ebooks

The Second US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan has decided that Apple's "conspiracy among the publishers to raise e-book prices" verdict will be upheld. The trial began all the way back in June of 2013 as brought about by the US Department of Justice. As a result of this ruling, Apple is expected to have to pay $450 million in damages, most going to consumers who've purchased e-books over the past several years. At this time it would appear that Apple's lawyers are seeking additional means for appeal.

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Earlier this month, Marvel and Amazon struck a deal that resulted in more than 12,000 comic books arriving on the Kindle store. Following that, DC Comics has announced a similar deal with Hoopla. Last month Hoopla announced an expansion of its digital comics offerings, and now the company has struck up a partnership with DC Comics that will see the latter company rolling out a couple hundred of its own works on the service. First will come an initial release of 25 graphic novels.

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It seems that the world's largest e-book seller-sometimes-publisher might be turning the market on its head. Word has gotten out that Amazon will be changing the rules of the game when it come to books in its Kindle Select library that are self-published and distributed through its Kindle Direct Publishing program. In short, mostly indies. Instead of a fixed amount per book sold, the new program will pay authors by the number of pages that a reader actually reads, a change that will have two-edged effects in this industry.

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Amazon has just outed the latest version of its mid-range Kindle model, the Paperwhite, and it now has the single-best feature from the pricier Kindle Voyage model, while keeping its $119 price tag. The new Paperwhite has a 300 pixels-per-inch e-paper display, making text twice as sharp as the previous generation, and offering a reading experience that's much easier on the eyes. The new e-reader is available to order now, but Amazon says shipping will begin on June 30th.

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Following a similar investigation into Apple, the European Commission is now targeting Amazon with an antitrust probe over its ebooks business and potentially anti-competitive practices. As Amazon is the largest ebooks distributor in Europe, the EC want to focus on the company's contracts with publishers. Of utmost concern is an apparent requirement that publishers tell Amazon about deals with their competitors, specifically if they are offering better prices. The EC believes clauses like these "seem to shield Amazon from competition."

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Amazon has added audiobook reading to its Echo personal assistant, allowing the pillar-like speaker to regale owners with Audible ebooks. The update is the latest in a series of improvements to Echo which Amazon has pushed out, and follows Google Calendar integration which was installed late last month. Echo will also synchronize its place in each audiobook with Amazon's apps on other platforms, to make the listening experience effectively seamless.

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You expect different fonts in the books you read than on the Web pages you read, and so it is common for some fonts to only be found in books -- they're tailored for the long-form reading experience, and altogether visually pleasant. Apple will reportedly be switching up its system fonts for better readability, and Google is doing something similar with its Google Play Books specifically. The Internet giant has unveiled a new font specifically for ebooks, and it's called "Literata".

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Those who like to read digitally have likely heard of Oyster, the monthly subscription service geared towards avid readers. At $9.99/month, getting the most out of Oyster is easy if you read one or more books monthly. If you don’t, you might have wondered why you’re subscribing — why not just buy books as needed? It’s a crossroads many have found themselves at, but you no longer have to leave Oyster if you’re not interested in subscribing. Today, Oyster is launching an eBook marketplace, where you can buy digital copies of books.

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In October 2013, Scribd introduced a monthly ebook subscription service that provides users across multiple platforms with all-you-can-read ebooks at a set per month price. That service has been chugging along nicely since then with few notable changes...until this week. The company has just recently added thousands of comic books to its ebook subscription service, giving users access to more than 10,000 comic books and graphic novels from in excess of ten different publishers, including IDW and Marvel.

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During that magical transition period from physical music discs to digital files, you likely bought your first MP3 player and then stared down the massive pile of CDs filling your bookcase. Thus came the long process of ripping your physical media so that you could use it on the newest piece of technological marvel, and all was well in your world. We're seeing that same kind of transitioning happening with books, with many beholding their slim Kindle and likewise eyeballing all those heavy books lying around, but merging the two together isn't quite as simple.

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Last summer, Amazon introduced its Kindle Unlimited subscription ebook service, something that gives users access to hundreds of thousands of books for a flat rate via their Kindle. The benefits are obvious, and those who consumer a lot of books in a month will find it helps cut down on the monthly budget. As with many other services, Amazon hasn't been open about its statistics on the subscription option, but Nielsen has stepped in to fill that void, dropping some numbers to give an idea of how the service is used.

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Ebooks and paper books each have their own benefits -- nothing is quite as satisfying as watching the number of pages dwindle as you read a physical book, for example, but a Kindle packed with ebooks is far more convenient than a heavy backpack. Having each version of a book -- both paper and digital -- is the best of both worlds, but more or less double the expense. Some publishers have rolled out options to get an ebook edition of a book you already own, but finding those options isn't always simple.

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