This blog started five years ago today, a couple of weeks before Amazon launched the game-changing Kindle and a couple of months after the industry had placed its hopes for a smooth transition to digital on its own open format, EPUB. It's hard to remember or imagine but at that time Sony was the hot… Continue reading Five years of eReport
Category: Kindle
Analysis: Ebook Format Wars, Round 2
[This article was originally published in the March 2012 issue of News on Bookselling, the magazine of the Australian Booksellers Association.] This year will mark the fifth anniversary of Amazon’s launch of the Kindle, the event that triggered the spectacular rise of the ebook. Amazon has remained the biggest beneficiary of this growth, with its… Continue reading Analysis: Ebook Format Wars, Round 2
Australian ebook buyers offered choices aplenty this Christmas
Australian readers will have few reasons not to join the ebook revolution this Christmas as a host of offerings come on stream. The past year has seen major strides in the key areas of local availability, price, ease of use and ease of purchase. “This Christmas will be a very important one for ebooks in… Continue reading Australian ebook buyers offered choices aplenty this Christmas
Amazon takes on libraries with Kindle Owners’ Lending Library
Amazon’s loving its Kindle owners. The retail giant is letting Kindle owners who sign up for its US$79 Prime service borrow an ebook each month for no extra fee. Prime is a premium service for Amazon customers that started as an offer of unlimited shipping for a one-time annual payment. That US$79 fee now includes… Continue reading Amazon takes on libraries with Kindle Owners’ Lending Library
EPUB3 ready to go, now Amazon responds with Kindle Format 8
A couple of weeks ago, the publishing industry’s EPUB3 specification was finally signed off. This was the cue for device makers and e-reading app developers to build it into their next releases and for publishers to start work on enhanced ebooks. Now Amazon has responded with its own next generation ebook format, Kindle Format 8 (KF8), complicating… Continue reading EPUB3 ready to go, now Amazon responds with Kindle Format 8
Kindle Fire brings colour, low price – and the cloud
Amazon has announced its long-anticipated entry into the tablet market with the US$199 Kindle Fire, due to go on sale 15 November and US-only for now. While some were anticipating an iPad Killer and several commentators are disappointed that it’s not, taking Apple head-on today was never going to be Amazon’s strategy. Following Apple’s playbook… Continue reading Kindle Fire brings colour, low price – and the cloud
Amazon takes shot at Apple with impressive Kindle Cloud Reader web app
When Apple took its heavy-handed action against retailers last month, stopping them selling from within iPad and iPhone apps, those retailers were inevitably going to search for ways to avoid this happening in future. Any business would want to know that its very existence wasn’t subject to the changing whims of Apple management. It turns… Continue reading Amazon takes shot at Apple with impressive Kindle Cloud Reader web app
Publishers, here’s how to stop Apple and why you should do it now
When the mightiest online retailer in the world, Amazon, has to bow to Apple’s demands and cut ties to its ebookstore in the Kindle app, we know we’re facing a big problem. Retailers have lost an important battle to stop Apple turning its hardware dominance into control over content sales. It’s now time for publishers to… Continue reading Publishers, here’s how to stop Apple and why you should do it now
Kobo, Google, other ebookstores bumped from iPhone and iPad
I went to update the Kobo app on my iPad this morning but stopped when I saw what has changed. The main reason for the update is to cut access to the Kobo ebookstore from within the reading app. Instead, you have to fire up a separate browser, go to their store and make the purchase outside the… Continue reading Kobo, Google, other ebookstores bumped from iPhone and iPad
Make your own Kindle ebooks using new Adobe InDesign plug-in from Amazon
Publishers who want to produce their own Kindle-ready ebooks can now do it directly from within the Adobe InDesign page layout software using a free plug-in thatAmazon has just released. The plug-in adds an “Export to Kindle” facility which generates the file in a few clicks, similar to InDesign’s native ePub export facility. This is… Continue reading Make your own Kindle ebooks using new Adobe InDesign plug-in from Amazon