After a brief false start online, Amazon announced the refreshed versions of their Kindle Paperwhite devices yesterday, with the more basic model available as of September 30. The features and specs are lavishly presented online, so we won’t go to great lengths here. The most interesting thing to us is that this “sixth generation” device sells at the same price as its predecessor — $139 for the wi-fi model (without ads) — despite nearly 6 years of “predictions” that these ereaders will soon be free. The screen, which Amazon says is better than ever, now uses “Carta e-paper technology” rather than […]
Features/Offers
Corporate: Penguin Tries Book Discovery With “First to Read”; Quercus Moves Sales In-House; And More
Penguin is launching a new book discovery tool, First To Read, that will offer “widely anticipated” excerpts of forthcoming Penguin titles as Hotshot by Julie Garwood, The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert, (also available on our own Fall/Winter Buzz Books 2013 sampler), The Fiery Heart by Richelle Mead, Sister Mother Husband Dog by Delia Ephron, The Childhod of Jesus by J. M. Coetzee, Dark Lycan by Christine Feehan, and many more. Those who sign up for First To Read through their Facebook accounts will be able to request digital galleys of available titles, and can also take part […]
eNews: Winning Hacks, New Launches, and More
At least 30 projects were submitted as part of the Publishing Hackathon over the weekend, viewable here. Contestant Eric Hellman reports that the six finalists are: BookCity (suggests books to match places you visit) Captiv (turns your Tweets into book recommendations) Coverlist (shows 100 curated jackets; hover over an image to see a related recommendation) Evoke (connects books for teens based on the emotional connection to characters — classifying reading experiences as “inspired, challenged, amused, or informed”) KooBrowser (browser plugin that matches book recommendations to web pages you visit) Library Atlas (app that sends you book quotes based on your […]
Nook Adds Google Apps; Has Sold 10 Million Devices
After more disappointing device sales over the 2012 holidays, Barnes & Noble ceo William Lynch promised investors “we’re not going to continue doing what we’re doing; we’re doing to adjust quickly.” At the time, Lynch also noted the company had concluded that “larger technology brands have more resonance in that multifunction tablet world than we do.” So the company has announced a linkage with another big technology brand — Google — which lets the Nook HD tablets serve as Google tablets, too. Through apps they are adding the Google Play media experience, as well as “popular Google services like the […]
Holiday Nook Promotion Includes Free eBook–In Stores Only
Barnes & Noble and Nook have a one-free ebook with purchase promotion that takes modest advantage of some of the discounting freedom available to retailers under Agency Lite (though a number of the titles on offer are from publishers who sell ebooks wholesale anyway). The program focuses on selling ebooks from BN stores–the only place the offer is valid–and giving ebooks as gifts. The idea is that you buy one of the designated 20 ebooks for yourself, and then you provide an email address (or get a gift receipt with a code) to send another of those 20 titles to […]
eNews: Kobo Has A Date In Brazil; Nook App Updates; Amazon Sells Bonds (and Kindles)
Kobo will officially launch in Brazil under their previously-announced partnership with bookseller Livraria Cultura on December 5. The Brazilian version of the Kobo Touch device went on sale for pre-orders starting today at R$399 (or roughly $190 US). Nook has updated their iOS and Android apps in a variety of ways. Like the recently-added support to the Nook hardware for reading aloud books, the new version of their iOS app supports Apple’s VoiceOver technology (which also reads aloud to aid the visually-impaired). The Nook apps now support French, Italian, German, Spanish and British English, and they are available for download […]