Room in Kindle best-seller list

Jonathan Franzen's Freedom is the best-selling book for its second week in Amazon's Kindle Store. For the week ending September 26, Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy continues to hold top spots, while Emma Donoghue's latest novel, Room, steps into seventh place after a Man Booker Prize nod and US release.

Franzen's Freedom, released on August 31 in the US and September 23 in the UK, is his much-anticipated follow-up to 2001's The Corrections. The book has been getting considerable international press and mostly glowing reviews and has been topping best-seller lists throughout the US. On September 17, famed US talk show host Oprah Winfrey made Freedom her first book club selection of 2010 - Winfrey started the book club in 1996 and because of its widespread popularity, she is able to transform even obscure titles into popular bestsellers (a phenomenon popularized as the "Oprah effect").

Full report here Hindustan Times

Will e-readers improve the adoption of e-books in India?

Amazon pioneered the e-reader through Kindle, and Apple set the trend with its much-publicised iPad, launched in April this year. While iPad received a huge response with 50,000 units sold in the first hour and about 300,000 on the first day, the phenomenon may be repeated with Samsung’s Android-based tablet PC, the Galaxy Tab, which was unveiled this month. The question now we ask ourselves is, is now the time to replace our much-cherished books and newspapers in the big book shelf with a compact e-reader?

Though electronic publishing has existed since the advent of the web, it is the new generation of e-readers that are likely to improve the user experience and, hence, the adoption of e-content, especially e-books and e-newspapers. An e-reader is an electronic device, designed primarily for reading digital books and periodicals. A typical e-reader supports 6- to 9.7-inch display screen, weighs between 300 and 600 grams, uses either e-ink monochrome display, used in devices like Amazon’s Kindle and Barnes & Noble’s Nook, or color LCD screens like those used in Apple’s iPad.

Compared to the developed countries, where most people are exposed to the internet and computer-based reading, online reading habit in India is much less, thanks to poor PC and internet penetration. The PC penetration, even in urban households, is just about 30 per cent, while the internet user base stands at a poor 7 per cent of the population. The other barrier in e-readers’ adoption is the one-time cost of the device, considerably higher than the conventional books. The present price of e-readers in India ranges between Rs 10,000 and Rs 35,000. Colour screen e-readers like iProf costs about Rs 15,000, with iPad yet to be introduced in India.

Full report here Business Standard

Will e-readers improve the adoption of e-books in India?

Amazon pioneered the e-reader through Kindle, and Apple set the trend with its much-publicised iPad, launched in April this year. While iPad received a huge response with 50,000 units sold in the first hour and about 300,000 on the first day, the phenomenon may be repeated with Samsung’s Android-based tablet PC, the Galaxy Tab, which was unveiled this month. The question now we ask ourselves is, is now the time to replace our much-cherished books and newspapers in the big book shelf with a compact e-reader?

Though electronic publishing has existed since the advent of the web, it is the new generation of e-readers that are likely to improve the user experience and, hence, the adoption of e-content, especially e-books and e-newspapers. An e-reader is an electronic device, designed primarily for reading digital books and periodicals. A typical e-reader supports 6- to 9.7-inch display screen, weighs between 300 and 600 grams, uses either e-ink monochrome display, used in devices like Amazon’s Kindle and Barnes & Noble’s Nook, or color LCD screens like those used in Apple’s iPad.

Compared to the developed countries, where most people are exposed to the internet and computer-based reading, online reading habit in India is much less, thanks to poor PC and internet penetration. The PC penetration, even in urban households, is just about 30 per cent, while the internet user base stands at a poor 7 per cent of the population. The other barrier in e-readers’ adoption is the one-time cost of the device, considerably higher than the conventional books. The present price of e-readers in India ranges between Rs 10,000 and Rs 35,000. Colour screen e-readers like iProf costs about Rs 15,000, with iPad yet to be introduced in India.

Full report here Business Standard

The future of books

After months of dithering, a writer fires up her e-reader and finds an electrifying narrative. "...it is precisely country mice like me who need remote access to books," she says.

For nearly a decade, George Eliot's Mill on the Floss was my favourite book. I read it once a year. My Penguin edition eventually cracked under the strain, but I also had a cloth-bound Macmillan pocket edition, printed in 1922 and owned by many others before me. It was the first gift I received from a boy. Recently I realised I had neglected this holy of holies, maybe because the type had somehow got much smaller.

