AskMen Going Into the eBook Biz

"AskMen.com, one of the top men-focused lifestyle sites on the Web with 20 million monthly unique visitors, is ramping-up its nascent ebook publishing program.
The site has published five ebooks so far, starting this past June, and has sold them on Amazon and other retailers for prices ranging from $0.99 to $9.99. The content has been mostly re-purposed but upcoming titles will be original content. The company plans on publishing around 20 ebooks next year."

We have no more need to look for proof that ebooks and ebook publishing are an unjustified medium than this story right here.  The context of the story is that AskMen is publishing ebooks, but they are not.  What they are doing is extending their brand to cover books that anyone can write and anyone can publish in a format that anyone can publish in.  This is not a "new thing."  Coca-Cola, if they had the inclination, could do the same thing.  Hell, I could do the same thing.  Just send me your ebook, I'll sign up for the account, format your book, sell the thing and give you the minuscule profits that come with selling books through Amazon's ebook market.  

The only way this has really become a legit enterprise is through sites like Pottermore, and that's only because Harry Potter fans are a little bit nuts.  And rightly so.  If Oprah decided she was going to extend her brand, she could dominate the ebook market by reaching out to small authors and give them an audience.  Then she could devour their souls, sucking out their chewy center.  But, if people are reading, more power to them.  I just hope the quality AskMen.com devotes to their articles continues into their ebooks.

AskMen.com Ramping-up Ebook Program - Digital Book World:

AskMen.com Ramping-up Ebook Program Digital Book World AskMen.com, one of the top men-focused lifestyle sites on the Web with 20 million monthly unique visitors, is ramping-up its nascent ebook publishing program. The site has published five ebooks so far, starting this past June, and has sold them on ...

Amazon Under Fire: Erasing Ebooks and Overcharging

Right out of the gate with have this story where Techdirt explains how one Kindle user had her account wiped and Kindle locked down with no reason whatsoever given.  This is the point where you have to step back and look at the awesomeness of having thousands of books at your fingertips versus the control companies now have over that awesomeness.  Imagine a Barnes and Noble representative coming to your house and taking all your physical copies away then issuing you a statement that you were barred from all their stores.  Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Now let's take a look at how Amazon is taking money from British people and how the government stopped them:

According to The Telegraph:
"Amazon is making British publishers pay 20 per cent VAT on ebook sales, despite their true VAT cost for UK ebook sales being closer to 3 per cent."

It seems after this news was let out, someone in the government noticed and took swift action:

From The Guardian:
"Amazon is to be stripped of its huge tax advantage on the sales of electronic books after the European commission ordered Luxembourg to close a VAT loophole."

So you get loophole abuse by getting a lower rate.  Sure, I can get behind that.  You are a large company and large companies do things to save money.  But not passing on savings, nay, charging fees that are non-existent to you?  That's just wrong on every level.

Shame on you Amazon.  

Ebook News: Apple May Get Sued and Price Wars: The New Hope

A Random Newspaper (link below) reports that the Wall Street Journal reports that the US Justice Department may sue Apple and five major book publishers for conspiring to raise the prices of ebooks.

Google Play (Google's new media outlet) and Amazon are involved in a price war on ebooks that are creating great deals on titles.  

In an effort to stay balanced and fair, this librarian has decided to present the following argument:

These two stories have been included to show that commerce is good and Apple is an evil, Borg-like organization that feeds on making you not think like a fat man feeds on super duper triple chunk mocha fudge brownie Rockie Road Ice Cream.  

My iPhone's battery went to crap so I got an Android.  Who loses? Me, I'm still on AT&T.

US Justice Dept may sue Apple, publishers on e-book pricing -WSJ

Google Play And Amazon Involved In Price War Leading To Amazing Deals On EBooks

Amazon Pulls eBooks from Store

After a disagreement with the Independent Publishers Group, Amazon pulled the publisher's titles (nearly 5000) from its market.  This comes nearly a month after Amazon's own books were pulled from the chain bookstore Barnes and Nobles.

