Archives: September 2010

Infinity Publishing, a website for self-publishing, has signed a distribution agreement with Sony. Under the terms of the partnership, Infinity eBooks are now available for purchase through Sony’s Reader Store.

This could be a good way for print authors to get their digital books out there. For a setup fee of $199, Infinity converts an author’s existing work into an eBook format, assigns an ISBN to the title, and handles all aspects of distribution. Amazon’s CreateSpace is another option.

This also might mean getting Infinity Books into the hands of libraries. Sony is currently running a library project in which they are donating eReaders and training to select cities across the country from Brooklyn to San Diego.

Create a social media strategy, launch your campaign, and track the results in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. The online event and workshop will feature speakers including The Onion‘s Baratunde Thurston (left), Facebook’s Morin Oluwole, and bitly’s Tim Devane. Register now.

As of this writing, Elizabeth Gilbert‘s bestselling memoir, Eat, Pray, Love scored a unique feat: holding the third, fourth, sixth, and tenth spots on Amazon’s Most Highlighted Passages of All Time list.

Our Popular Passages feature uses  list to track the most underlined parts of bestselling books.

A staggering 1, 626 readers underlined the most popular passage in the memoir: “People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that’s what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that’s holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you’ll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake.”
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iVerse Media’s Pocket God Comics app is No. 1 today in the  Top Paid section of the “Books” category of Apple’s App Store today.

The $.99 comic app is followed by Spreadsong’s Free Audiobooks and its Free Books app, at No. 2 and No. 3 respectively.

Oceanhouse Media’s Dr. Seuss title The Sneetches is No. 4. Earlier this month Oceanhouse Media’s Dr. Seuss apps dominated the Top Paid apps list because of a special sale. Today, The Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham remain in the Top 10 at No. 8 and No. 9.

Joe Kwon’s popular True Ghost Stories is No. 5, Genera Kids’ I want to be a Pirate app is No. 6 and Matthew King’s Optical Illusions 100+ is No. 10. Any of these might be good reading for the upcoming Halloween holiday.

The Bible rounds out the Top 10. DMBC’s The Holy Bible King James Version is No. 7.

With the light and airy design of the new Kindle and other eReaders entering the market, there is no reason that an eReader should be weighing you down. But adding a case to your Kindle can change all of this.

Today in a Kindle forum on Amazon, one Kindle user expressed discontent with covers.  TravelCat posted: “I really love my new Kindle and have a envelope style case for it. Has anyone noticed how heavy the Kindle becomes with some of the lovely leather cases (with or without lights)? The Kindle’s weight is just about perfect. . . . don’t want to add 14 ounces to it when I’m reading. Has anyone seen a lightweight Kindle cover? I’m starting to think that it’s just too early after the release for most places to have the covers. Maybe I need to wait closer to Christmas?”

It’s true many of the covers listed on Amazon weigh in at almost a pound, adding extra weight to the device. Have you found a light-weight cover that protects your eReader well?

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare is today’s Free eBook of the Day.

Catch up on these classic works that have inspired writers for generations to come. This file includes The Sonnets and various plays such as Alls Well that Ends Well. Here is an excerpt:

Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn,
When beauty lived and died as flowers do now,
Before these bastard signs of fair were born,
Or durst inhabit on a living brow:

Project Gutenberg has the free download.

For more free eBooks, check out our Free eBook of the Day archive.

Attorney/author Aaron Richard Golub thinks that the stigma of self-publishing is going away. That is why for his second book, he decided to forego pitching it to publishers and went straight to Amazon’s CreateSpace self-publishing platform.

“You used to be stigmatized if you published your own book, but those days are fading,” said Golub.  “Why should I spend the next three years trying to get my book published when I can publish it right away online.”

Golub, whose first book The Big Cut came out through St. Martin’s Press, was not impressed with working with a traditional publisher. “I was in the top 10 on the LA Times bestseller list and they wouldn’t spend any money on marketing,” he said. He finds that working with Amazon has better returns. “I don’t have to share 90% of the royalties with the publisher,” he said. “The royalty spread is much better through Amazon.”

Golub’s new Kindle book is called Feisengrad. It is a satirical novel that criticizes authority. It takes place in a police state run by baseball umpires. Here is an excerpt: “”An Umpire was then immediately dispatched to the troublesome area for a little game of baseball. A cop was always present. Mischief threatened the order of the invisible system or invisible mischief threatened the order of the mischievous system.”

Feisengrad is also available through Barnes & Noble.

After less than a year as a member of the online writing site Wattpad,16-year-old author Abigail Gibbs had already earned more than 6.5 million reads. Her book Dinner with a vampire. Did I mention I’m vegetarian? has been a favorite.

Welcome to our Top 15 Stories of Summer Series. For those of you that spent the summer traveling around on your yacht or out of touch at your beach house, we are rounding up our most popular stories from the summer. The story about Abigail Gibbs was part of our Digital Writer Spotlight series.

Wattpad Inc. CEO praised her work: “Abigail has been an amazing writer to have onboard Wattpad. She is as dedicated to her fans as she is to her writing and her work continues to grow in popularity. Someone comments on a Wattpad story every seven seconds and Abigail’s message board is filled with 36,000 comments by readers with requests for more chapters and asking where they can buy her book.”

Kobo’s social reading application designed for the new BlackBerry PlayBook tablet will come preloaded on the device. This is the second tablet that the Kobo eReader will come preloaded on, as Kobo is the default eReading app on the Samsung GALAXY Tab as well.

Kobo’s application is designed to make digital reading a social experience. Kobo CEO Michael Serbinis explains the social functions in a blog post: “The app will let readers Shop with a friend, read with a group, exchange passages, and discuss the book in real-time. I’m really excited about this.”

Amazon also has announced their Kindle app for the tablet, and likely Barnes & Noble and Borders will follow before the tablet comes out next year.

The Book Futurists: Andrew Malkin, Zinio from Movable Type Literary Group on Vimeo.

GalleyCat, eBookNewser and the Movable Type Literary Group have teamed up to bring you The Book Futurists –a new video series featuring interviews with ten people from across publishing who are leading the digital revolution.

Over the next twelve weeks, we’ll introduce you to people across the digital publishing industry who are at the cutting edge digital book publishing. From design and marketing to editorial and journalism, these folks are turning the wheels of the eBook revolution.

In the first video, Jason Allen Ashlock, Principal at Movable Type Literary Group, interviews Andrew Malkin, VP of book content at Zinio. Malkin addresses Zinio’s eBook content distribution platform, the future of eBooks and the potential of hiring from outside of the publishing industry.

Borders is offering Borders members the chance to win a new Cruz Tablet eReader plus a full year of free eBooks. The eReader is Cruz’s $299 tablet includes a 7-inch color screen and 512 MB of RAM and weighs one pound. It also supports a multimedia experience, so that users can also watch videos, listen to music and browse the Internet.

The free year of eBooks translates into a $250 Borders gift card.

To enter the promotion all you have to do is give them your name, Borders reward number and e-mail address. Follow this link to enter the promotion, which runs through 10/19.

Next, they might start giving away the new Kobo eReader, which Borders started preselling today.