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The Oyster team has added a new in-app reading feature called Lumin. It regulates the device’s lighting according to the amount of natural sunlight that the user is experiencing (taking into account both the location and time of day).

Readers will find that as the sun goes down, Lumin will reduce the blue light beaming out from the mobile and tablet screens. In its place, a warmer, softer amber light will be emitted.

Here’s more from the website: “Studies show that nighttime reading on devices that emit blue light can suppress our bodies’ production of melatonin, keeping us awake and making us less alert the next morning. Lumin reduces the blue light coming from your screen as the day turns into night.”

Amazon is changing the way it pays authors royalties for participation in its Kindle Unlimited e-book lending library. The new model is less favorable for authors.

Beginning July 1, Amazon will no longer pay royalties on books that were downloaded and read at least 10 percent through the program. Instead they will only pay royalties on pages that are actually read. “We’re making this switch in response to great feedback we received from authors who asked us to better align payout with the length of books and how much customers read,” Amazon explains on the KDP site. “Under the new payment method, you’ll be paid for each page individual customers read of your book, the first time they read it.”

Melville House points out that this is unfair to authors as “an author with a traditional publisher will receive royalties on each hard copy of the book sold to libraries (or a percentage of the e-book sold at a library rate).”

Get ready to load up those new kindles with some fantastic ebooks that will be specially priced at $.99 from December 26th through December 29th.  Loads of authors in various genres are joining in on this holiday sale.  Click the logo above to check out the main page for this sale and start downloading today.

Our children’s holiday story, The Christmas Owl, will be reduced to $.99 during this sale.  An Amazon best selling children’s story, The Christmas Owl , is sure to become a holiday classic. A Barred owl becomes injured and must ask others for help. He promises to give back to those who have a generous heart and he is true to his word. This colorful tale told in verse is vividly illustrated to capture the attention of children aged eight and under.

Barnes & Nobles hat unser E-Book mit der höchsten Bewertung versehen !
Sie können es direkt über Barnes & Nobles, Apple, bei Amazon oder über die Links auf meiner E-Book Seite bestellen.

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Barnes & Nobles hat unser E-Book mit der höchsten Bewertung versehen !
Sie können es direkt über Barnes & Nobles, Apple, bei Amazon oder über die Links auf meiner E-Book Seite bestellen.

Melinda Szymanik’s compelling story A Winter’s Day in 1939,published in print form in March 2013, will be available as an ebook from ANZAC Day, 25 April 2013.

The ebook’s release date follows hot on the heels of the book’s Wellington launch at The Children’s Bookshop on Saturday 13 April. The ebook will be available initially for Amazon Kindle http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CHKOQYCand can be purchased for $9.99.

This debut ebook marks the beginning stages of a move to release more new Scholastic New Zealand novels in electronic form.

About the book
A Winter’s Day in 1939 is a harrowing, compelling story of courage and hope, based on the author’s own father’s journey across Europe during World War Two.

Taken from their home in Poland, forced to leave their country, put to work in Russian labour camps, frozen and starved, 12-year-old Adam and his family doubt that they will ever make it out alive.

Even if they were to get away, they might freeze to death, or starve, or the bears might get them.

For the Polish refugees, the whole of the USSR becomes a prison from which there is seemingly no escape.

Recommended age: 10+ years

About the author
Melinda Szymanik is the author of the picture books Clever Moo and The Were-Nana, which won the New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards Children’s Choice Award in 2009. Melinda has written two other novels, Jack the Viking (Scholastic, 2008) and The Half Life of Ryan Davis (Pear Jam, 2011). She has also had three picture books published with Duck Creek Press, and published a teen chapter e-book earlier this year. Melinda has a Masters in Zoology, has nearly finished her Diploma in Children's Literature, and writes full-time in Auckland.

Last weekend we broke the story about Mike Tracy, a veteran teacher at the Art Institute of California—Orange County who is being threatened with termination by the school’s management because he refused to force his students to buy E-textbooks that he felt were unnecessary. Since we published the story, we’ve learned that the E-textbook controversy extends far beyond Mike Tracy’s plight and affects teachers and students at many of The Art Institutes schools.