So I downloaded it on my Kindle. Friends who know my low-tech habits are surprised that I own an electronic reader, but it is precisely country mice like me who need remote access to books. When the e-reader was first marketed, I planned to wait for the technology to reach India, find out where to order, and then boldly mull it over.

But the decision was made for me. My brother bought me the Kindle, set it up, gave me a demo and downloaded my first e-book. That was last December. I wish I could say, like the hero of The Time Machine, that “I flung myself into futurity.” Instead, my first e-book, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, sat alone and unread on my Kindle for six months before I downloaded Mill.

Full report here Hindu

Soft bound

Dog-eared paperbacks or sleek e-book readers — the debate seems so 20th century. Things have moved on quite a bit since November 2007 when Amazon took the ‘first’ giant step with Kindle. Since then, thanks to an expanding market, no e-reader manufacturer, including Amazon, has slept peacefully.

But while the rest of the world (read the West) was spoilt for choice, most desi readers continued to rely on their Amrikan aunts for the ‘Not made/Available-in-India’ e-book reader, which more or less meant Kindle minus shipping charges.

But come 2010, indigenous geniuses made it clear that though they may have entered the ‘war zone’ late, they have come fully loaded.

Full report here Hindustan Times

Why I still love the kindle

Electronic notepads and tablet PCs have been here for ages now. But then Kindle came along and changed everything. It let you carry your books wherever you went, without adding to your luggage. It also let you order new books online, without having to go to a store. But then Kindle was not perfect. Many people hated its black and white screen though it was the gadget's best feature, making it easy on the eyes and using up very little of the battery.

Then came the Apple iPad which has a colour screen and lets you do a lot more with the books, especially with those for kids. But, in India, you still have to depend on a friend abroad to get you one, and then the battery does not go on and on like the Kindle.

The market became interesting when Kindle took the fight to Apple by releasing an app for the iPad, which meant you could buy books from the Kindle store and read them on the iPad. And the books were trademark Kindle, all in black and white. There are other apps that let you read magazines and books in colour.

Full report here Indian Express

Wink e-book Reader on Croma Shelves by Sept. 1

At a press conference in Mumbai, Bangalore-based EC Media launched "Wink", which they proclaimed is "India's first e-book reader". Well, in the beginning of this year we'd heard of an Indian-origin e-book reader already, but oh well. Then, there's always the Amazon Kindle that supports delivery to a 100 countries (India included). But custom duties have to be bourne and books have to be purchased in dollars.

EC Media is trying to capture the Indian reader's grasp by selling a device that can be picked up from a local electronic store. They've partnered with Croma, a biggie Indian electronics chain, for this. They also have apparently solved another key piece of the puzzle -- the content. Their PR sheet claims to have more than 2,00,000 titles as well as newspapers, magazines and journals that you can buy in Indian rupees. Check their store to see if they have your favorites. Their repository will also have books written in Indian languages. To start with, they've populated it with Hindi, Marathi among a few other languages. They said soon they will get content from all Indian languages onto the Wink. Books will generally sell for 50 to 75 percent of the cost of a paperback. So for voracious readers, this device could spell a considerable saving in the long run.

Full report here techtree

A library in each pocket

The technological revolutions underway are giving the phrase “pocket library” a whole new and more literal meaning. The potential of a range of devices, from Kindle to India’s own $35 computer tablet, to revolutionise access to books is truly astonishing. It was reported recently that Kindle book sales at Amazon are now surpassing the sale of regular books. The astonishing facility of being able to download potentially millions of books and journals (and if they are sufficiently old, free of cost) on devices that will increasingly cost little has the potential to equalise access to knowledge in unprecedented ways.

The implications of this technological revolution for the protocols of reading are yet to be fully fathomed. The idea that each one of us can literally carry thousands of books with us at any given moment ought to excite the imagination of even the most reluctant bibliophile. But the fact that this technology is now available also means that we need to think more systematically about it. For relatively little investment it should be possible to expand access to books, by disseminating these kinds of devices.

Full report here Indian Express

Amazon sells out of Kindle book reader

Amazon had sold out of its basic Kindle electronic book reader on Wednesday with no indication as to when deliveries would resume.Amazon.com listed the 189-dollar Kindle as "temporarily out of stock."

The Seattle, Washington-based online retail giant was still taking orders, however. "Order now and we'll deliver when available," it said. "We'll e-mail you with an estimated delivery date as soon as we have more information."
The larger-screen model of Amazon's popular e-reader, the Kindle DX, was available for purchase.

