Amazon Under Fire: Erasing Ebooks and Overcharging

Right out of the gate with have this story where Techdirt explains how one Kindle user had her account wiped and Kindle locked down with no reason whatsoever given.  This is the point where you have to step back and look at the awesomeness of having thousands of books at your fingertips versus the control companies now have over that awesomeness.  Imagine a Barnes and Noble representative coming to your house and taking all your physical copies away then issuing you a statement that you were barred from all their stores.  Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Now let's take a look at how Amazon is taking money from British people and how the government stopped them:

According to The Telegraph:
"Amazon is making British publishers pay 20 per cent VAT on ebook sales, despite their true VAT cost for UK ebook sales being closer to 3 per cent."

It seems after this news was let out, someone in the government noticed and took swift action:

From The Guardian:
"Amazon is to be stripped of its huge tax advantage on the sales of electronic books after the European commission ordered Luxembourg to close a VAT loophole."

So you get loophole abuse by getting a lower rate.  Sure, I can get behind that.  You are a large company and large companies do things to save money.  But not passing on savings, nay, charging fees that are non-existent to you?  That's just wrong on every level.

Shame on you Amazon.  

A Fire in Color? Amazon, You Might Have Me if it Smells

Amazon is set to unveil their newest ebook reader, the Kindle Fire 2, which if reports are true will be in eink color. 

Finally I can have my books in pasty sepia and charcoal of old books rather than the normal black and white.  But hold on... No, I will not be purchasing this.  I am waiting for the Fire 3... well, let us be serious, the Fire 5, that will contain the availibility of book smell.  Little gas potpourri dispensers that you can put a cartridge in and the smells will fill the room. 

Do not stop at the smell of ink and glue, though.  These ereaders already have sounds of the park or the subway, lets make it smell like that, too.  I want to be able to sit quietly at home and hear the gentle rock of the subway car and smell the faint pee smell of the guy next to me.  Memories, people, that's all I want.

Rumour: Amazon to unveil a colour ebook reader, Kindle Fire 2 - PC Authority

School Library News: Buying Kindles and English Kids Can't Read

Lexington Elementary School in Monroe, LA has bought Kindles for their students in hopes that the electronic readers will promote student book clubs or something.  The kids definitely not use them to play games and surf the internet, they swear.  TheRepublic

A study by people with accents concluded that almost 4 million U.K. kids, almost 1 in 3, do not own a book.  When surveyed, the kids thought Doctor Who was the most bad ass Dr. Seuss character. TheTelegraph

Back in the Saddle, All the News I Missed in One Go

PhotoshopEssentials

So the Banned Library took a little vacation and look at what you folks did.  Calendars, ebook crap, Amazon and that damn Kindle, even Harry ma-fuckin Potter got in on the action.  Well, here we go with the best random sentences I could cobble together in my one non-alcohol infused hallucination.  So hit the jump and follow the pink elephant into the marshmallow pool!

Because it works so well with firemen, the men of the library started a little calendar to show off their cataloging butts for charity.  Nothing like living out that Full Monty fantasy, right fellas?  LATimes

Pottermore, the Harry Potter site, announced that they will not be releasing Harry Potter ebooks until early 2012.  I guess I will have to go back to the pdf scans a 14 year old made and torrented two years ago.  ABCNews

The Amazon ebook "Reamde" by Neal Stephenson came under fire when first it was said to be full of typos and errors, and upon re-release Amazon labeled the ebook as having corrected "missing content."  Amazon had no comment when we pretended to call them on our hand because of our next story.  ChristianScienceMonitor

Amazon officially announced their color Kindle, the "Amazon Fire."  Hilariously, you could equate this to the burning of the amazon jungle to allow for grazing land for cattle.  In this joke, cattle are people.  Amazon via Geekologie

President Obama has set forth legislation that will allow states to opt out of the controversial "No Child Left Behind" program.  I do not have a joke, I just wanted you all to know.  CNN

This article was titled "Books on the Banned Wagon."  That is the single best article title in Banned Books week ever.  hindustantimes

New York librarians can rest easy again knowing that the nightmare book thief has been caught and prosecuted.  With this one problem gone, the library can concentrate on who keeps leaving stinky in the men's restroom.  New York Post

Two, count them, two libraries were infested with bedbugs this week.  The Vancouver area library found bedbugs in their shelves and furniture, as did an Arizona library.  VancouverSun and AZCentral

