E-Books & the Ecosystem of Content Delivery

The E-Book market is growing — fast. Nikkei Electronics Asia’s August 2009 Cover Story paints a rosy growth picture. The article focuses on electronics and dedicated readers. They report that a recent survey predicts that shipments of dedicated e-readers in the U.S. will hit 28.6 million units by 2013. Only one million shipped in 2008. [...]

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War of the E-Book Readers?

Competition is healthy. Up to now, Amazon and their Kindle have dominated the E-Book market. Barnes & Noble made two exciting announcements on Monday that will pump new life and energy into the E-Book market. Barnes & Noble Makes a Big Splash Into E-books (Melissa J. Perenson, PC World, Jul 20, 2009 4:40 pm).

B&N opened [...]

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Amazon, Kindle and Orwellian Irony

Can you see the irony? Amazon removed Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four” and “Animal Farm” from customer Kindles this week. Amazon sends Orwell to ‘memory hole’ (AFP) July 18, 2009. Sucked into a black hole and gone without a trace. An Amazon spokesman said the books were removed because the publisher didn’t have reproduction rights. Whoops.

Amazon Removes [...]

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Cheaper E-books and E-book Complexity

Publishers justify the high cost of E-books and rub their hands in glee at E-book complexity. I ran across these two articles yesterday:  Why e-books aren’t cheaper (C-Net news May 27, 2009) and Ebook complexity: good news for publishers (The Idea Logical Blog June 3, 2009).  I don’t think either one of these guys “gets [...]

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Finally: Falling E-book Prices

E-book pricing looks like it’s in free fall. Amazon started it when they introduced their Kindle ereader. Now, in this July 2nd article, Barnes & Noble Follows the Leader (Amazon) With $9.95 E-book Pricing.
And it’s about time. It’s always bothered me that E-books have been nearly as expensive as “real” books. I wonder who has [...]

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Bards, Broadsheets, Broadcasts and Bloggers

Blogs and bloggers are positively Medieval and that’s a good thing. Medieval bards were the first citizen journalists, individuals carrying the latest news from place to place with their tales and ballads. People are curious. We’re communicators, we’re social and we’re nosey. We need to know what the neighbors are doing.
Even before the printing press [...]

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How the Ad Revenue Crash Benefits Writers and Readers

David Coursey, in “Paving the Way for Premium Content,” his  6/11/09 Tech Inciter, PCWorld blog post, leads off with “Paid content is the best hope of saving “the media” as we know it.” I disagree with him on that score because the media as we know it is disappearing faster than an ice cream cone [...]

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Book Review: Taming the Terrible Twos

My good friend Ann Marie Dwyer published her new book, “Taming the Terrible Twos: a Parents Survival Guide” today. I’m probably just a bit biased because Ann Marie graciously invited me to contribute two articles and to be her editor. I’m proud to call Ann Marie friend and to be a small part of this [...]

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Beyond Print: The Newsstand of the Future

The thump of your morning newspaper landing at your doorstep, the stop to chat at the newsstand on your way to the office, the latest issue of your favorite magazine in your mailbox are going, going, gone…faster than a new, in the box, Barbie doll on eBay. What’s happening?

The giants of print publishing are falling [...]

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Helium’s Million Dollars for Writing Spin

From the  News Room at Editor & Publisher
Helium Writers’ Earnings Pass $1 Million Mark
“CHICAGO Writers who market their work through Helium have earned a total of more than $1 million since the online writing community launched in 2006, Helium said Monday.”
Impressive numbers until you do the math. Helium has over a quarter million members. [...]

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