There was no immediate reply to an email to Amazon from AFP asking when deliveries of basic Kindles may be resumed. Facing competition from Apple's new iPad tablet computer, Amazon dropped the price of its basic Kindle last month to 189 dollars.

Amazon does not release sales figures for the Kindle, but says it has been the company's best-selling item for two years.

Full report here AFP

Craze for ebooks yet to catch on in India

Globally, on Amazon.com, the sales of ebooks may have outstripped the sales of hardcover books over the past three months. However, this does not appear to be the case in India.

Amazon’s Kindle, for instance, was launched in India in October last year. It was priced at around Rs 18,000. Yet, say analysts and industry sources, Amazon has not managed to sell more than 2,000 units in country.

“In India, I dont see ebooks finding a mass uptake before five years. While enthusiasts are buying ebooks on their devices, it has not yet reached the scale to send publishers running to convert physical copies into digital formats,” says V K Karthika, publisher and chief editor, Harper Collins (India).

“Kindle users are limited to ebooks (books in a digital form that can be read on devices like the Kindle or iPad) and similar multimedia content available from the Amazon store. This not only hinders user uptake but also limits distribution,” concurs Vishal Mehta, CEO and founder of Infibeam.com, which has launched its own version of an ereader at Rs 9,999. Mehta, who claims to have sold “several thousand” Pi ereaders, adds the market in India for such devices is estimated to be around 50,000 units annually.

“That (the rise in numbers) doesn’t have to mean that revenues have increased,” reasons Mehta, who is already seeing ebooks sales contribute up to five per cent of total sales on Infibeam.com. The entertainment retailer has announced that for every 100 hardcover books sold on Amazon.com in the last month, it has sold 180 ebooks for its Kindle ebook reader.

Full report here Business Standard

Amazon claims ebook sales milestone

For the first time, sales of ebooks outstripped those of hardbacks

It is an announcement that will provoke horror among those who can think of nothing better than spending an afternoon rummaging around a musty old bookshop. In what could be a watershed for the publishing industry, Amazon said sales of digital books have outstripped U.S. sales of hardbacks on its Website for the first time.

Amazon claims to have sold 143 digital books for its e-reader, the Kindle, for every 100 hardback books over the past three months. The pace of change is also accelerating. Amazon said that in the most recent four weeks, the rate reached 180 ebooks for every 100 hardbacks sold.

Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, said sales of the Kindle and ebooks had reached a “tipping point”, with five authors including Steig Larsson, the writer of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and Stephenie Meyer, who penned the Twilight series, each selling more than 500,000 digital books. Earlier this month Hachette said that James Patterson had sold 1.1m ebooks to date.
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Full report here Hindu

Books on cinema: New genre catches up

Aamir Khan rues the loss of a bookstore which was possibly at walking distance from his house. Lotus, a niche bookstore where he browsed frequently and which boasted a die-hard tribe of loyalists, also had a great collection of books on cinema, as another loyalist recalls, it stocked the scripts of Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction and Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon long before people had even heard about them.

Though Khan frequents his neighbourhood bookstore (Danai) even today, the avid reader has moved on to Kindle —the e-book reader from Amazon.com and uses their whispernet to download all the books he wants.

“It is so easy to read and use. And it allows you to make notes, collate and store it. So, if someone like me can use it, anyone can,” says Khan, who readily admits that he is no tech geek. Of course, Khan’s search, like many other serious students of cinema was not restricted to books on Indian cinema but stretched from books on story-telling, to biographies, screenplays and scriptwriting by authors like Willaim Goldman, Robert Mckee, Elia Kazan and François Truffaut.

Full report here Economic Times 

Digital dimensions

Will you be hauled up for making personal copies of your favourite paid-for downloads, or for converting them to different formats for private use, under the provisions of the proposed Copyright Amendment Bill? The answer is no. Can you move your books from your Kindle to an iPad or another digital book device? Yes, you can. That’s because the provisions in the amended Bill do not make it illegal to break Digital Rights Management (DRM) as long as you are not violating copyright i.e. making copies for commercial exploitation. Simply put, DRM is the tool used by hardware manufacturers, publishers and copyright holders to control the access — by blocking copying and conversion to other formats — an end-user has to a digital product. It has been a hotly-contested issue world over, with consumers arguing that it allows record, movie and software companies and digital device makers to create a virtual monopoly by restricting the access rights of even a legitimate buyer of a music CD, movie DVD, digital books or computer games.

