eNews

O’Reilly Media’s Tools of Change conference kicked off this morning in New York with three keynote speeches (tutorial sessions were held yesterday). Longtime e-publishing publishing pioneer and visionary Bob Stein–now at the Institute for the Future of the Book) had a rough start, underscoring that even technical geniuses need to prepare (and practice) ahead of time. Stein’s payoff thought was that “the principle role of publishers in the future is to build and nurture vibrant communities for authors and their readers.” Arguing that “a book is a place where readers and authors sometimes congregate,” Stein predicted that future generations will […]

One theme we’ve underscored over the years is the exponential explosion of printed (and printable) content we’ll be seeing in publishing that will make the already astonishing 300,000 to 500,000 new titles a year some modest. Some of it comes from self-publishing and “micro-publishing” (in which organizations and other intellectual property creators use the POD self-publishing toolset to publish–you could also call it “publishing as a service.”) Another phase comes from the way print-on-demand and software in tandem enable the nearly-instant creation of literally an infinite number of new “books” based on content that already exists in some form. And […]

The WSJ says “Amazon is also expected to say it has acquired a new work by best-selling novelist Stephen King that will be available exclusively, at least for a time, on Kindle.” They note “a Kindle-like device plays a role in the story.” Also, a spokesman for Prime View International, the company that manufactures the screens for both Kindle and Sony Reader says the difficult in keeping the device in stock was simply a matter of demand: “The sales were just faster than expected.”WSJ

As expected, it’s thinner, the navigation buttons seems slightly better placed, and it continues the same my-brother-in-law-designed-it-for-me look at Kindle 1. The updated rumor is that it will cost  $359 and go on sale February 24. See Mobile Read for more photos.

Yesterday Google Book Search announced that they had optimized 1.5 million public domain books for reading on iPhones and the company’s Android mobile operating system. (All of those books are viewable within the US; about 600,000  are accessible in full view worldwide.) The process required converting the image scan files shown on regular GBS with optical-character-recognition so that the mobile devices can display actual text rather than page images. The files are not downloadable, so you need to be connected to the internet via your mobile.GBS post But Google’s announcement was trumped by a potentially game-changing two sentence remark by […]

Penguin will start releasing books by Tom Clancy in a variety of ebook formats for the first time beginning February 3 with his 1984 debut The Hunt for Red October. Amazon will feature a Tom Clancy Kindle Store and Sony’s eBook Store is “planning major promotions,” including “bundles of selected titles as they become available.” The rest of Clancy’s backlist will be released in ebook versions over the following seven weeks. Prices will range for $4.99 to $18.