TeleRead

For lovers of books and gadgets

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Rejoin us at TeleRead.org (if you haven't already)

Rejoin us at TeleRead.org (if you haven’t already)

Cross-posted

TeleRead.com, the web’s oldest site devoted to general-interest news and views on ebooks and related matters, has just moved back to TeleRead.org.

Please rejoin all of us there if you haven’t already: Editor Chris Meadows (photo), Associate Editor Paul StJohn Mackintosh, Senior Writer Joanna Cabot, Contributing Writer Susan Lulgjuraj, and me. A former poverty beat reporter in an Ohio…

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$400 million in Apple price-fixing refunds will begin disbursal June 21

$400 million in Apple price-fixing refunds will begin disbursal June 21

We may be about to witness the final chapter in the Apple e-book antitrust lawsuit. Publishers Weekly reports that the $400 million in refunds Apple has agreed to pay e-book consumers will be disbursed into customer accounts beginning June 21. There’s no word of what happened with “professional objector” John Bradley’s complaint that $400 million wasn’t enough, which was supposedly the last thing…

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Appstafarian releases Marvin 3, a worthy successor to both Marvin and Gerty

Appstafarian releases Marvin 3, a worthy successor to both Marvin and Gerty

The best e-reading app for iOS just got a little bit better. Kristian Guillaumier, developer of the iOS e-reader Marvin, let me know that Appstafarian has just released Marvin 3 onto the iOS app store. Marvin 3 is effectively a new and different app from the old Marvin, which is still available—Guillaumier rebuilt Marvin from the ground up, with a brand new interface.

Marvin 3 comes in two new…

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Will Self on writing and the dominance of the Conrad

Will Self on writing and the dominance of the Conrad

Sometimes scabrous British novelist Will Self has penned an illuminating piece in The Guardian on his writing approach, which could benefit new and self-published authors everywhere. It also could make a change in their sleeping habits. Because Self favors early morning writing, despite his proverbially debauched lifestyle, as the key to creativity.

“I’ve always been a morning writer, and frankly…

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A sad tale of Amazon monetization: eReaderIQ and the affiliate program

A sad tale of Amazon monetization: eReaderIQ and the affiliate program

Courtesy of the Kboards, a worrying item about struggling e-book sites and their ability to monetize engagement with Amazon – or not – has come to light. eReaderIQ, the price tracking service for Kindle books which described itself as “The Easier, Faster & Smarter Way to Kindle!”, has apparently been locked out of Amazon’s affilate program, and left unable to support itself.

“As of June 10, 2016,…

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Australian copyright reform will probably go no further than report recommending it

Australian copyright reform will probably go no further than report recommending it

Remember that Australian government committee report suggesting Australia should relax restrictions on parallel importation, implement a US-style “fair use” exception, and drastically shorten copyright terms? We already covered an Australian government official insisting the government wasn’t interested in shortening copyright terms. Now Publishing Perspectives has an interview with Australian…

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Apple vs. thrifty e-books lovers and others who want DIY and third-party repairs

Apple vs. thrifty e-books lovers and others who want DIY and third-party repairs

A friend of mine in Ohio “had an uninvited and unwelcome visitor in my bathtub last night: my Kindle! I always knew this day would come. Fortunately I reacted with the swiftness of a Kyrie Irving and retrieved it immediately. It seemed okay, just wet, so it sat in a bowl of rice all night just to make sure. We’ll see how it fares this week.”

The same could well have happened to iPhones or…

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Codex Group ‘tablets killing e-books’ report revisited

Codex Group ‘tablets killing e-books’ report revisited

Last month, I covered Codex Group President Peter Hildick-Smith’s presentation at BookExpo America on the impact decreasing e-ink reader use is having on e-book purchasing. Now Jim Milliot at Publishers Weekly has picked up the same report Hildick-Smith discussed, with a few different details and some of the charts from that report.

