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Posts tagged Free ebooks

Twelve Years a Slave now Available at Project Gutenberg
May 14, 2014 | 12:33 pm

twelve years a slaveIt pays to keep an eye on the new releases RSS feed sometimes! In the latest round of new releases from Project Gutenberg, I spotted an ebook release of Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup, the book which was the inspiration for the recent award-winning movie. I had seen ebook versions for sale at the Kindle and Kobo stores, but the book is public domain, so I balked a little at paying for it. It's nice to see a freely available version of this one. I think Project Gutenberg doesn't get enough credit sometimes from eBook fans. Many of their...

Nielsen Books & Consumers survey shows UK ebook sales up 20 percent in 2013
March 21, 2014 | 4:38 pm

Research firm Nielsen has just released its Books & Consumers survey for the UK book market in 2013, and the data shows ebooks forging ahead against a marginal decline in overall purchases in Britain last year. According to the survey precis, last year saw "a 20% increase in e-book purchasing, with UK consumers buying an estimated 80 million e-books in 2013, with spending on this format reaching £300 million [$495 million] ... E-books accounted for one in four consumer book purchases in 2013, up from one in five in 2012, with their share of spending rising to 14%. In Adult...

BISG report: Ebook slowdown or not?
November 6, 2013 | 2:58 pm

The latest report on "Consumer Attitudes Toward E-Book Reading" from the Book Industry Study Group, Inc. (BISG), "the book industry's leading trade association for policy, standards, and research," declares that " e-book growth has slowed and currently comprises about 30% of books sold." Report Two in the series, "powered by Nielsen Book Research and now in its fourth and final year," the study claims to reveal "an emerging consensus around e-books and maturing consumption patterns, with important implications for trade publishers and content creators and distributors." Jo Henry, Director of Nielsen Book Research, claims in the BISG material that: "It is...

How to get the most out of library ebooks via the right gadget, text to speech, and otherwise
October 18, 2013 | 6:26 pm

FireVergeWant to hear text to speech from free library ebooks on your 50-mile commute? Even if you own an Android machine and the usual OverDrive app can’t do “read-aloud” unless audiobooks count? Also, what if you haven’t even bought an e-reading gizmo for library use, but want to? Which model to go with? In those cases and others, the guidance here is for you. Most tips will work even with low-cost, no-name tablets. But let’s pay special attention to the new Kindle Fire HDXes. They are among the top choices if you care more about reading than about tech and can stomach...

Latest Ofcom figures show Kindle dominates in UK
September 13, 2013 | 1:15 pm

Sad to reflect perhaps, given Kobo's sterling efforts in the UK, the latest media survey conducted by pollster Kantar Media on behalf of British communications industry regulator Ofcom shows Amazon enjoying 79 percent of the UK ereader market. Ebook services in the period, states the report, "were dominated by Kindle, with 79% of those who had downloaded, accessed or shared e-books in the past three months citing the Amazon brand. This was consistent across all demographics and sub-groups." The survey, the Online Copyright Infringement Tracker for the period March-May 2013, was not primarily targeting ebook market figures, but is perhaps all the...

Amazon’s Kindle MatchBook service: A match made in e-book heaven?
September 3, 2013 | 1:49 pm

Kindle MatchBookAmazon has just announced a service that the world has been waiting for—to judge from the number of past calls for it and halfway schemes that have come some way towards delivering it. According to this morning's announcement, "Soon Customers Will Be Able to Purchase Kindle Editions of Print Books Purchased from Amazon—Past, Present and Future—for $2.99 or Less." The full press release, accessible at the link above, details the Kindle MatchBook service, "a new benefit that gives customers the option to buy—for $2.99, $1.99, $0.99, or free—the Kindle edition of print books they have purchased new from Amazon. Print purchases...

University of Kentucky does e-book exchange for selfies
August 30, 2013 | 9:02 am

University of KentuckyHere's a lovely idea that I wish more mainstream publishers would copy: The University Press of Kentucky is dishing out free e-books in exchange for selfies of readers holding their UPK print title. "Do you own a print copy of a University Press of Kentucky title and wish you had the ebook too?" states the University Press of Kentucky Ebook Loyalty Program Tumblr page. "Send us a digital photo of you holding the book to receive the electronic edition for free!" You can see some of the results here: And here: For now, only PDF format e-books are available. But all the same, what a...

William Lynch and His Reading Habits: Do onscreen readers really care about books?
July 29, 2013 | 1:45 pm

William LynchArit John has just run a highly negative piece on The Atlantic Wire about now-ex-CEO of Barnes & Noble William Lynch, based on Susan Berfield's reporting in Bloomberg Businessweek. And as you might judge from the title, "Barnes & Noble's Ex-CEO Might Still Have a Job If He Cared About Books," a main thrust of John's critique of Lynch is that he just didn't care about—or understand—books. Indeed, John implies that Lynch showed his lack of understanding and appreciation of books by preferring e-books to the genuine printed article. John cites Lynch's interview appearance on Bloomberg TV: "Lynch was asked what book...

Want 4,000 pages of free science fiction, no pirating required?
July 18, 2013 | 3:49 pm

science fictionIn honor of its fifth anniversary, Tor.com is offering a free e-book of all the original fiction published on its site in one handy edition. All you have to do is register with the site (painless), and you can download it. It's DRM-free (here's looking at you, Joanna) and available in EPUB, Kindle and PDF. Fair warning: It's a monster. The EPUB is the smallest file, at 68 MB. Eyeballing the table of contents, it looks like you'll be getting 150 stories and some amazing authors, including Gregory Benford, Elizabeth Bear, John Scalzi, Stephen Brust, Brandon Sanderson and more. Each story includes cover...

Is free still an effective marketing tool for authors?
July 11, 2013 | 11:27 am

Free E-BooksOffering the first book of a series for free has been a good strategy to create book sales for many authors. Someone reads the first book, then wants to know how the story finishes and—presumably—will buy the rest of the books in a series. I've certainly fallen under this spell before. Author Lindsay Buroker is finding this model may not be working as well as it once did, as she recently wrote on her blog (which I was alerted to from The Passive Voice.) The above model previously worked for her so well, she was able to quit her job and write full...

My 5 Favorite Sources for DRM-Free E-Books, part 1 of 2
October 20, 2012 | 2:55 pm

Project GutenbergI love DRM-free books! I know that for most people, DRM is an issue they might not think about often; if their books work, they're happy. But for many more experienced e-book users, it's an issue to care about. If you acquire 100 Amazon e-books and then you buy a Kobo, how are you going to read those books? If you spend years as a loyal Sony customer and then buy a Kindle, what will you do with the books you've bought and loved? Unless you are blessed with some technical skills—and either a country whose laws permit format-shifting, or a...

Apps, Books & Coffee: The Media Pricing Debate
August 20, 2012 | 11:19 pm

It all started with John Lehman's call-to-arms to app developers: "Those of us in app development love to talk about how ridiculous it is that people will drop $4 every other day on a cup of coffee but will not 'waste' 99 cents on our hot new app. I hope by now we’ve learned something: This comparison doesn’t work." Lehman goes on to explain that Starbucks coffee is a trustable experience, and 'your app' is not; that is has no free substitute and the app does; that its craftsmanship is on full display unlike an app, and so on. Then, Nate over at The Digital...
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