This brings to mind a problem we had last year with the Bannville Ladies Auxillary quilt display.  Edna Snarffle and Betsy Farmer, co-heads of the BLA nearly came to blows over a quilt constructed of various 80s band tour shirts.  The quilt, titled Band Stand, was made by Ms. Snarffle from her collection of shirts that had worn thin over the last 30 years of wear and tear.  The quilt as a whole was not the issue as there is always a t-shirt quilt somewhere in the mix.  The issue came when Mrs. Farmer objected to the inclusion of both pre- and post- David Lee Roth Van Halen t-shirts.  Mrs. Farmer, a supporter of Mr. Roth, objected to the quilt as a matter of principle.  The Ladies Auxillary was nearly torn in two, along with the quilt, until it was removed from the collection and placed in the geneology room where a sign was displayed, "Band Stand Quilt inside, possibly offensive."

Amazon takes a company's e-books out of stores after disagreement - Christian Science Monitor

A Fire in Color? Amazon, You Might Have Me if it Smells

Amazon is set to unveil their newest ebook reader, the Kindle Fire 2, which if reports are true will be in eink color. 

Finally I can have my books in pasty sepia and charcoal of old books rather than the normal black and white.  But hold on... No, I will not be purchasing this.  I am waiting for the Fire 3... well, let us be serious, the Fire 5, that will contain the availibility of book smell.  Little gas potpourri dispensers that you can put a cartridge in and the smells will fill the room. 

Do not stop at the smell of ink and glue, though.  These ereaders already have sounds of the park or the subway, lets make it smell like that, too.  I want to be able to sit quietly at home and hear the gentle rock of the subway car and smell the faint pee smell of the guy next to me.  Memories, people, that's all I want.

Rumour: Amazon to unveil a colour ebook reader, Kindle Fire 2 - PC Authority

This Is Barnes & Sparta!

The retail bookstore Barnes & Noble announced this week that it will not sell books published by Internet giant Amazon.

The brick and mortor store has finally drawn a line in the sand, kicked the messenger down the well if you will.  But did they think about it?  Did the giant make the right move, pissing off an empire that extended their hand in friendship?  I doubt it.  Not only did they just give Amazon exclusivity to their own content, but they also went forward with an idea that people NEED bookstores now-a-days.  One only has to look at the fate of Borders to see that this is not completely true. 

I do salute these brave warriors, though.  A bold move in an ever increasingly violent environment. 

But I really hope the small Mom & Pop bookstores that the larger chain almost put out of business see this as a rally cry.  The little guys can now give exactly what the big stores can not: a personal touch with items they want.

Barnes & Noble won't stock books published by Amazon in stores - Los Angeles Times

Palmyra Library Shills for The Electric Company

The Palmyra Public Library of Palmyra, PA has entered into a fundraising agreement with the Stream Energy electrical company.  The agreement is simple, the library switches to Stream Energy (nope, not "steam," I read it wrong at first and thought of librarian's shoveling coal) and convinces their patrons to also do the switch.  For every patron they get to switch, they get $4 per month for however long that person keeps an account. LDNews

I am torn, frankly.  On one side, we got a great funding opportunity from an unexpected source.  On the other, we have a library being sponsored by a private company.  Wherever you stand on the privatization of libraries, it has to start somewhere.  Sure, right, there is no effort by Stream Energy to influence the library or take over its services, but we can all see that this is more than the average donation.  Why not go further?

Hell, see that image to the left of "The Electric Company"?  It's an advertisement.  Click on it and it will take you to Amazon and I get little to nothing.  Tons of images of books on a library website have linked to Amazon could generate tons of revenue for a possible library but wouldn't that be a little wrong?  We shall see.

Amazon News: Publishing and British Links

Amazon, Amazon, do you know how not to make waves?  Two stories come to us from that corner of the Internet where items are sold like a really boring wild west market.

