Books in the Age of the iPad

Print is dying. Digital is surging. Everyone is confused.

GOOD RIDDANCE.

As the publishing industry wobbles and Kindle sales jump, book romanticists cry themselves to sleep. But really, what are we shedding tears over?

We’re losing the throwaway paperback. The airport paperback. The beachside paperback.

We’re losing the dredge of the publishing world: disposable books. The book printed without consideration of form or sustainability or longevity. The book produced to be consumed once and then tossed. The book you bin when you’re moving and you need to clean out the closet.

These are the first books to go. And I say it again, good riddance.

(Continue reading on Craig Mod)

Source: craigmod.com

All Things Digital: Barnes & Noble to Amazon: Mine is Bigger Than Yours

by John Paczkowski
Posted on July 21, 2009 at 2:00 AM PT

Six years after shuttering its first e-book effort, Barnes & Noble (BKS) has embarked on another one. On Monday afternoon, the bookseller announced what it describes as “the world’s largest eBookstore,” an online storefront that boasts 700,000 titles. That’s substantially more than the 300,000 available for download on Amazon’s Kindle service, though half-a-million of them are public domain books provided by Amazon (AMZN). They’ll be compatible with Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch, BlackBerry smartphones, and, when it finally arrives at market, the Plastic Logic eReader — a Kindle DX-sized e-book reader for which it will be the exclusive storefront. “Today marks the first phase of our digital strategy, which is rooted in the belief that readers should have access to the books in their digital library from any device, from anywhere, at any time,” said BN.com president William J. Lynch.

With a few noteworthy exceptions, of course. E-books sold by Barnes & Noble won’t be compatible with Sony’s Reader Digital Book or Amazon’s Kindle, which they are clearly intended to undermine.


To what degree they’ll manage that is anyone’s guess. One thing is sure, we’ll almost certainly be seeing an e-book price war in the near future. And when Apple finally gets around to uncrating that tablet/e-reader device it’s been working on, all bets are off.

(via AllThingsDigital)

Source: digitaldaily.allthingsd.com

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