For instance, in countries like the US, UK, and in the EU, an iPod user cannot transfer songs procured through iTunes — which she has legally paid for and downloaded — to another mp3 device because of encrypted technological barriers, and breaking these codes to make personal copies is illegal. The zone coding of movie DVDs is another example of how DRM limits how and where you can watch a movie that you have paid for: you cannot play a zone 2 DVD on a zone 1 player and vice versa. Critics of the DRM regime are plenty and they’re not just irate consumers . Back in 2007, even Steve Jobs, in an open letter on his company’s website, called for the abolition of DRMs, arguing that they had done precious little to check piracy.

Full report here Times of India

Turning a digital page

Bookworms warm up to the e-reader, but the device will take a few years to catch on in India. When Gaurav Mishra, CEO of Delhi-based media consultancy 2020 Social, took a holiday to Miami last year, he spent seven days at the beach reading six paperless books. This was made possible by the Amazon’s e-reader Kindle.

“I bought the Kindle last year. When I returned from the US, I was willing to leave behind my collection of 2,000 books, since the e-reader could hold over 300 e-books,” says Mishra. Mishra is just one among many consumers who are happy with their e-reader purchase. An e-reader is a handheld reading device that can store a large number of digital books. A recent survey conducted by market research agency NPD Group claims 93 per cent of e-reader owners are “somewhat” or “very” satisfied with the device.


“What I really like about my e-reader is the audio feature. I can just lie back, while a book is read out to me. The fact that the device is so light and easy to carry is also a great motivation. I didn’t mind the high cost,” confesses Mishra. According to the survey, 60 per cent users said they liked the wireless feature in e-readers, while 23 per cent liked the touchscreen feature.

Full report here Business Standard

Hands On: Kindle for BlackBerry

I'm pleased that Amazon is rolling the Kindle ebook reader onto all available platforms, but I'm not sure all platforms are right for it. On the native platform, the Kindle 2 eReader, the marriage is a perfect one. The 6-inch e-ink screen is approximately the size of a paperback and you feel like you get enough text per page. I can't say the same about Kindle and my Blackberry Bold 9000.

The free app is still in beta, so you won't find it in BlackBerry's App World, but you can visit Amazon's site and have the site mail you a link. You open the e-mail on your Blackberry and commence the download and installation.

When you first open Amazon Kindle for BlackBerry beta, it gives you the option of signing up for an Amazon account or logging into your existing one. I have an account, so I signedin. Immediately I saw a list of all my Kindle books--tiny cover images and titles. To start reading any of them, I needed to download the book. My AT&T 3G network coverage isn't great in my area so it took a few minutes for my first book to download--your mileage may vary. Books you download immediately appear on your archive page.

Full report here PC Mag.com

Kindle under attack

E readers may well be the future, but at present, they are under attack. According to a WSJ report, Amazon is facing flak on various fronts.

On Tuesday, a group representing members of the US National Federation of the Blind and the American Association of People with Disabilities staged a protest over limitations in the Kindle’s read-aloud feature. Last month, Amazon said it would amend the feature to give publishers and authors the ability restrict it at the request of the Authors Guild, which says voice performances of books require separate contracts. During the protest outside the New York headquarters of Authors Guild, protestors chanted “Stop the greed, we want to read.”

A separate backlash about Amazon’s prices for e-books has been building for weeks among Kindle owners. On Amazon’s own site, hundreds of readers have argued that charging more than $9.99 for many e-books is highway robbery. They even created a user-generated tag — “9 99boycott” for the more than 800 e-books in the Amazon store that they feel cost too much.
Publishers set suggested retail prices for all their books, printed and electronic. They sell them to Amazon and others retailers for a discount based on the suggested retail price — so discounting to the consumer happens at the retailers’ discretion. Simon & Schuster, for example, says that the suggested retail price of their e-books mirrors the price of the most recently published printed edition of a book (hardcover or paperback).

Amy Hoy, a 24-year-old living in Vienna, Austria, helped stoke the $9.99 protest with posts on Amazon’s discussion boards. She says she got her Kindle last November, and has bought more than 60. “I go through novels like a toddler goes through Goldfish crackers,” she said.
“After the initial few months gorging on $5-8 novels, I was shocked as some of the prices for the Kindle books I was shopping for seemed to be rising dramatically and noticeably,” she said. After hearing the same complaint from other Kindle users, she decided to formalize a protest in the discussion board, offering technical instructions on how to tag books on the Amazon site as over-priced.