122 books will be published this fall by Amazon.com, both in print and electronic format, bypassing the traditional publishing houses that rule the book world like an iron fist rules a dick punching competition.  Will the publishing world strike back like the empire we know they are?  Or will it take a lone orphan living with his aunt and uncle to find the true way of the Force and rescue a hottie that he later finds out is his sister?  We may never know.  NYTimes

The British Library is being criticized for linking to the Amazon market place for book information in its online catalog.  Book sellers and libraries across the land are denouncing the once great king for promoting a giant and forgetting about all the little British ant hills.  May the fires of Arnethor and Bledewindlestick stoke their hearts and not their asses.  Low be unto thee who understands why I started talking like this. Seriously, folks are pissed.  Telegraph

Laverne Gets Book Deal, Expect Dirt on Shirley's Bathroom Habits

Actor, director and Jabba the Hut impersonator Penny Marshall has secured a book deal with Amazon.com.  The online book giant won the rights at auction to the  Laverne & Shirley star's memoir in both hardback and ebook.  Marshal is quoted as saying

"I can't say I'm excited about the Yankees losing, or there not being a basketball season yet, but I am excited about writing this book," Marshall said in a statement. "People have always asked me how I got from the Bronx to Hollywood, so I thought it was time to tell how it all happened. I have had many lives - not in the Shirley MacLaine sense - and you will hear about them all. Just don't expect any recipes. I don't cook." Forbes

While the title has yet to be released, I have a proposed title: Shirley, You Can't Be Serious.  This is based on the hope that Cindy Williams also writes a companion memoir called I Am Serious, And Don't Call Me Shirley.

Back in the Saddle, All the News I Missed in One Go

PhotoshopEssentials

So the Banned Library took a little vacation and look at what you folks did.  Calendars, ebook crap, Amazon and that damn Kindle, even Harry ma-fuckin Potter got in on the action.  Well, here we go with the best random sentences I could cobble together in my one non-alcohol infused hallucination.  So hit the jump and follow the pink elephant into the marshmallow pool!

Because it works so well with firemen, the men of the library started a little calendar to show off their cataloging butts for charity.  Nothing like living out that Full Monty fantasy, right fellas?  LATimes

Pottermore, the Harry Potter site, announced that they will not be releasing Harry Potter ebooks until early 2012.  I guess I will have to go back to the pdf scans a 14 year old made and torrented two years ago.  ABCNews

The Amazon ebook "Reamde" by Neal Stephenson came under fire when first it was said to be full of typos and errors, and upon re-release Amazon labeled the ebook as having corrected "missing content."  Amazon had no comment when we pretended to call them on our hand because of our next story.  ChristianScienceMonitor

Amazon officially announced their color Kindle, the "Amazon Fire."  Hilariously, you could equate this to the burning of the amazon jungle to allow for grazing land for cattle.  In this joke, cattle are people.  Amazon via Geekologie

President Obama has set forth legislation that will allow states to opt out of the controversial "No Child Left Behind" program.  I do not have a joke, I just wanted you all to know.  CNN

This article was titled "Books on the Banned Wagon."  That is the single best article title in Banned Books week ever.  hindustantimes

New York librarians can rest easy again knowing that the nightmare book thief has been caught and prosecuted.  With this one problem gone, the library can concentrate on who keeps leaving stinky in the men's restroom.  New York Post

Two, count them, two libraries were infested with bedbugs this week.  The Vancouver area library found bedbugs in their shelves and furniture, as did an Arizona library.  VancouverSun and AZCentral

The Lowell City Council in Massachusetts has voted to ban sex offenders from being at the library during times when children are present.  So remember, get arrested for a sex related crime and you are not allowed into Summer Reading.  BostonHerald

Freaked out, the California State University library was evacuated searched after a patron indicated he had a gun.  The man was found and slapped around like the stupid red-headed stepchild he was.  WashingtonPost

The e-reader app Kobo now allows your friends to see what you are reading and when you are reading it by posting automatic notices.  Your mother wants to know why you would read all that smut.  Your best friend thinks you are gay for Percy Jackson.  Your girlfriend wants to know who "Jane Eyre" is and if she is prettier.  Thanks, Kobo.  USAToday

The Dead Sea Scrolls are gonna be online.  We can get 2000 year old parchment online, but not fucking Harry Potter?  Youtube via BoingBoing

Seattle Can Stop Feeling Special, We All Gotz Amazon

I feel like it was just yesterday I reported that Seattle and the King County library system were taking Amazon for a test drive.  Now everybody has it.  Well, when I say we all have Amazon, I do not mean every library has access to Amazon ebooks, just the 11,000 or so that deal with Overdrive for their books.  Read more in Amazon's press release.