The Lowell City Council in Massachusetts has voted to ban sex offenders from being at the library during times when children are present.  So remember, get arrested for a sex related crime and you are not allowed into Summer Reading.  BostonHerald

Freaked out, the California State University library was evacuated searched after a patron indicated he had a gun.  The man was found and slapped around like the stupid red-headed stepchild he was.  WashingtonPost

The e-reader app Kobo now allows your friends to see what you are reading and when you are reading it by posting automatic notices.  Your mother wants to know why you would read all that smut.  Your best friend thinks you are gay for Percy Jackson.  Your girlfriend wants to know who "Jane Eyre" is and if she is prettier.  Thanks, Kobo.  USAToday

The Dead Sea Scrolls are gonna be online.  We can get 2000 year old parchment online, but not fucking Harry Potter?  Youtube via BoingBoing

Seattle Gets Kindle Library eBooks

The Amazon Kindle, which we have never mentioned before, is beginning beta testing in Seattle for their Kindle Library ebook lending program.  The lending program, which works like this, partners with Overdrive to provide Kindle editions, or the AMZ ebook format, of various items.  Thisismynext contains various links to successful use of the system.

Yep, that's the next story I got.  First watermelons, now a test for an ebook checkout that technically already existed but is now expanded.  What's everybody think about that?  Excited about the Kindle editions?  Thinking about planting your own improbable library victory garden?  Let me know, I guess.  I'll be here.

You Can Talk to Authors Through Kindle! And Twitter

Amazon's Kindle e-reader had taken the next step in e-book e-volution: Twitter.  Short and skinny is that Amazon made a bunch of authors promise to answer fans when fans asked questions through the new Twitter-enabled Kindle.  Now as you read you can stop what you are doing and ask the author anything you want. I'm downloading my copy of The Holy Bible right now. tecca


Here are some practice questions for your favorite author:
How did you came up with this scene?
How did you write so good?
Why did this character do that?
What you talking about, Connie Willis?
What if God was one of us?
Is it inappropriate to think of child stars as sexual beings?
If a train leaves Las Vegas at 6pm, is there anyone on it not crying?
Can you sell a person into slavery if you are not related to them?
Are you there Judy Blume? It's me, the Spanish Inquisition.

Apple Sued Over eBook Pricing and Kindle Gets Advertising

The face of evil.

Apple and five publishing companies have been hit with a class action lawsuit by the firm Hagens Berman over ebook price fixing.  The lawsuit claims that Apple, HarperCollins Publishers, Hachette Book Group, Macmillan Publishers, Penguin Group Inc. and Simon & Schuster Inc. conspired to illegally fix prices of ebooks and shut down the competition created by Amazon's lower priced ebooks.

Anybody feel like this is just a big advertisement for Kindles?  Oh, Kindle ebooks are so cheap that the big boys had bring us down.  Why can't we all be friends?  Those big meanies are trying to stop us from giving you the best prices around.  So cheap in fact that we feel crazy.  We must be crazy.  We are giving the site away!  So come on down to Crazy Larry's Amazon eBookland and we'll have us a good old time.

Also, you know the folks over at Google Books are loving this.  Their main completion are having a slap fight while they just put out their first eReader. Of course, they could feel left out.  This is the first major ebook court battle that they have not been apart of.

AppleInsider
ZDNet
DetNews
Wired

Apple Overlords Change App Policy, Kill In-App Bookstores

What do Google Books, Amazon Kindle and other eBook services have in common?  They have all been affected by Apple's policy about in-app stores.  Apple states that all apps have to be directed through their marketplace, taking a hefty 30% of anything sold.  The above apps (and many more) have been updated, removing consumer options and strengthening my happiness that I finally moved on to the Android system.

[Zdnet]

Harry Potter eBooks Pick Google over Amazon

Google Books has confirmed that they will be an ebook hub for the Harry Potter books through the Harry Potter reading website Pottermore.  Customers will be able to buy copies of the ebooks and then read them on any Google Book device, such as the Nook, Story HD and the Google Book internet platform.  This is big news for the search engine giant as it gives them a major lead over their competition, including Amazon.

Oooo, Amazon got burned!  They were all like, "J.K. Rowling, let's light the eliterary world on fire with your $15 billion dollar empire.  Light it with a Kindle." And J.K. was all, "Eh, you sell weird stuff and are all groady and old.  I like Google now.  He's hot and has a big search engine and is all about not being evil." And Amazon was like, "Rowling, why are you doing this to me! You are tearing me apart!"  And then Amazon shot itself and a kid o.d.'d or something.

