So very many things are happening now that are good for book lovers. For example:
- Wal-Mart and Amazon are in a price war of sorts, and that has driven prices down for some books.
- For a limited time, you can upgrade to the electronic version of any O’Reilly print book you’ve registered at oreilly.com, for just $4.99.
- Amazon has an upgrade feature that will let you read some of your books online (not all books are available for upgrade).
- Amazon has re-instituted its Saturday delivery option. Last Thursday afternoon I ordered two books on my Amazon Prime account, with free two-day shipping, and noticed that the delivery date would be Saturday. That was a nice surprise. What was an even nicer surprise was that the books were actually delivered on Friday, less than 24 hours from when I ordered them.
- Amazon also has a one-day delivery service available for selected large cities.
- Barnes & Noble is expected to announce its e-book reader tomorrow (the 20th), with one of its special features to be “book lending” (lend to friends).
- Plastic Logic announced today that it will unveil its proReader in early January. Sounds like this will go head to head against Kindle DX, as it is intended for business professionals.
- Spring Design announced today a dual-screen e-book reader designed for the Android Operating System. Given that Verizon is soon going to be unleashing its Droid implementation of the Android Operating System, this could become a major deal for e-book reading.
- I recently mentioned a strategic partnership between O’Reilly and Microsoft Press, which will make lots of new DRM-free tech content available to us.
- And then of course there is the rumored Apple iPad, and the expectation that it will function as an eReader extraordinaire (among other things). I am pretty anxious to see this come about.
- And Google just keeps getting more and more into the e-book business. The Independent has a good writeup on this.
- Update: I just found out that Safari Books Online has a lot of new features. For an example of the new features, see here. The Safari blog has several other posts that describe additional features.
I’m probably overlooking some news because there is so much of it. Bottom line: good times for those of us who love books.
Related Posts:
- Web Resource for Prolific Technology Readers
- Why I Am Not Buying Barnes & Nobles’ Nook
- Pack your books into your PDA
- Can Google’s Android Improve Productivity?
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m a book nut and also hail from the publishing world — loved this catch-all post. Hope you’ll do it often. Great overall content on your site (found you via the DIY Themes discussion area).
Thanks for the comment, Kelli
Awesome post, as always, Bruce. You got a lot of the items interesting me! I see a QUE and Nook in my future to replace my Kindle 2 / DX. Native ePub support, eReader, and PDF support make these the perfect devices for me with my extensive eReader library. Can’t wait to see all of the new eReader technology coming out this coming year!
Thanks, Thomas. I’m looking forward to it all as well.