There are over fifty Art Institutes colleges in the United States, all owned by Education Management Corporation (EDMC). The art school chain has begun the process of switching all its schools to an E-book system called Digital Bookshelf. The switch to E-textbooks has met resistance at multiple schools, including Art Institute of Philadelphia. That school’s Faculty Federation complained about EDMC’s E-textbook policy a few months ago:

“EDMC continues to insist on e-books only and wants sole discretion over what e-books are used, compromising faculty independence and expertise in choosing best resources for class.”

To understand how EDMC’s “Digital Bookshelf” works, here’s a downloadable PDF explaining the system for their online courses. In this case, the Art Institute online program charges a “digital resource fee” of between $50-$75 for each class. In return, students receive a temporary copy of an e-textbook. In many cases, printed versions of the books can be purchased for a lower price, but according to the school, “If you choose to purchase a printed copy of a textbook that is available through Digital Bookshelf, you will be responsible for both the Digital Resource Fee and the cost of the textbook.”

That means every student enrolled at the Art Institutes is required to use EDMC’s Digital Bookshelf system. Not only that, but the Digital Bookshelf system isn’t open to every publisher, but only to those publishers who have signed a deal with EDMC’s E-book technology vendor, Vital Source. That means Art Institute students have to buy all their E-books from a single book distributor.

In the case of teacher Mike Tracy, he was being forced to choose a random E-textbook that he felt was unnecessary for his students. But there’s a flipside to the story. Sometimes a teacher at one of the Art Institute schools may want to use a particular E-textbook, but they can’t because it hasn’t been acquired by EDMC’s vendor, VitalSource.

Ed Hooks, author of the popular animation textbook Acting for Animators, explained to Cartoon Brew how his book is no longer available to Art Institutes students, even though his book is widely available in both print AND as an E-textbook, and is highly demanded by Art Institutes teachers:

My book Acting for Animators was published late last year in a revised

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My picture book, The Time-for-bed Angel, will be released as an e-book (electronic book) soon. I signed the contract last week.

This book was first released in 2008 as a hardback and, shortly after, as a paperback. When I first sold the book to the publisher, the contract we agreed upon didn’t include electronic rights. That’s how quickly things have changed in the past four years! Now many books are coming out solely as e-books.

Picture books haven’t typically been published as e-books. They are one of the most expensive types of books to produce because of the artwork. A picture book with a high-end illustrator can cost $100,000 or more to produce. Publishers have been reluctant to wager whether they can recoup their expenses to produce a picture book if it’s coming out only as an inexpensive e-book. They’ve also had concerns about the screen size on electronic devices and how to render what might be a 16-inch-wide horizontal spread onto a 6- or 7-inch vertical screen. Obviously, less risk is involved if the picture book has already come out as a paper book and the artwork has been paid for.

Electronic publication of picture books has advantages over paper publication. Offhand, I can think of three:

•  E-publication conserves trees and, therefore, the environment.
• Picture books can be made more interactive. Publishers can include applications like music and games at the touch of the screen. My publisher is thinking about having The Time-for-bed Angel narrated. I can see this working well with the book because the text is short. Small children have short attention spans but can easily sit through the complete reading of the book. When I was a child, I had storybooks with listen-along records. I was always interested in using these records alongside the books, but each record ran more than a half-hour in length. I usually lost interest before the story was finished. In contrast, The Time-for-bed Angel can be read in under five minutes. I think small children will be far more likely to find this useful and enjoyable.
• Parents can save money. E-books are less expensive than paper books. The savings can be significant when picture books generally run about $15 and up. And parents can try out picture books in e-form before investing in the paper version, seeing how much their child really likes a book first. Conceivably, parents could buy a picture book wherever and whenever their little one is ready for something different.

No more boring bedtimes!

0 Comments on My Picture Book as E-book as of 1/1/1900

A little video I made because, well, because it was fun to do! Feel free to share it with all your poet (and writer, illustrator, musician, and artist) friends... and with those who love them.

If you cannot see the video above, you can view it right on YouTube or click this link to the blog and try again.

I’m using yesterday’s topic of borrowing and lending to another level today. For those who’ve worked their way into the publishing business in the past few years, the preconceptions of what it means to be a writer have learned the new definition. They’ve also learned about the new work ethic of writers.