Can you smell that?  Like a summer breeze, I tell ya.  Fresh off the ocean of dreams and kissed with a rainbow.  Welcome to the future, people of Earth, because Amazon became a time machine.

Seattle Gets Kindle Library eBooks

The Amazon Kindle, which we have never mentioned before, is beginning beta testing in Seattle for their Kindle Library ebook lending program.  The lending program, which works like this, partners with Overdrive to provide Kindle editions, or the AMZ ebook format, of various items.  Thisismynext contains various links to successful use of the system.

Yep, that's the next story I got.  First watermelons, now a test for an ebook checkout that technically already existed but is now expanded.  What's everybody think about that?  Excited about the Kindle editions?  Thinking about planting your own improbable library victory garden?  Let me know, I guess.  I'll be here.

Amazon Working on a Subscription Library?

Amazon is reportedly in talks with major publishers to offer a subscription-based ebook service to their Kindle and app ereaders sort of like their audio book service Audible or their Amazon Prime movie service.  Customers would pay an annual fee to access a library of materials, but publishers have not been responsive.  Huffpost 

It seems we are going back in time folks.  When libraries first started, you would bring a chicken to the building, offer it up to the monks, priests or guys in powdered wigs and get to read some stuff.  Make no mistake, kids, these libraries still exist (such as the Library Company of Philadelphia and the New York Society Library) and have for a while.  Here's what I want to know:  If this library service takes off, do you see a privatization of libraries on the way?  This has already happened in some libraries, so don't tut-tut me that it can not happen.  If online companies such as Amazon offer to staff and fill your library, tell me your city council would not bend their ears for just a moment.  Seems a subscription based library on the cheap cheap, even in ebook form, could have libraries going down an interesting road.

Tech News of the Week, Cause It Happened

techa-nology, y'all

Welcome to this weeks Tech News of the Week, where all your library tech news gets shuffled when I can't think of more than a sentence to say about it.

Leapfrog, the educational "computer" company, has created its own version of the iPad called the LeapPad.  Personally I would have called it the "Lilly" (unless they already called their first computer that after Apple's own ancient invention, the "Lisa,") as a play on the whole "lilly pad" phenomenon that is sweeping the swamps.  Or just call it a speak-and-spell and go on with my life.  tennessean

Amazon is opening in Spain this week.  I just wanted y'all to know.  paidcontent.org

Michael Hart, the founder of Project Gutenberg, died this week.  The mark this man left on the world is vast, touching on the creation of the ebook to the digital preservation of materials.  Think about that the next time you bitch about... whatever you bitch about digitally.  NYTimes

IDW has brought graphic novels to the Apple iBook store.  Read such classics as... those movie-licensed comics the kids like these days.  Keep on kicking, digital ebooks picture thingies. comicbookresources

The Huffington Post has begin publishing ebooks.  The first ebook out on its bandwagon will be Arthur Delaney’s A People’s History of the Great Recession.  Prepare for the ride of your life.  paidcontent.org

You Can Talk to Authors Through Kindle! And Twitter

Amazon's Kindle e-reader had taken the next step in e-book e-volution: Twitter.  Short and skinny is that Amazon made a bunch of authors promise to answer fans when fans asked questions through the new Twitter-enabled Kindle.  Now as you read you can stop what you are doing and ask the author anything you want. I'm downloading my copy of The Holy Bible right now. tecca


Here are some practice questions for your favorite author:
How did you came up with this scene?
How did you write so good?
Why did this character do that?
What you talking about, Connie Willis?
What if God was one of us?
Is it inappropriate to think of child stars as sexual beings?
If a train leaves Las Vegas at 6pm, is there anyone on it not crying?
Can you sell a person into slavery if you are not related to them?
Are you there Judy Blume? It's me, the Spanish Inquisition.

Google Going All Jungle View

Google is looking to expand its Street View project to major waterways and remote destinations.  The first on that list: The Amazon River!  Boom, there goes the dynamite.  Seriously, isn't that how they fish down there?  With dynamite?  Anyway... from BBC News:

Google will train local people to collect images, and will leave behind equipment so work continues long-term... Pictures will be stitched together so users can explore 360-degree panoramics of the area.

