eBookIt.com Opens

Say goodbye to the days when a handful of publishing giants dominated the book industry, and say hello to an industry where any author can inexpensively make his or her book available to the world, through a new generation of giants -- online retailers of eBooks. But even this new world of eBooks has it’s own set of challenges that keeps the majority of authors and small to medium-sized publishers away from the booming eBook market -- until now.

eBookit.com was create by entrepreneur, programmer, and author, Bo Bennett, who realized a major need for this kind of full-service business after struggling with converting his own print book to eBook format in the summer of 2010. “I started out with a leading service that offers free conversion and publication, promising it’s both ‘quick’ and ‘easy’. Before I could upload the book, I had to format it to the company’s exact specifications, following a very lengthy style guide. It took me several days to finish the formatting. I attempted to upload the text of the book several times, only to find the conversion failed the validation tests each and every time, as I had missed some obscure formatting point,” says Bennett. “I tried multiple online tools and services that promised acceptable conversions, but none of them produced a converted file that looked presentable. I was continually plagued with errors, inconsistencies, and funky formatting. If a tech savvy author like me had this much trouble, what hope is there for the typical author who may or may not have a technical background?”

Bennett’s eBook conversion nightmare is not an isolated one. The top retail eBookstores are filled with poorly converted books. Many authors will use automated tools that attempt to convert their source book file into the required eBook file format, not realizing how sloppy the converted file looks and how much of the text or images in the book failed to make it in the converted file. This results in returned eBooks, and worse, negative customer book reviews on the retail sites. “As an eBook lover myself, I may be ‘sold” on the content of a book, but if customer reviews report the eBook is not reader-friendly, I’m not going to waste my money,” says Bennett.

“I created eBookIt.com out of my conviction that an author should have an inexpensive, simple, and truly fool-proof way to get their book converted to eBook format, and submitted to the major online retailers fast, so they can start capitalizing on the exploding eBook market,” says Bennett.

For $149, eBookIt.com converts books to all required eBook formats, and submits the converted eBook to all the major retailers of eBooks including Apple’s iBookstore, Amazon.com, Sony ReaderStore, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Borders, the new Google ebookstore and Ingram Digital, which makes the book available to over 32,000 smaller online retailers to sell.

“eBookIt.com combines hands-on review and formatting of the author’s title and the best of automated conversion tools to ensure an overall conversion of the highest quality. We provide peace of mind to our authors and publishers by checking each title on multiple e-reader devices to ensure the eBook looks beautiful,” concludes Bennett.

If you would like more information on eBookIt.com, or to schedule an interview with Bo Bennett, please call 978-440-8364 or e-mail bo at ebookit dot com.

Oprah's New Book Club Selections Free on Kindle

The 65th Oprah Book Club pick is a Charles Dickens double-header reports the Amazoniacs. The selections are "A Tale of Two Cities" and "Great Expectations," and Amazon.com have announced that  announced that both are available on Kindle for free, along with millions of other out-of-copyright works. These free Kindle books can be read on the bestselling $139 Kindle (www.amazon.com/kindle) with new, high-contrast Pearl e-ink or on iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, BlackBerry, Android-based devices, PC, and Mac using free Kindle reading apps (www.amazon.com/kindleapps).

"We've found that customers love to discover--or rediscover--classic books on Kindle and we're sure these Dickens books will find new readers as an Oprah's Book Club selection," said Russ Grandinetti, Vice President of Kindle Content. "Millions of free, out-of-copyright books are available to read on Kindle, including these two classic Dickens books."

There is also a Penguin edition available in the Kindle store for $7.99. The Penguin edition includes illustrations of 18th century fashion and culture in Dickens' Victorian world, information about the early reception for both "A Tale of Two Cities" and "Great Expectations," a filmography of Dickens' novels, further reading about the author as well as what informed the thematic elements of these classic novels.

ASUS Eee Reader DR900

the Asus Eee Reader DR900, the 9-inch device, is expected to be available soon.

Asus promises that the Eee Reader will be a highly portable travelling companion that can be taken on any journey. Its 2GB of internal storage (expandable via SD Card) can store up to 5,000 ebooks and the two-week battery life is long. The screen supposedly stays clear even in broad daylight.

The Eee Reader’s 9-inch capacitive touch-screen also removes the need for a physical keyboard and delivers a simple and intuitive user interface. Still it propably won't like sticky fingers, so better watch out if you like to enjoy good books with chocolate.

Google will enter into the ebook market at end of year

Google has confirmed that its own ebook store, Google Editions, will be up and running by the end of the year, potentially transforming the ebook landscape.

Google Editions will let people buy ebooks from Google or from the websites of independent bookstores, which are still struggling to compete with the two larger rivals, the Kindle by The Amazon and the iPad, and with Barnes & Noble, which has its own "Nook" ebook reader.

Amazon allows Kindle ebooks to be gifted

Amazon has announced that you can now gift someone a Kindle book, and that you don't even have to worry if that person has a Kindle or not.
The only requirement is an Amazon account for you and an email address for the recipient. The ebooks can be read from Kindle apps on iPhones, iPads, Android and Blackberry phones and both Macs and PCs. All Kindle apps are free.

"We are thrilled to make it easier than ever for our customers to give their favorite Kindle book to a friend or family member as a gift," said Russ Grandinetti, Vice President, Amazon Kindle. "We're making this functionality available in time for the holidays to offer an easy, stress free holiday shopping option for anyone - not just Kindle owners."

To give a Kindle Book as a gift, customers simply choose a book in the Kindle Store, select "Give as a Gift" and send their gift to anyone with an email address. Notifications of Kindle Books gifts are delivered instantly via e-mail and the recipient redeems the gift in the Kindle Store to read on any Kindle or free Kindle app.

Australian Millenius e-book readers

Australian  Millennius is taking orders for its new e-book readers, as they have two models are available soon. The $A249 unit has a 6in E-ink screen, Wi-Fi with supported formats like TXT, EPUB, FB2, PDF, DOC, XLS, PPT, CHM, HTML, MP3, WMA, AAC, etc. The larger one has a 7in colour (LCD) 800 x 480 pixel screen. In addition to e-books, audio and photos  it can play video files. The 7in model , which runs Linux, is also able to act as a voice recorder.
Battery life is said to be approximately 8000 pages for the 6in model (E-ink uses power when redrawing the screen) and up to 15 hours reading (less for audio or video) for the 7in model.

New York Times to Launch Ebook Best-Seller Lists

It really seems like 2010 will be remembered as the year ebooks finally went mainstream. That ebook sales in the United States are projected to hit almost $1 billion by the end of the year and now The New York Times has announced they plan to launch ebook bestseller lists in early 2011.

The New York Times Best-Seller List, which has been published since 1935, is known as the true mark of a book's success for both publishers and authors. The ebook rankings will reflect sales aggregated from a number of online service providers who sell ebooks to consumers.