OverDrive has launched a pilot program that will allow millions of library patrons to check out the same eBook all at once during a two-week period. The Big Library Read project will let members of more than 7,500 libraries globally simultaneously accessThe Four Corners of the Sky by Michael Malone.

OverDrive is working the book’s publisher Sourcebooks on the initiative. Library patrons at participating libraries will need to have a library card to check out the book.

Sari Feldman, executive director of the Cuyahoga County Public Library in Ohio expressed her enthusiasm in a statement: “It is an exciting opportunity to engage readers all over the world in a global book discussion and highlight the critical role libraries play in the discovery process. It has long been accepted as conventional wisdom that libraries help drive the success of authors. Through projects like this, we can affirm that wisdom with hard data and reinforce what we already know – that libraries play a key role in marketing books and authors.”

OR Books has a new eBook available called Hacking Politics: How Geeks, Progressives, the Tea Party, Gamers, Anarchists and Suits Teamed Up to Defeat SOPA and Save the Internet and appropriately, the publisher is selling the eBook through a name-your-price model.

The book explores the history of the fight against SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act. It includes essays by: Aaron Swartz, Larry Lessig, Zoe Lofgren, Mike Masnick, Kim Dotcom, Nicole Powers, Tiffiny Cheng, Alexis Ohanian, and Cory Doctorow.

The publisher suggests that customers pay $10 for the download, but there is a drop down option to pay other amounts including: nothing, $2, $5, $25, $50 or $100.

When OR Books put out Julian Assange’s book  Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet back in December, they skipped Amazon and released it through eKiosk, a site that creators sell eBooks and music outside of major online marketplaces, through a network of smaller online shops.

Do you like reading movie scripts? Check out Script Lit, a new series of unproduced screenplays that have been adapted as eBook novellas.

Here is more from the site: “There are many wonderful scripts written that are never produced and therefore aren’t shown to the world. This process of adapting those ‘lost gems’ into eBook novellas gives the writer a chance to be heard and loved by a wide audience. We are SL eBooks and are proud to present Script Lit, the new literary genre.”

The debut title from the collection is Mom of the Year by Denise Pischinger and is available through various eBook stores for $2.99. The second title from the collection, a horror/thriller title called Ambrose Fountain by Brian Sieve will publish next month.

The US Department of Justice  has filed a new document in the Apple eBook antitrust lawsuit. The filing includes an email sent from Apple’s founder Steve Jobs to Rupert Murdoch, head of News Corporation, the owner of HarperCollins, one of the publishers named in the original complaint.

The Verge has the story: “In the email, Jobs told Murdoch he could either continue to have Amazon price ebooks at $9.99, or ‘throw in with Apple and see if we can all make a go of this to create a real mainstream ebooks market at $12.99 and $14.99.’”

While all of the five publishers in the eBook collusion have settled with the DOJ and agreed to terms that would prevent future collusion, Apple continues to fight the case.

Barnes & Noble’s Nook Media has updated its Nook for iOS app, bringing comic books to iPad and iPhone users. The update adds access to buy more than 8,000 comics and graphic novels from Nook. The app now features Nook’s Zoom View tool which lets readers automatically focus on individual panels in graphic novels and comics.

To promote Nook Comics on the Nook iOS app, Nook Media is giving away a free DC Comics 2013 Superman Sampler, which includes excerpts from Superman: Last Son of Krypton, Superman: ForTomorrow, Superman: Earth One, and Justice League Volume 1: Origin.

“With our free, updated Nook for iOS application, we’re delivering to customers with iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch a great optimized reading experience, now with access to NOOK Comics, one of the leading collections of digital comics and graphic novels available,” stated Jamie Iannone, president of digital products at NOOK Media.

Nook has been in the news recently as speculation of a Microsoft buyout has been reported and then called a rumor.

EBook sales accounted for 12.4% of revenue for Hachette Livre’s publishing division in the first quarter of 2013, up from 9.5% in Q1 2012.

U.S. and UK eBook sales are driving this growth. EBook sales in the U.S. represent 34% of the publisher’s trade book sales. This is up from when 30% last year. In the UK eBook sales account for 31% of Adult trade net sales, up from 24% during the same period last year.

Here is more from the press release:

Hachette Livre delivered net sales of €419M, up 7.9% over first quarter 2012, driven by ‘strong business growth’ in General Literature in France and the United States, according to Lagardère’s press release, and strong ebook sales in the U.S. and United Kingdom. In France, net sales were up significantly (General Literature up 40%) mainly due to the release of the last two installments of EL James’ Fifty Shades trilogy. In the UK and Commonwealth, sales were down slightly (-0.2%), with strong Literature sales in the UK offsetting a challenging bookseller retail environment in Australia and New Zealand.

RosettaBooks has partnered with the AARP to publish a series of original eBooks from the nonprofit organization. RosettaBooks will also help the AARP with various distribution.

Together they will publish books on a variety of subjects including: caregiving, brain health, and driver safety. The first titles in the new line published by RosettaBooks are slated to be released this year.

“Digital publishing offers a wealth of opportunities to speak to the wide interests of the vibrant 50+ community. We’re looking forward to addressing their aspirations, entertainment and recreational concepts, and topical issues with timely, insightful information in eBooks created hand-in-hand with RosettaBooks,” explained Jodi Lipson, director of AARP’s Book Division in a statement.

Last week, rumors were circulating that Microsoft was gearing up to buy out Barnes& Noble’s Nook business in what could have been a $1 billion deal.

Insider Monkey is reporting that this story is false and that the story was “nothing more than a rumor.” Check it out:

Insider Monkey received word from a highly placed source inside Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) who said that the story was only a rumor, and that nothing imminent is happening in regards to Microsoft and its investment in the NOOK Media entity, or reports that it is buying out Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE:BKS) from the operation.

“I literally just walked out of the meeting today discussing all this Microsoft/NOOK hoopla going on,” the anonymous Microsoft source emailed Insider Monkey.

Microsoft is considering offering Barnes & Noble $1 billion to buyout the Nook Media business, an asset that the Washington-based technology company already has a 16.8% stake in, according to a report in TechCrunch. Microsoft would redeem some of its shares in Nook Media, and take over the Nook eBook and tablet business. Here is more from TechCrunch:

The documents also reveal that Nook Media plans to discontinue its Android-based tablet business by the end of its 2014 fiscal year as it transitions to a model where Nook content is distributed through apps on “third-party partner” devices. Speculation about the plan to discontinue the Nook surfaced in February. The documents we have are not clear on whether the third-party tablets would be Microsoft’s own Windows 8 devices, tablets made by others (including competing platforms) or both. Third-party tablets, according to the document, are due to get introduced in 2014. Read more

What is the right price for an indie eBook? The most common price for an indie eBook published through the self-publishing platform Smashwords is $2.99.

This is according to the company’s second annual Smashwords survey which analyzed more than $12 million in sales data for 120,000 indie eBooks sold from May 1, 2012 through March 31, 2013.  This includes sales data from across the company’s retail distribution network, which counts Apple’s iBookstore, Barnes & Noble’s Nook store, Sony, Kobo and Amazon. Smashwords explored a number of different attributes and how these attributes affect sales including the role that word count and character count plays in eBook sales and how new releases can drive backlist titles.

According to the metrics, there are more than 8,000 eBooks that cost $.99 and there are also more than 8,000 eBooks available for $2-2.99. Interestingly there are only about 3,000 eBooks available for $1.00-$1.99, the price in between.