[ZDNet]

College Students Can Now Rent Text-eBooks from Amazon

Amazon announced a new opportunity for college students to rent their textbooks as ebooks through its Kindle platform instead of buying the books outright.  The ebook rental prices will at times be as much as 80% less than the retail value of the books.  I can see this affecting students in three ways:

1. Students will no longer give Christmas presents to their families or be able to go home for the summer.  The valuable income that comes at the end of the semester when students sell back the books their parents or student loans paid for will be lost as the text-ebooks vanish into the ether.

2.  Students will no longer have a proper reminder for classes.  Waking up at the crack of noon, stumbling over to the mini-fridge to get that first brew, then BAM!  Your big toe cracks into the edge of your Algebra II book.  As you collapse to the floor in pain, you remember that your final for Civics is tomorrow.  How?  The girl that saw you vomit off the balcony onto the goat that time is in both your Algebra and Civics class.  Without the book, you would never remember.

3.  Rolling joints and doing blow on a Kindle sucks the big one.  Seriously, have you ever tried to cut anything on the screen of that eInk stuff?  Cuts it right up.  And remember how happy you were to shake out the book and find a toothpick's worth of weed in the cracks of the pages?  So happy.

[ComputerWorld]

Lucky Number 7: Michael Connelly Sells 1 Million Ebooks

Author Michael Connelly has become the seventh writer to sell 1 million kindle ebooks on Amazon's kindle store. Connelly said in a press release:

 “As a storyteller it brings me particular fulfillment to know so many readers are receiving my work through the Kindle. Added to that, my name is now on a list of an amazing group of writers. I am very proud of this moment.”

 I always wanted to be 7th at something, too.  It is an acheviement to know that seven other people did something first.  I mean, just talk to all the people that place 7th in the Olympics or at the Kentucky Derby.  Those people are practically pooping themselves with the prospect of the... I dunno, what's the opposite of gold?  Dirt Medal?

Seriously, though, congratulations to Michael Connelly.  He is in a class of authors and best sellers that I could never even hope to aspire to, much less reach.  His writing is top notch and never fails to delight.    [Galleycat]

True Blood Author Sells Over 1 Million eBooks

Did you know that sex sells?

Charlaine Harris, author of the Sookie Stackhouse (True Blood) novels, has become the fourth author to pass the 1 million mark in ebooks sold on Amazon's Kindle Store.  Harris said in Amazon's news release: 

"When Amazon first unveiled the Kindle three and a half years ago, I would never have expected to be one of the first handful of authors in the Kindle Million Club. It's been an amazing few years for myself and the Kindle both, but even more so to have my books available to my readers in ways that just a few years ago would have seemed as fantastic as vampires coming out of the coffin."  

I am not sure what is scarier here:  that these books are selling so much or that Ms. Harris believes computers are just as unbelievable as the dead coming back to life.  Or am I reading that wrong?  Is she saying that because you would expect a vampire to come from a coffin that she always expected readers would find her books on computers?

J K Rowling!  Mean author blood lady make my head hurt!  Kill her ebook sales with your Pottery Potter-ness.  Pretty please?  Make me think, will ya.  Rowling gonna make a Kindle Million-billion-bazillion Club.  You'll see, Ms. Fang, you'll see.

Hey, how come there were never any vampires in Harry Potter?

Amazon Announces Library Lending

Amazon, purveyors of the Kindle and its little ebook babies, have announced a new service they are working on called "Library Lending."  Through a partnership with Overdrive, ebooks from Amazon would be able to be checked out from a local public library on any Kindle or Kindle app.  Also, using their Whispersync service, Amazon would be be able to save your notes and bookmarks on any book you checked out after it is "returned" should you decide to re-check out or purchase the item:

"Customers will be able to check out a Kindle book from their local library and start reading on any Kindle device or free Kindle app for Android, iPad, iPod touch, iPhone, PC, Mac, BlackBerry, or Windows Phone. If a Kindle book is checked out again or that book is purchased from Amazon, all of a customer's annotations and bookmarks will be preserved." - Amazon 

Well, well.  Look who's jumping on the library bandwagon, eh?  I think this is good news.  The technology is growing towards universal ebook formats and a universal ebook carriers, just as I predicted.  Well, me and every other person with a blog and a half invested interest.  The future is now, people!  Rock on!