Today’s Writers

Writers shamelessly promote their work, and the work of others, everywhere they can because their careers’ futures depend on that promotion. Also, the big publishing houses today simply don’t have the promotion budgets they had in the past.

Other writers encourage us to guest blog on their sites, whether for self-promotion to a new audience or for a new book recently released. Guest blogging can also be used to promote a new voice/viewpoint about a specific topic being discussed. Either way, both the borrower of the audience and the lender of said viewers come away with something needed.

For the first time in centuries, writers are taking charge of their own livelihoods in the business. Many independent-thinking writers, who created their own presses, have turned their backs on the major publishing houses. They no longer consider it wrong to go without an agent. These career-oriented writers have changed the face of the industry in the past decade.

Small presses, POD’s and eBooks are making profits harder to come by for the big boys right now.

Future Possibilities

Whether I give information out for free, or I receive such information for free is irrelevant to the overall picture. The reason I can say that is because it’s beginning to look like the industry will soon be owned by the writers themselves in some respects.

Blogs and newsletters written by and for writers are created every day. They cover all the genres, and they take no prisoners. Whatever a writer wants to know is out there. Surfing and search engines make it impossible to overlook much that’s available.

When you consider that writers, editors, bloggers, along with magazines are ranking websites, newsletters, etc. on a regular basis, the built-in watchdogs guarantee that a careful user is safer from publishing scams than they used to be.

As encouragement, universities across the country are making free writing courses available by the dozen. Paid courses are also easily found and evaluated as to viability to the particular writer and well and skill set desired. And if a writer is determined, she can take an MFA degree online, or as a low-residency program from numerous colleges across the nation.

Advertising and promotion is easy to come by. Small, writer-controlled, publishing houses are moving in to entice new writers and secure established ones. A combo house—one which publishes both eBooks and POD simultaneously can take a well-written manuscript and turn it out to the public in a matter of only a few weeks/months instead of one to two years as happens with the big publishers. The lead time depends on the editing necessary for the manuscript and the dedication of the publishing staff.

Many of these same small presses use talented editors, promotion—including trailers and online, and help with marketing after the release of the book.

Building Publishing’s Future

Whether the new face of publishing comes at the expense of the major houses around the world isn’t the question. We should be asking if we want to

I’m using yesterday’s topic of borrowing and lending to another level today. For those who’ve worked their way into the publishing business in the past few years, the preconceptions of what it means to be a writer have learned the new definition. They’ve also learned about the new work ethic of writers.

Today’s Writers

Writers shamelessly promote their work, and the work of others, everywhere they can because their careers’ futures depend on that promotion. Also, the big publishing houses today simply don’t have the promotion budgets they had in the past.

Other writers encourage us to guest blog on their sites, whether for self-promotion to a new audience or for a new book recently released. Guest blogging can also be used to promote a new voice/viewpoint about a specific topic being discussed. Either way, both the borrower of the audience and the lender of said viewers come away with something needed.

For the first time in centuries, writers are taking charge of their own livelihoods in the business. Many independent-thinking writers, who created their own presses, have turned their backs on the major publishing houses. They no longer consider it wrong to go without an agent. These career-oriented writers have changed the face of the industry in the past decade.

Small presses, POD’s and eBooks are making profits harder to come by for the big boys right now.

Future Possibilities

Whether I give information out for free, or I receive such information for free is irrelevant to the overall picture. The reason I can say that is because it’s beginning to look like the industry will soon be owned by the writers themselves in some respects.

Blogs and newsletters written by and for writers are created every day. They cover all the genres, and they take no prisoners. Whatever a writer wants to know is out there. Surfing and search engines make it impossible to overlook much that’s available.

When you consider that writers, editors, bloggers, along with magazines are ranking websites, newsletters, etc. on a regular basis, the built-in watchdogs guarantee that a careful user is safer from publishing scams than they used to be.

As encouragement, universities across the country are making free writing courses available by the dozen. Paid courses are also easily found and evaluated as to viability to the particular writer and well and skill set desired. And if a writer is determined, she can take an MFA degree online, or as a low-residency program from numerous colleges across the nation.

