A Missed eBook Opportunity?

CES 2009: iLuv Portable Multimedia Player

Imagine being able to read eBooks on that larger screen!

But no mention is made of that capability. Nor can I envision how it's possible with the current design.

Ah, that would have really been something!

Wireless Sony Reader: Via Verizon Network?

Verizon To Support Kindle Competitors

Amazon’s Kindle may soon be just another electronic reader among a handful of choices on Verizon Wireless. In an interview with Reuters just ahead of CES, Verizon exec Tony Lewis, who runs a program to help third-party vendors get their products certified to work on the operator’s networks, said he expected Kindle rivals to launch in 2009, though he declined to specify who these competitors might be.

Supporting electronic readers is part of Verizon’s Open Development program started last year, in which the operator said it would support independent devices sold by vendors other than itself.

Emphasis added by me.

There's more. It's a short item, and I've already quoted more than I'm comfortable doing under Fair Use. So go see the rest at the link.

Sony has global cellphone experience via its Sony-Ericcson joint venture.

I'm certain that Steve Haber's desire for the Sony Reader to be an open platform would extend to openness towards cellphone networks too. Although this story highlights Verizon, I'm certain a wireless Sony Reader would also work with T-Mobile, AT&T, or Sprint. It might not happen all at once at the launch, but it would just take one network to agree and the rest would fall in line to get their share of the pie too.

Also, a wireless Sony Reader would be the first such device to work worldwide, on any cellphone network anywhere.

ePub and ubiquitous wireless coverage would be an unbeatable combination.

Update: Mike Elgan chimes in with some thoughts.

A Variety Of eBook Notes For January 7, 2009

Downloads boost 2008 single sales

The UK singles market grew by 33% in 2008 thanks to a growth in download sales, the BPI has said.

And with the iTunes Store now going DRM-free with music, there are lessons to be learned here for the dying dinosaurs of print.

30,000 eBooks for iPhones and iPod Touch from BooksOnBoard

Apple iPhone and iPod Touch owners will be happy to know that BooksOnBoard has released no less than 30,000 eBook titles for these devices. The eReader eBook format books include titles by Gena Showalter, Nora Roberts, Michael Connelly, David Baldacci, Stieg Larsson, Susan Mallery, and Harlequin's One Click Buy January Blaze Bundle.

All Romance eBooks Makes Thousands of Romance Titles Available to iPhone and iPod Touch Users with Lexcycle Stanza.

Palm Harbor, FL (PRWEB) January 6, 2009 -- All Romance eBooks, an on-line bookstore that specializes in the sale of romance eBooks, and Lexcycle, the company behind the critically acclaimed Stanza electronic book reader for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch, announced today that All Romance eBooks has made more than 6000 romance titles accessible via Stanza's Online Catalog.

Stanza is the Little Software That Could. There will always be people who treat reading as a catch-as-catch-can thing, and those people will be satisfied with reading off an illuminated and relatively wee cellphone screen. But I see Stanza as being a great advertisement for devices such as the Sony Reader and the ECTACO jetBook.

Flickr Group: Book Cover Club -- this can in via bookoven over Twitter.


Digital Editions: News, info and tips about Adobe Digital Editions -- blog

ePubNow! Reader

ePubNow! Reader is a reading system that renders EPUB eBooks with XHTML vocabulary. It will soon be upgraded to read EPUB eBooks with DTBook (Digital Talking Book) vocabulary also.

Readers may use this online reading system for viewing EPUB format ebooks which are not encrypted. When you sign-in as a reader, you are offered few free EPUB format eBooks. You may like to upload your own inventory and access it on the Internet from anywhere, anytime.

It requires registration, which I won't do, so I don't know anything more than that. eCub is suiting me just fine right now, so I won't investigate further.

ePub Books

Where to download ePub Books online

ePub is an eBook file format for both consumers and publishers that offers interoperability between software and hardware for reflowable digital books - you can think of epub as the book equivalent of mp3.

By owning your eBooks in the .epub format you will be able to read them using a wide range of software and eletronic book readers including the iPhone (using the Stanza eBook Reader application), the Bookworm web browser reader and the Sony Reader PRS-505. As the ePub format is fast becoming the preferred industry standard world-wide, we are now seeing more publishers, book stores and developers supporting this format - there's no better time to explore the world of eBooks.

Below is a listing of all the current commercial and free eBook download sites offering ePub Books.

This is one everyone with a Sony Reader, ECTACO jetBook, and iPhone using Stanza should bookmark. There's also a Twitter account: Follow ePub.

More Luv For Sony Reader

Sony Reader: I Like it!

Go see! He has a great pic of the Light Wedge cover that people wonder about. Click on it to enlarge!

eCub ePub Screensnap

This is test build #16 open in Adobe Digital Editions.

Oh, ignore the fact it's crap. This is still all the Learning Curve.

Stuff none of you will have to go through, once I've done it.

Because I intend to do three blog posts:

1) My misadventures
2) A full-blown tutorial
3) A checklist

You lot will be spitting out your own ePub and waving buh-bye to that crap, PDF.

Really!

Sony Reader In Two Blog Posts

Comment: Sony Reader PRS-505 UK Edition

Overall, I’m really impressed with the experience of reading ebooks on the Sony Reader 505. I am not a fan of reading on my computer, I’ve warmed to using Stanza on my iPhone but the Reader has been the most comfortable. I’ve read two books on it already and eager to start the next one.

Who Else Got A Sony Reader From Santa?

If you didn’t get a Sony Reader or Amazon Kindle from Santa this year, then I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you that the Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny, or Boogeyman brings you one soon!

He got the lust-cramp-inducing Red one. And he did a video too!

Trying ePub With eCub

I've longed wailed that there isn't a writer-easy method to create an ePub file.

Well, there has been one.

I just didn't know about it.

It's called eCub.

And it's all based on Wizards.

I've been using it the past three days, trying to create an acceptable ePub eBook.

There have been plenty of problems.

Not with the software itself, but with traditional typesetting things vs. HTML/web things.

I want an ePub eBook that looks like a book, not some lousy piece of crap spit out from a computer.

I've been keeping notes.

When the eBook is finished, I'll do a blog post.

Just not any time soon.

This will be a long slog.