Amazon Lowers Kindle Price with the Power of ADS

Smile, you cheap bastard.

A new Kindle is now available on Amazon's website that will be cheaper by way of ADS.  A special note on the front page of Amazon's website explains how great the Kindle is and why every on should own one (see it while you can) as well as talking about how ADS will display and how you, the customer, can choose them.  

Now, I know I am in the minority on this, but I do not see how running a Kindle on diesel will do any good for anything.  Think about it Amazon, partnering up with the Association for Diesel Specialists is just a way for you to make a quick buck and move some product.  It does ADS no good and it certainly does nothing for the consumer.  There's gonna be smog everywhere people.  What's next, nuclear powered Nooks?  

eWeek

New Kindle Ad Shows People Doing a Lot of Random Stuff with a Kindle

A new ad for Amazon's Kindle popped up on Youtube this week (and at CNET)showing pretty people doing fun things.  This kind of ad takes me back to the good ole days, where my friends and I would grab a book and run around looking all goofy while we read.  And remember that time you and your best girl were in the malt shop and you corrected her for her poor choice in expensive reading materials?  Man, those were the times.

Check out the new video ad after the jump.



Is it also a little presumptious to just say, "The Book Lives On."  I mean, really?  Couldn't we just say, "The eBook Lives On Because We Took Down Our Competitors?"

Kindle 'All Up On" Paperbacks

Amazon recently reported that ebooks on their site are outselling paperback books as the most popular format.  I am going to go out on a limb here and say, "Duh."  When your heavily promoted, electronic book market sells more electronic media than print media, that should probably be par for the course.  That would like the elderly lady at a used bookstore putting out a press release saying that her print books are kicking the shit out of ebooks in sales.  While the popularity of ebooks is notable, saying that users who already prefer an electronic media for shopping also really like buying electronic materials is kinda like saying people who like going to the pet store also really like hugging puppies.  This is a given announcement meant to encourage more ebook and ereader sales and excite an already excitable media.  I also find it funny that Amazon sells the Nook.

eBook News That's Fit to ePrint

3D is the new 2D.  Image from Copyblogger

 Amazon starting new service called Amazon Singles.  What is a single?  Think of that random dude you know who writes 20 page manifestos about how the world should be more like his favorite D&D campaign.  Now think of Kraft Singles.  Smoosh the two together and you get a processed yellow goo that might, might have a kernel of truth in it.

Google seems happy over ebook launch.  And why should they not be?  Ooooo, I am a giant software company that specializes in making people happy and stuff.  I can do anything with computer code.  Wwwwoooo.  Look at me program a double rainbow that farts leprechaun gold!

Yet another ebook Internet lending service.  Bookswim jumps on this months band wagon with a new service that rides the Kindle Lending service like a harpy from hell.  That's an unfair comparison, but hey, wasn't Danny Devito great as the penguin?

Ebook Lending Seems Like a Thing

Ebook lending has taken the Internet by storm since our last post on the subject.  Two new sites, the verbose ebooklendinglibrary and the tease ebookfling, have opened up, both offering lending of Kindle and Nook ebooks.  This expands on the idea of creating mock friendships online so people will give you free things.  I expect Facebook will be the next to offer an app to allow you to borrow and lend ebooks to friends and family, as well as marking them "Lolz" and "gay" after you announce you are looking for literary classics to make yourself look better.

Used eBook Store? Kindle Lending Club

I can haz friends.

The Internet has stepped up and started what could be considered a used ebook store.  Due to Kindle's new policy in which you can share Kindle ebooks between Kindle devices/apps, the Kindle Lending Club has offered to allow you to contact other Kindle users and share books with them.  (Holy shit, I just said that K-word a lot. Never again.)  All you have to do is go to the site, register, and see if anybody is sharing a book you want.   There is a lot of rules about how long you get it and stuff that is all dependent on Amazon's lending policy, but still that's an awesome idea that both spreads buying ebooks and lending ebooks.  Just remember, don't be a dick, buy and share yours too.  It is not like you buy and read the new Tom Clancy and immediately have to reread it.

[UPDATE: I'm writing from a year in the in the FUTURE!!!! booga booga.  Seriously, this is old news, might not be relevant anymore.  Have a nice day! 19 Jan 2012, ew]

Amazon eBook Reading Device Lending Club

Article about Amazon eBook Reading Device Lending Club