So, not only are they co-opting the river itself, but using the people there to do it.  I bet those folks don't get invited to the Googleplex for a 5-star meal.  Nope, just malaria and piranhas.  Good times.

BoingBoing via Fark via BBC News

Apple Sued Over eBook Pricing and Kindle Gets Advertising

The face of evil.

Apple and five publishing companies have been hit with a class action lawsuit by the firm Hagens Berman over ebook price fixing.  The lawsuit claims that Apple, HarperCollins Publishers, Hachette Book Group, Macmillan Publishers, Penguin Group Inc. and Simon & Schuster Inc. conspired to illegally fix prices of ebooks and shut down the competition created by Amazon's lower priced ebooks.

Anybody feel like this is just a big advertisement for Kindles?  Oh, Kindle ebooks are so cheap that the big boys had bring us down.  Why can't we all be friends?  Those big meanies are trying to stop us from giving you the best prices around.  So cheap in fact that we feel crazy.  We must be crazy.  We are giving the site away!  So come on down to Crazy Larry's Amazon eBookland and we'll have us a good old time.

Also, you know the folks over at Google Books are loving this.  Their main completion are having a slap fight while they just put out their first eReader. Of course, they could feel left out.  This is the first major ebook court battle that they have not been apart of.

AppleInsider
ZDNet
DetNews
Wired

Harry Potter eBooks Pick Google over Amazon

Google Books has confirmed that they will be an ebook hub for the Harry Potter books through the Harry Potter reading website Pottermore.  Customers will be able to buy copies of the ebooks and then read them on any Google Book device, such as the Nook, Story HD and the Google Book internet platform.  This is big news for the search engine giant as it gives them a major lead over their competition, including Amazon.

Oooo, Amazon got burned!  They were all like, "J.K. Rowling, let's light the eliterary world on fire with your $15 billion dollar empire.  Light it with a Kindle." And J.K. was all, "Eh, you sell weird stuff and are all groady and old.  I like Google now.  He's hot and has a big search engine and is all about not being evil." And Amazon was like, "Rowling, why are you doing this to me! You are tearing me apart!"  And then Amazon shot itself and a kid o.d.'d or something.

[ZDNet]

College Students Can Now Rent Text-eBooks from Amazon

Amazon announced a new opportunity for college students to rent their textbooks as ebooks through its Kindle platform instead of buying the books outright.  The ebook rental prices will at times be as much as 80% less than the retail value of the books.  I can see this affecting students in three ways:

1. Students will no longer give Christmas presents to their families or be able to go home for the summer.  The valuable income that comes at the end of the semester when students sell back the books their parents or student loans paid for will be lost as the text-ebooks vanish into the ether.

2.  Students will no longer have a proper reminder for classes.  Waking up at the crack of noon, stumbling over to the mini-fridge to get that first brew, then BAM!  Your big toe cracks into the edge of your Algebra II book.  As you collapse to the floor in pain, you remember that your final for Civics is tomorrow.  How?  The girl that saw you vomit off the balcony onto the goat that time is in both your Algebra and Civics class.  Without the book, you would never remember.

3.  Rolling joints and doing blow on a Kindle sucks the big one.  Seriously, have you ever tried to cut anything on the screen of that eInk stuff?  Cuts it right up.  And remember how happy you were to shake out the book and find a toothpick's worth of weed in the cracks of the pages?  So happy.

[ComputerWorld]

Lordy, Lordy, eBooks are Forty

The 2011 World eBook Fair, which apparently exists, is celebrating 40 years of ebooks, claiming the 1971 copy of the Declaration of Independence by Project Gutenberg as the first ever ebook.  Amazon was also on hand to jump up and down like a puppy about to piddle and announce ebooks are outselling print books on their site..

First of all, I think it is a stretch to call the electronic version of the Declaration of Independence an eBook.  The narrative is weak, it is pandering to national sensibilities and quite honestly, the protagonist is kinda a douche.  It's a "classic" though, so whatever.

Second, they picked the DoI on Independence Day to make the first ebook?  Coincidence, I think not.  Like that movie where the aliens landed on ID4.  [PCWorldNewZealand]