Shanda Entertainment, a media conglomerate based in mainland China, announced earlier this week that they are moving forward with the IPO of Cloudary, its eBook subsidiary.

Shanda has not filed the SEC paperwork yet, but sources are reporting that this IPO is in the works.The IPO will take place in the US, where Cloudary is relatively unknown, because Shanda is hoping to raise 200 million from American investors.This is actually Shanda’s second attempt to spinoff Cloudary. The first was last year, and it fell through when an underwriter pulled out.

That was probably a good thing for Shanda. In the 6 months  since the last IPO attempt. Cloudary has achieved a 70% eBook market share in China. Revenue nearly doubled (to 701 million yuan) while the operating loss shrank (to 27.1 million yuan).

Cloudary also got a fair amount of attention at CES 2012, where they showed off their new Bambook Sunflower, an eReader equipped with a Mirasol screen.

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Apple is sending out invites today. They’re holding an event in San Francisco next week, and pretty much everyone assumes that this will be the iPad 3 launch event. There’s no real proof bout what Apple will discuss, but I don’t think anyone doubts that the iPad 3 will be unveiled.

South Carolina-based writer Tim LeVan Miller wants to bring short stories to readers in independent coffee shops. He has created a way to do so using QR codes through a program called Sips Card.

The Sips Card website explains how it works: “Customers at participating venues can pick up a Sips Card with their drink order. Each card contains a QR code, loaded with a short story from an independent writer meant to last as long as their drink. The cards are venue specific and include their business information as well as that issue’s author, story title, and website.”

The site is currently looking for submissions for short stories through March 16th. Authors don’t have to pay an entry fee and they retain the rights to their story. Entries should be limited to 3,000 words.

Weird But True, The Lorax and The Walking Dead join the top grossing iOS book app list this week. Comics, free audiobooks and Bible reader apps also continued to do well on the list.

The Lorax joins the list as the new film adaptation of the Dr. Seuss stories hits theaters. The Oceanhouse Media app is adapted from the original children’s book and includes special interactive features. A good read for Dr. Seuss’ birthday, which is coming up this week.

Below, we’ve listed the top ten grossing iOS book apps of the week.

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The above trailer was the inspiration for today’s free ebook.  A new movie is coming out soon, nd it’s (very loosely) based on the first Barsoom novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, A Princess of Mars. Read more

Digital publisher Open Road Integrated Media has partnered with Ingram Publisher Services and Lightning Source, Ingram Content Group companies, to distribute print versions of its “E-riginal” eBooks.

Beginning in March, select eBook original titles from Open Road will be available in print. This includes: Home in the Morning and One More River by Mary Glickman; The Replacement Wife by Eileen Goudge, Madboy by Richard Kirschenbaum; Listen to Bob Marley: The Man, The Music The Revolution by Bob Marley and Cedella Marley, The Habit by Susan Morse and The Man in the Empty Boat by Mark Salzman.

Christopher Davis, Chief Operating Officer, Open Road Integrated Media, stated: “Since our inception, we have offered print-on-demand versions of all our E-riginals and of a small number of e-books of out-of-print titles. We find it is now time to broaden our reach into the retail space.”

Amazon has suffered a defeat in their long-running war against collection sales taxes. The governor of VA announced last week that he’d worked out a deal for the retail giant to start collection sales taxes by September 2013.

Amazon has a datacenter and a distribution center in the state, and they are also planning a couple new facilities in VA. In fact, it was their expansion plans that spurred this discussion. Retailer groups based in VA objected to the advantage had over brick-and-mortar stores, and they were incensed that Amazon continued to avoid collecting sales taxes while expanding their presence in the state.

Yes, September 2013 is quite some ways away, but this is still a marked change for Amazon. It was only a couple weeks ago that they were doing their best to duck the duty in VA, and they’ve gone to far as to abandon partners in Arkansas, Connecticut, and other states.

This agreement is likely going to encourage other states to push forward on their efforts to get the taxes their due. Right now amazon only collects taxes for 5 states: Kansas, Kentucky, New York, North Dakota, or Washington. That will likely increase, shortly.

MWC 2012 is going on right now in Barcelona, and Qualcomm is there to show off their Mirasol screen.

Chippy of UMPC Portal shot this short video in Qualcomm’s booth. It shows the same device we’ve seen everywhere, including at CES, but Chippy does include a few interesting details. Qualcomm’s new manufacturing plant is under construction, and it is expected to open late this year. Hopefully that means we’ll see this screen on more devices in 2013.

Publishing company Penguin released its 2011 earnings today, reporting that the sales reached almost $1.7 million, up 1%  from 2010.  In addition, the publisher reported that profits were up 8% from the previous year, reaching $179 million.

According to Penguin, eBook revenues doubled in the U.S. in 2011 with titles like The Help increasing its eBook sales by 5x from 2010 to 2011. In addition, last year Penguin authors Nora Roberts and Charlaine Harris each sold more than a million eBooks. The press release has more: “Our eBooks sold well across a wide range of genres and subjects, from romance and thrillers to literary fiction and serious nonfiction. The reach of eBooks has expanded; we recently sold our first eBook in Antarctica.”

Penguin Group (USA) CEO David Shanks stated: “Our eBook sales doubled, we expanded our digital publishing programs, and we won a Pulitzer Prize for the second year in a row. We had more bestsellers than we’ve ever had in a single year.”

The AAP released their estimates for the US book market for 2011, and it’s mixed news all around. eBook and audiobooks saw a nice bump in sales last year, but several of the print segments continue to decline.

eBooks grew slightly over November 2011, closing out the year with an increase of 117% over 2010. Audiobooks also continue to grow, and they’re showing a solid 25% increase year over year. Read more