Happy weekend! Here is a roundup of eBook news from this past week.

Amazon announced a new $139 Kindle and Jeff Bezos talked about it on Charlie Rose. We live blogged it.

The Author’s Guild estimated royalties in the Wylie Agency & Amazon Deal.

The U.S. Copyright Office legalized cracking DRM-enabled digital content in order to consume works in noninfringing ways.

Stieg Larsson sold more than a million eBooks on Kindle alone.

Simon & Schuster launched a serial teen novel online where readers can vote on the outcome. The publisher also released its first enhanced eBook.

The Zombie Survival Guide was released as an iPhone app.

Lit agent Laurie Abkemeier released an iPhone app.

A Kindle was stolen in NYC.

We examined the role a 2001 legal case between Rosetta Books & Random House has on current eBook deals.

Author Meg Pokrass was featured in our Digital Writer Spotlight.

We examined the right price for an eBook.

Author Scott Kelly won the hearts of readers on one community writing site, collecting hundreds of positive reviews as he built a following. Follow this link to read more of his work at the online writing site, WEbook (writing under the pseudonym KidTruth).

WEBook president Ardy Khazaei explained why he selected this writer: “Kelly has used WEbook and PageToFame to help build a robust online readership for his novel Frightened Boy. He has been an active member of the WEbook community since 2008, exchanging feedback with other writers and building a network of followers. As of July 2010, ‘Frightened Boy’ has been read by over 2,500 people and received over 300 positive reviews. We are excited to see Scott’s success on WEbook and look forward to seeing him succeed throughout the digital and print publishing landscape.”

Welcome to eBookNewser’s Digital Writer Spotlight. We’ve launched this feature to recognize the established and emerging voices within these communities. On a regular basis, we will feature hand-picked reading recommendations from community leaders at writing sites–see all the writers at our Best Online Fiction Writers directory. If you want to nominate a writing community, email eBookNewser with your recommendation.

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GalleyCat has a new Facebook page and it is a great resource for social networking and digital publishing. We’ve seen great conversations emerging, we’ve put together a Facebook publishing directory and we are encouraging publishing folks to share their events on the page.

Here are a few upcoming events that were posted this week:

On August 1st non-fiction writer Karrine Steffans-McCrary is holding interactive online classes based on her latest title, The Vixen Manual: How to Find, Seduce, & Keep the Man You Want.

On August 3rd InDigest 1207 Reading Series has an event in New York at the KGB Bar. Readers include: Aaron Michael Morales (Drowning Tucson), Emily St. John Mandel (The Singer’s Gun), and Deborah Clearman (Todos Santos).

In September, author Harry Connolly is doing a book signing at Magnolia’s Bookstore in Seattle for his second book Game of Cages, which comes out in print and eBook on August 31st.

For more, check out the fan page and “Like” us, while you’re at it.

Today’s Free eBook of the Day is Weddings Can Be Murder by Christie Craig. In this 2008 novel from Dorchester Publishing, bride-to-be Katie Ray begins to question her engagement after her wedding planner is murdered.

Things really heat up when a trail of murdered brides start appearing and her best friend falls in love with her fiance.

Barnes & Noble has the free download.

Want more free eBooks? Check out our Free eBook of the Day archive.

Today Barnes & Noble announced they will install 1,000 square-foot boutique areas in stores to show off the Nook eReader. The “full-service” boutiques will contain trial devices, a video screen playing demos, and a staff member dedicated to device support.

The company released a dramatic figure about in store Internet use: the bookseller currently “averages more than 2 million free Wi-Fi connections per month in its stores.” The press release did not include a new price tag–the Nook Wi-Fi still sells for $149 and the Nook 3G sells for $199. The new areas will be installed during the summer and fall.

Barnes & Noble CEO William J. Lynch had this statement: “We entered the eBook market a year ago confident our bookstores would be a huge competitive asset, and a year later, the role of our retail channel in the success of Nook and eBooks, and the popularity of our in-store eReading features have crystallized this advantage … No other company is doing what Barnes & Noble is doing, utilizing its store footprint and innovative technology to add value to the customer’s eReading experience.”

Apple is a facing a class action lawsuit in California from consumers who feels that Apple’s claim that “reading on the iPad is just like reading a book,” is false.

Follow this link to read the complaint in PDF form. It was filed last week claiming that because the iPad overheats after prolonged use and its poor visibility in sunlight prevent it from living up to Apple’s marketing promise.

From the complaint: “Indeed, according to the www.apple.com website, ‘[r]eading on iPad is just like reading a book.’ However, contrary to this promise, using the iPad is not ‘just like reading a book’ at all since books do not close when the reader is enjoying them in the sunlight or in other normal environmental environments. This promise, like other portions of APPLE’s marketing material for the iPad, is false.”

Via Consumerist.

With the new $139 Wi-Fi enabled Kindles announced, somehow $129 doesn’t seem so cheap for an eReader. Still, if you are looking to save a little bit of money, Augen has a new eReader out called “Augen The Book E-Book Reader” which retails for $129. Kmart even has it on sale for $99.

The eReader is Wi-Fi enabled, has a 7″ color screen and 2GB of memory, so it can store up to 1,400 books. It also plays audio and video.

TheeBookReader.com shows off the new eReader in the above video.

The Asian American Writers’ Workshop is boycotting the controversial new immigration law in Arizona through an initiative called Wordstrike. The effort calls authors to boycott the state of Arizona until it revokes the SB1070 immigration law, which went into effect yesterday.

Salman Rushdie, Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein and Jennifer Egan are among the writers and artists who signed the letter. Here is an excerpt from the letter: “We call on the administration to vigorously pursue its lawsuit against Arizona and to use all its powers to block SB 1070. And we call upon all writers — no matter their citizenship, no matter their ethnicity — to join us in repudiating this virulent, repugnant law.”

Since the letter was originally published on July 13th, more than a hundred authors have signed it. You can sign the petition here.

On Wednesday Federal Judge Susan Bolton issued a preliminary injunction against some of the more controversial parts of the law. But Wordstrike is pushing for the law to be revoked entirely.

Zombies beware! The Zombie Survival Guide is now an iPhone app. The app lets you scan your friends to detect their undead infection rate.

The new Zombie Survival Guide Scanner app from Crown Publishing Group‘s digital division, is based on Max Brooks‘ bestselling survival manual. It is the publisher’s first iPhone app, but they have more planned in the pipeline, as they look to expand their horizons and create more interactive content.

Philip Patrick, Vice President & Publisher, Crown Digital, told us earlier this week that the free app was designed as a marketing tool to help build the book’s fanbase.

The download is available from iTunes.

eReaders just keep getting cheaper. Amazon came out with a $139 Kindle yesterday. Now Copia‘s response is to tout its new $99 eReader. The Ocean eReader has a 5″ color screen and is set to hit the market this fall.

Copia first showed off its eReaders back at CES in January, but back then, the prototype included an eInk non-color screen.

Tony Antolino, senior vice president of DMC Worldwide, the company that runs Copia, told The Wall Street Journal that the iPad “disrupted pricing strategy for everyone in the e-reader market.” He went on to say that after the price wars: “We decided to do a revision of our hardware positioning.”

Pretty soon, we might just see Seth Godin’s $49 eReader dream.