Advertising and promotion is easy to come by. Small, writer-controlled, publishing houses are moving in to entice new writers and secure established ones. A combo house—one which publishes both eBooks and POD simultaneously can take a well-written manuscript and turn it out to the public in a matter of only a few weeks/months instead of one to two years as happens with the big publishers. The lead time depends on the editing necessary for the manuscript and the dedication of the publishing staff.

Many of these same small presses use talented editors, promotion—including trailers and online, and help with marketing after the release of the book.

Building Publishing’s Future

Whether the new face of publishing comes at the expense of the major houses around the world isn’t the question. We should be asking if we want to

Over the past few months, Amsco School Publications, Inc. has been mentioned in several national publications, blogs, and on educational Web sites. We think that our blog followers might be interesting to see what is being said about us.

E-Commerce News.com January 24, 2012
The iBooks Profitability Puzzle
By Erika Morphy
MacNewsWorld Part of the ECT News Network 01/24/12 5:00 AM PT

Apple's new iBooks textbook market saw lots of activity over the weekend as users downloaded 350,000 copies of books, according to Global Equities Research. If iBooks catches on in a big way, it'll certainly be profitable to Apple. But whether it will be a good deal for authors and publishers has yet to be determined.

Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) iBooks textbook initiative, launched just last week, has clearly struck a chord in the market. Ditto its accompanying textbook authoring tool, iBooks Author. Both have taken off at a significant pace, according to a report by Global Equities Research.

More than 350,000 textbooks have been downloaded via iBooks over the past three days. In addition, there have been more than 90,000 iBook Author downloads. iBook Author is a free authoring tool to create textbooks for Apple iBooks.

A Big Impact
The numbers seem to indicate many students and educators at least interested in seeing how Apple wants to break into the market. However, as the ramifications of the textbook store and authoring tool become clearer, some industry observers are having second thoughts as to whether this would be a good thing.

For starters, textbook publishers could find their margins squeezed, perhaps uncomfortably so. As Global Equities notes in its report, more than 50 percent of textbook industry revenues come from the sales of introductory books.

Then there is the lock-in for authors that use Apple's authoring tool. Migrating to other platforms is simply not an option, at least with this current platform.

Global Equities Analysis
Global Equities' initial take on how publishers will fare in the system is that they will in fact make more money selling an iBook textbook priced at US$14.99 versus a traditional printed textbook priced at $125.

That is because 50 percent of the textbook industry consists of used books, which deliver zero revenues to publishers. Also, the textbook supply chain is a complicated one, consisting of distributor, wholesaler, retailer and finally student. At each step the markup is between 8 percent to 15 percent, for a total of between 33 percent to 35 percent -- excluding actual distribution costs.
Conversely, the cost of an iBook production is 80 percent less than a print product. Global Equities declined to provide further details.

Some publishes of textbooks, though, disagree with Global Equities' assumptions, not to mention its math. Larry Beller, president of Amsco School Publications, told MacNewsWorld the firm has been offering its own e-books for roughly a year and a half. Pricing for the two products -- print and e-book -- must remain roughly the same in order to provide revenues for the authors, he said, which are compensated differently than authors of fiction or non-fiction books.

"With Apple's platform coming out we will have to rethink some of the numbers, but it won't be a significant difference. It can't be." He added that there is still an important print market for college students -- and especially elementary and high school students -- that won't go away even if this platform becomes popular.

An iOS-Only Tool
For others, the authoring tool is the one that raises the most concern. For instance, writers who use iBooks Author to write books they intend to sell may only distribute them through Apple's services.

"There is a lot about this tool that I don't think authors will realize at first," Br

By Caragh M. O’Brien

My short story “Tortured” (Birthmarked 1.5) came about as a dark experiment, the sort that goes wrong and stays with you.

At first, I was faced with a unique writing challenge.  The tie-in story was intended originally for readers who already knew Birthmarked (Book 1) but who had not yet read Prized (Book 2).  It was a precarious window.  I pondered: how could a story add something to both books and yet stand alone enough to work as a short story? When would it take place?  Who would it be about?  How could it not be a spoiler?  It couldn’t simply be a misplaced chapter.  It had to matter. 