She doesn’t think all books should cost less than $10 — but thinks the digital versions without considerable extra bells and whistles should cost less than a paperback that can be passed along to a friend. “I bought a $350 device just to face this kind of brain-dead economic decision,” she said. An Amazon spokesman declined to comment on either issue.

AT&T could enter e-book market

AT&T Inc may enter the e-book market, dominated by Amazon.com Inc’s Kindle reader, as the wireless carrier looks beyond phones for new sources of revenue, says a Bloomberg report.

The Kindle has done a “phenomenal job” and AT&T wants to be part of that market, Glenn Lurie, head of emerging devices at AT&T, said. AT&T, the second-largest US mobile phone carrier, is looking for new revenue streams as the pool of people in the US without mobile phones shrinks.

“There’s a whole bunch of ways to monetize that type of device,” Lurie said in an interview with Bloomberg at the CTIA Wireless show in Las Vegas. “That’s coming, it’s coming fast,” he said. “We’re going to be part of it.” Lurie declined to comment on potential partners or when such a device, which lets customers download the text of books and read them digitally on a tablet, might be released. Amazon.com spokesman Drew Herdener declined to comment.

The paperback-sized Kindle 2, released in February, sells for $359 and holds more than 1,500 books, seven times more than the original model. Users have a choice of more than 230,000 titles, as well as major US. and international newspapers, magazines and blogs.

Sony strikes book deal with Google

The e-books future is getting brighter by the day. Sony and Google have signed a deal to provide more than 500,000 book titles for the Sony Reader Digital Book.

The content will be offered through Sony's eBook Store, and will consist of public domain titles from Google's book archiving project. Users can access the collection through their PCs or through Sony's PRS-505 and PRS-700 Reader devices. The move will see the eBook Store's collection of books rocket to more than 600,000 titles available for download.

"We have focused our efforts on offering an open platform and making it easy to find as much content as possible, from our store or others, whether that content is purchased, borrowed or free," said Steve Haber, president of Sony's digital reading business division.

"Working with Google, we can offer book lovers another avenue for free books while still providing a seamless experience from our store."

The move could also help Sony in its competition with Amazon's Kindle e-book reader.

Amazon sued over Kindle ebooks

Cable TV giant and multimedia firm Discovery Communications has sued Amazon.com over its Kindle ebook devices, claiming patent infringement.

Discovery filed suit on March 17 in the US District Court for the District of Delaware. It alleges infringement of a patent filed by the company in September of 1999. Describing an "Electronic Book Security and Copyright Protection System," the patent was awarded in 2007, with Discovery founder John S Hendricks listed among the inventors. "Hendricks' work included inventions of a secure, encrypted system for the selection, transmission, and sale of electronic books." It should be "entitled to fair compensation," the company said in a statement.

"The Kindle and Kindle 2 are important and popular content delivery systems," reads a canned statement from Discovery general counsel Joseph A. LaSala Jr. "We believe they infringe our intellectual property rights, and that we are entitled to fair compensation. Amazon released the second version of the Kindle last month. Its previous model was released in November 2007.
Kindle 2 has two gigabytes of memory, allowing it to hold more than 1,500 books, compared with 200 for the original Kindle.

Discovery and the law firm representing the company did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Amazon declined to comment.

Discovery - which has 1.5 million subscribers to its Discovery Network and Animal Planet, among other channels - is not aiming to stop Amazon from selling the Kindle, but to collect damages and royalties.

Amazon threatens legal action on Kindle copyright

Amazon asked an online forum to remove links to software that lets people load ebooks they buy from sources other than Amazon onto their Kindles, reports PC World.

While the MobileRead forum erased references to the software, it doesn't believe the programme violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, as Amazon charges.

Amazon introduced the second version of the Kindle in February. The devices are wirelessly tied to the Amazon store, where users can buy books, newspapers, magazines and other content.

Users are restricted from loading ebooks that they buy from other sources onto the Kindle.
MobileRead had offered instructions about how to use a small script called kindlepid.py that the site didn't host but directed readers to. The script lets users of Kindles discover their device's personal ID. Many ebook sellers require the PID, but Amazon does not disclose the PID to Kindle owners, according to the instructions that were posted on MobileRead.