eBook distribution company OverDrive has created a kiosks that libraries can install to help educate users on how to access digital content at their library. The OverDrive Media Station, which can be either a wall-mounted device or a free-standing kiosk, lets library patrons try out the OverDrive digital media platform at the library.

The touch screen system lets users search for content and sample how eBooks, audiobooks, digital music and videos work from the library. The organization is demonstrating the new kiosks at the American Library Association Annual Conference in Chicago later this week.

“OverDrive Media Station provides a unique and compelling way for libraries to introduce their popular eBook, audiobook and video service to the millions of people who visit libraries every day,” explained David Burleigh, director of Marketing for OverDrive, in a statement.  ”These large, interactive displays can be placed in high traffic areas throughout the library, from the welcome area to the café, to reach even more of the community and develop loyal users.”

With the goal of providing “an immersive, engaging experience for a new generation of newshounds,” Symbolia is offering readers a new way to read the news. The self-described “tablet magazine of illustrated journalism” combines reporting with illustration and comics to inform readers of the latest in current events.

Each issue has a few stories on current events which are told through comics, audio, graphics, animation, and long-form writing. The current issue includes work from Nichole Marinaccio de Freitas and Jeff Ruliffson on hard choices, tattoos, and military life; a story by Luna and Leela Corman about a belly dancer in contemporary Cairo; as well as interviews with a human trafficking survivor  in Nepal and with two veterans who served at Guantánamo Bay.

Readers can purchase the magazine for $2.99 per issue from iTunes, or subscribe annually and pay $1.99 per issue.

Self-publishing platform BookRix is turning five and to celebrate the company has released a new editing tool and is running a promotion that will reward one author with a $5,000 bonus.

The new editing tool for its free self-publishing service allows authors to upload their books as Word files. It also includes new insights tools so that authors can track how their books are selling by title and by eBookstore, be it iBooks, Kindle, Kobo or Nook. The network is growing fast. Since it began five years ago, the company now has more than 500,000 users.

The contest will award the first author to publish and sell more than 10,000 books using the platform between May 15th and September 30, 2013 with a $5,000 bonus. Books must have 10,000 words to qualify.

After seven year of hosting the Tools of Change for Publishing Conference, Tim O’Reilly announced this week that he is retiring the conference and the TOC blog.

Seven years on, “digital publishing” is well on its way to simply being “publishing,” and options for both publishers and readers continue to evolve and expand. Publishers are significantly more change-hardy than they were in 2006. And there are plenty of other events that are helping publishers keep up with new technology offerings in the space.

We haven’t seen the death of paper books yet, but there’s already a documentary about its impending demise. EBooks are not as tactile, aromatic, or spatial as traditional forms of reading, but they are helping to spread the joys of reading to places where transportation is problematic. The works of philanthropic organizations like Worldreader and The  Information Heritage Initiative would be impossible without digital books.

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Digital newsstand Zinio has plans for a new Windows 8 app. The company has formed a partnership with Nokia to launch its app exclusively on Nokia Lumia smartphones. The partnership will include special magazine promotions for Nokia Lumia customers.

The app has been optimized for the Windows Phone 8 platform on Lumia devices. One new feature in this app is that content from multiple sources will be in one place, so you don’t have to launch into a new magazine to read articles from different sources. It also includes a new preference picker so that users can curate their reading list by area of interest.

Michelle Bottomley, president of Zinio, stated, “Nokia Lumia smartphones with Windows Phone 8 were the perfect platform for Zinio to bring the future of digital magazine reading for discerning digital readers. We’ve rethought every portion of our smartphone reading experience to be as intuitive as possible, allowing digital readers to fully immerse themselves in the magazine content that connects them with their diverse interests.”

Sunset has adapted its popular gardening book into an interactive iOS book app. Working with digital publishing services firm Inkling, Sunset has taken The New Sunset Western Garden Book, and added digital elements that make it part guide, part digital gardening planner .

The app edition includes 27 how-to videos with gardening techniques and tips. It also includes slideshows, interactive images  and tappable climate zone maps, so that readers can plan their gardens based on where they live. It has regional gardening calendars and a note-taking tool, for readers to make plans for their gardens.

The book, which is in its 9th edition, was first published 80 years ago. This is the publisher’s first foray into interactive book app publishing. Barb Newton, president of Sunset Publishing, stated: “With so much information and inspiration at your fingertips, we think this is going to be the most important tool in the garden. The zoomable, high resolution photos take this interactive book to a whole new level for the brand, and there are so many other enhancements as well.”

The Author’s Guild has introduced a new service to help authors and publishers save money on book tours and do readings and book signings from the comfort of their living rooms.

Booktalk Nation lets authors create digital events where the readers can dial in to hear an author read from their book, or watch videos online. Callers or web viewers can ask questions, as they would at a real life reading, using the platform. Check it out: “Authors are interviewed either by web video or by phone, with readers around the country watching and listening in. Readers can submit questions for the author. Host booksellers set up the events and affiliate booksellers around the country promote them.”

Readers can even order personalized copies of the book signed to them by the author online and have these books shipped to their homes. Independent bookstores can host these events and fill these orders. Read more

Asserting that the term “indie author” doesn’t accurately describe authors who are embracing the digital revolution, literary agent Jason Ashlock outlined his plan for “radical mediation” as an agent in the 21st century publishing world.

At the  O’Reilly Tools of Change Author Revolution conference in New York today, Ashlock, the founder of Movable Type Management, spoke about his three-pronged approach to representing authors in the modern publishing world.

First, he suggested that “publishing is a team sport.” He said that the radical mediator agent should not be narrow but should be expansive and looking at any possible intermediaries that will connect readers with authors. He said that agents in today’s marketplace should think of themselves in a business development position, as opposed to a sales positions. He advised thinking about lifespans as opposed to title-by-title marketing. Read more

Education software company Kno has introduced a new interactive publishing platform that publishers and authors can use to turn PDF files into interactive eBooks. The idea is for authors and publishers to be able to engage students throughout the learning process and evolve the content as students are working and responding to it.

Appropriately, the new suite of tools is called Evolve. Evolve is made up of a couple of different tools that textbook publishers can use to format books into eBooks and then add interactive elements to these digital titles including the Kno Book Enhancer, Kno Assessment and the Kno Ingest tool.

The Kno Ingest tool lets a publisher make a PDF interactive. The Kno Book Enhancer tool then lets a publisher enhance an existing eBook by adding new interactive elements such as videos, audio, websites, 3D objects, and calculators. So for example, a history book can be added to, as time passes and current events evolve a story.  Read more