EPUB document format is admittedly better for its adjustable fonts and formatting, and it's recognized by Apple's iBooks app. But saving your own writing to EPUB format isn't exactly simple. Getting that EPUB onto your iPad still requires connecting via iTunes with a sync cable.

PDFs are the Web'… Read more

Amazon: We have 70-80 percent of e-book market

Recently, I sat down with Ian Freed, an Amazon vice president in charge of the Kindle, to get a sneak peek at the new Kindles and discuss e-books and the Kindle business in general. Naturally, a good portion of the conversation centered on the design and features of Amazon's new e-readers, which you can read about here. But we also chatted about the e-book industry and Amazon's Kindle business in general. Here's a look at some of the more interesting parts of the conversation. Feel free to post your own analysis in the comments section.

CNET: You've been talking a lot lately about the growth rate of Kindle sales. You said it tripled...

Freed: There's actually two triplings. One is the number of e-books sold in the first quarter of 2009 versus the first quarter of 2010. And then the other is after we dropped the price of the Kindle to $189, we saw a tripling of the growth rate year over year [of the device itself].

CNET: How much of the rate of growth on the e-book side is attributable to the iPad and getting your app on these other devices like the iPhone and iPad?

Freed: Excellent question. Some numbers we haven't released before...80 percent of Kindle books we sell are sold to Kindle owners. They may have a Kindle app on a phone or an iPad or Mac or PC, but they at least have a Kindle. So 20 percent do not. I think it's a combination of the health of both businesses. The device business continues to grow with a device [the second-generation Kindle] that's over a year old, and then the content is growing both with the device sales and independently with the apps. We see a lot of customers start with apps and buy a Kindle later.

We see others who've had a Kindle for a year and half and have an Android phone and they've started using the Android phone for Kindle in the last month or so.

CNET: Now that most publishers have shifted to the "agency model" and are setting their own prices, how have the higher prices on many e-books impacted sales?

Freed: Happy to answer that. We have definitely seen a shift. We have data for the last 15 years on books. And since some of the publishers have decided to price their e-book above $9.99, we've definitely seen a shift of customers going to e-books that are $9.99 or less. The good news for them is that the selection of those books is very dramatic. We have about 630,000 books that are not public domain titles and of those 510,000 are sold for $9.99 or less. Of The New York Times best-sellers, 80 of them are $9.99 or less. So customers are voting with their pocketbook... … Read more

Connecticut AG investigating Apple, Amazon e-book deals

MarketWatch has posted a short news item about how Connecticut's Attorney General Richard Blumenthal is investigating whether "e-book deals between Amazon.com and Apple and major book publishers may be anticompetitive."

"These agreements among publishers, Amazon, and Apple appear to have already resulted in uniform prices for many of the most popular e-books--potentially depriving consumers of competitive prices," Blumenthal said in statement.

Ironically, of course, Amazon did not want to enter into the current agreements but was forced to after four out of the five major publishers signed on with Apple and moved to an &… Read more

Blogshelf rules blog reading on iPad

Remember Early Edition, the iPad app that presents your RSS feeds in an attractive newspaper-style format? Well, I've shelved it for now while I indulge my fascination with Blogshelf, a blog and RSS reader that has a dazzling iBooks-style presentation.

Designed for "casual users," Blogshelf ($4.99) offers roughly the same experience as browsing the magazine shelves at the library. It comes with about 20 popular blogs--Autoblog, Cinematical, Serious Eats, and so on--already configured, but you can line your "shelves" with preselected blogs from 18 categories.

It also has a search option to help you … Read more

Easily save Web pages, documents in iTunes for use with iOS devices

Have you ever wanted to be able to save a Web site or document you wanted to read later to your iPhone or iPad? Follow these simple steps and take any offline reading you need to get done with you on your iOS device.… Read more