At the time, I had been routinely receiving emails from readers of Birthmarked who asked about a certain character, one who was doomed to suffer.  A visceral, pivotal scene began to formulate at the edge of my mind, and I had this insidious feeling I’d be forced to face it.  I didn’t want to.  I’d been creeped out enough by the twisted dungeon stories of opium-loving, cousin-marrying Poe, and I had little desire to explore the parallel side of my own mind.  Yet the more I resisted, the more I felt this powerful urge to see where my own dark side could take me.  Besides, I cared about my character.

So I started with this murky prison scene, and as it sucked me in, I followed along, letting events materialize before me.  It was told from a new perspective, not Gaia’s, but the setting felt deeply familiar.  I wrote with no concern for explaining anything to anybody because I assumed the characters and my reader knew all of the first novel as back-story, complete with its events and relationships.  A spare character from a story I’d written for my blog spontaneously came down the stairs when I needed him.  Working in reverse, I culled details from a character’s memory in Book 2 so the story would have satisfying continuity, backward and forward in time.

Despite its grimness, it was incredibly fun to write.  As I revised, I found holes, and then my editor found many more.  I had explaining to do, after all.  The story went through half a dozen drafts.  Then it went through copyediting and proofreading, just like the process for a full-length novel.  The art team worked on a cover, and when I said I wasn’t keen on my title, my publisher proposed a new one: “Tortured.”  “Ew!” I thought, squirming, and then realized that it fit. 

How on earth did I, sunny as I am, become the writer of a story called “Tortured”?

If you’re curious about the timing of this story, I can tell you it was originally intended to be e-published for free in October, a month before Prized was released.  That’s the part of the experiment that went wrong.  Ironically, though neither my publisher nor I will earn anything for the story, we still needed a contract for it, and since this was new ground legally, vetting the one-page agreement took longer than expected.  In the end, however, I think this timing is fine.  It will work to read the story before or after Prized because it adds a layer, either way.  Now the story matches these dark, gray days of December.  I would read it curled up beside the fire.

Gardners Books has partnered with US company Baker & Taylor to use Blio, a free reading application.

The deal will allow Gardners Books' nearly 1,000 e-book publishers to reach customers around the world via Blio, which Baker & Taylor says is forecasted to be pre-installed on millions of consumer reading devices worldwide.

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Over the next several months, you are going to see me talking a lot about some other authors I am affiliated with through Trestle Press.

These authors come from many different genres, but they all have one thing in common: We want you to read and enjoy what you are reading!

I think what I'll do is give you a nice overview of several authors here. Then for the rest of the week, I will get in depth through some of my different social sites.

Without further ado:

Robert Ford is the author of The World of Hek, a supernatural series, and Curse of the Translucent Monster.

Wenona Hulsey offers paranormal YA with Burden of Blood.

Sam Lang, another horror author, has the Reprisal series and looks to be starting a zombie collaboration called Severed.

S. L. Schmitz breathes new life into Bram Stoker's Dracula with Mina's Daughter, a steampunk series.

These are the authors and that was only a sampling of what they offer. Watch for more posts and tidbits all week.

Macmillan Children's Books has created an animated cover for the e-book of Frank Cottrell Boyce's Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Flies Again, which it hopes will attract the interest of bloggers.

The covers can be seen at www.chittyfliesagain.com. The book itself will be published on Friday 7th October.

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The premiere story of my new series releases today. You can read Meant To Be for ONLY 99 Cents!

Mark Miller's One, exclusively from Trestle Press, is an exciting e-book series that will feature a variety of authors sharing their personal experiences with their faith. The series will focus on many different beliefs. The authors want to share true stories of inspiration and emotion. Hopefully, the stories will be eye-opening and remind us that we all have to share this One World.

In Meant To Be, the debut installment, I lay the groundwork for the series and share a personal story. I tell the unbelievable tale of how I met someone special and very important to me.

For ONLY 99 Cents, read a touching story and put some inspiration on your Kindle!

By now, you've spent the 99 cents for "A Prince in Trenton, Seriously?" by Mark Miller and Giovanni Gelati.

You loved it and laughed hard. While you're waiting for the next Author's Lab release, you want something more.

You want something unique to Kindle, something special.

Now you can get a FREE personalized autograph directly from the author!

Follow this LINK to submit your request and in no time, it will show up on your Kindle!

If for some reason, you haven't read the story yet, 0 Comments on FREE Personalized Autograph as of 7/24/2011 12:57:00 PM