As I noted in the BEA report, Hildick-Smith believes that many…

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GoodEReader’s e-reader poll reveals more about GoodEReader’s readers than average consumers

GoodEReader’s e-reader poll reveals more about GoodEReader’s readers than average consumers

In an article Michael Kozlowski posted yesterday on GoodEReader, he reports on a poll the site took asking about the next e-reader site readers planned to buy. The poll received 633 responses, and Kozlowski breaks them down.

Among the GoodEReader audience, Kobo actually beat the Kindle out, 208 users to 178. Kozlowski believed it might have to do with the reader being more easily available in…

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Why are e-books still presented as an either/or argument?

Why are e-books still presented as an either/or argument?

My colleague Chris wrote the other day about e-books and the ‘generational shift.’ He notes that one article on this subject even used the phrase ‘young people today’ non-ironically when talking about the e-book revolution.

I admit, I find articles like this really frustrating. Why, at this point, do people still not seem to understand that e-books ‘versus’ paper is not an either/or argument?…

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What causes the ‘smell of books’? A few days ago I mentioned the “smell of books” in the context of scents that various perfume and other scented-product manufacturers are trying to produce…

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Freetime update deregisters Fires, loses user data

Freetime update deregisters Fires, loses user data

A number of Fire owners have found their tablets spontaneously factory resetting themselves. We first covered this issue in April, when some owners of Fire HD devices found their tablets spontaneously factory resetting, but this glitch seems to be updating all Fires, including the $50 7” models.

This time, the culprit seems to be Freetime, the “best-in-class” parental control suite for Fire…

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A Look Back at BEA: BookBub, innovations in children’s books, The Onion’s bold bet on a Trump book

A Look Back at BEA: BookBub, innovations in children’s books, The Onion’s bold bet on a Trump book

When Katie Donelan four years ago became BookBub‘s third employee and the first one who was not a co-founder, the bargain e-books email list reached fewer than 100,000 members. At BookExpo America (BEA) last month, she told me BookBub now has nearly 70 employees and seven million subscribers.

Donelan, BookBub’s director of business development, is one of my guests on this week’s Kindle Chronicles…

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The new Bluetooth 5.0 standard: Any changes for e-reading?

The new Bluetooth 5.0 standard: Any changes for e-reading?

The Bluetooth Special Interest Group has just issued the Bluetooth 5 standard. According to the press release, this “will include significantly increased range, speed, and broadcast messaging capacity. Extending range will deliver robust, reliable Internet of Things (IoT) connections that make full-home and building and outdoor use cases a reality.” But will it make any difference to e-reading?

A…

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Amazon fraud-fighting efforts sweep up innocent ‘prawny’ authors in their net

Amazon fraud-fighting efforts sweep up innocent ‘prawny’ authors in their net

As I’ve mentioned before, Amazon is a victim of rampant click-fraud attempts, as scammers out there think they’ve found some new way of banging on the Amazon piñata until some money falls out. Frequently, Amazon’s attempts to rebuff this fraud sweep up innocent parties in the net. This was the case when Amazon attempted to crack down on biased reviews (and removed reviews from people who simply…

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Vonnegut Library in Indianapolis launches Kickstarter to help fund facilities move

Vonnegut Library in Indianapolis launches Kickstarter to help fund facilities move

Here’s a quick update on a story I did in April about the Indianapolis Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library raising funds to move to new facilities. The Vonnegut Library has launched a Kickstarter to raise $99,999 of the $775,000 it needs to move to the new location.

Rewards at various pledge levels include thanks and a link from the Vonnegut Library’s website, digital stickers, a year-long “Friend of…

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Supreme Court tells lower court to reconsider denying Kirtsaeng legal fees

Supreme Court tells lower court to reconsider denying Kirtsaeng legal fees

The Supreme Court has produced an interesting post-script to the landmark Kirtsaeng v. Wiley case, in which it had previously ruled permitted importation and resale of less-expensive textbooks from other parts of the world. Kirtsaeng had prevailed in that case, but lower courts declined to award Kirtsaeng’s lawyers the $2 million in attorney fees they requested.

The trial court and appeals court…

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