A list of features is long and includes support for Adobe DRM books, in-app purchases, book lending from public libraries and advanced bookshelf management.

If you have an Android smartphone or a tablet, don't hesitate to download the app. Reading is really cool with it.

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"Aldiko 2.0 released! Packed with new features, check this overview [video]" is a post from Password Incorrect Blog.

In my honest opinion, Smashwords is the most convenient way to get published. “Publish once, be everywhere” – it’s how the service can be described. Thanks to partnerships with big e-bookstores, your book can be distributed to Barnes&Noble, Sony Ebookstore, Kobo Books, Diesel and, soon, Amazon’s Kindle Store.

Publish in one place, manage your book(s) in one place, get your money from one place. It’s as easy as that. And you’ll have more time to write a next book.

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• 24.11.2010 -- Brian O’Leary: mobile reading comes of age [presentation]
• 05.10.2010 -- How Technology is Changing a Publishing Industry
• 28.03.2010 -- Mobile world: mobile fiction: eBooks
• 15.11.2009 -- 5 Reasons Why Writers Should Mobilize Their Blogs
• 07.08.2011 -- Links on Mobile E-books & Self-Publishing 07.08.2011

"Smashwords: e-book publishing and distribution made easy [presentation]" is a post from Password Incorrect Blog.

Now, frankly, this thing is a totally inconvenient piece of appliance, definitely not designed to read books but to show off. Sad thing is that many people say same things about e-books and e-readers.

Next time you’ll start complaining about the screen resolution or a lack of a hard cover, try imaging yourself in a mobile library like this. And, hey, watch your coffee.

Posted via web from Password Incorrect

Related posts

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• 04.12.2010 -- Smashwords: e-book publishing and distribution made easy [presentation]
• 09.04.2010 -- iPad e-reading apps part I: iBooks and Kindle [video]
• 06.04.2010 -- Ebook Resell Markets: is the future of books in mobile e-book reading?
• 04.04.2010 -- E-books: iPad is a Game Changer No. 2

"The most absurd way to store and read books" is a post from Password Incorrect Blog.

Posted via web from Password Incorrect

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"iPad e-reading apps part I: iBooks and Kindle [video]" is a post from Password Incorrect Blog.

The director of an international airport was hanging from the ropes and checking their color in the sun, which graciously shone from between fiercely looking storm clouds. The ropes were suspended by carabiners from the hooks in the ceiling, which following the airport’s motto (“sky is no limit”) was located at the height exceeding the limits of innerspatial imagination of public use buildings. Thanks to that, the director’s office, which wasn’t small to begin with, according to the airport’s second maxim (“space is no limit”), appeared to be a huge penthouse of at least 300 square meters. In reality, it was only 250 and the director, from the height accorded by the length of the parachute ropes, was lamenting about it:

“I told them to take over half of the cafeteria, but they wouldn’t listen, and now, look at what I have to be cooped up with.”

He was cooped up with two parachute guys, and two guys dealing with exclusive materials. And more precisely, they were copped up on a small, two-seater sofa. They’d been cooped up there for over two hours, because the director was known for his pedantic qualities and now with his every comment, he confirmed a rumor about him that was circulating at the airport.

The issue was indeed weighty and it weighed at least as much as the representative parachute. Even if this type of parachute hadn’t existed before, now we were witnessing its birth and everything was depending on the color of those unfortunate ropes.

One kind of rope was too stiff, but the color was nice – Button-down Shirt Blue “Dark Day on Wall Street.” Unfortunately, that kind could damage the impeccably chosen suit jacket fabric (yes, the director was wearing a suit jacket, because he wanted everything to match nicely). Other, softer types of rope were simply dream-made for the sort of managerial snob like this director of a paralyzed international airport. The ropes were made using the new revolutionary SkySafe technology, whatever that meant, but which had one major fault – their colors were fine for beginners parachuting from jump towers, and the director had already completed his first real jump. Well with a bodyguard really, but a bodyguard was just a bodyguard and didn’t count, anyway.

“What are you giving me here: pink, bright green, bright orange, bright turquoise. Don’t you have something for more serious guys like me?”

“Sir,” he was interrupted by the voice of his secretary coming from the intercom, “Sir, the spokesmen for the striking workers informed that the departures terminal had been blocked.”

“I’m in a meeting you tell them,” the director replied kicking his legs slightly with frustration.

“OK gentlemen, I am getting annoyed by those ropes, and we still have the fabric for the canopy and the protective material to discuss. I brought you here to prepare the best ever under the sun representative parachute, if I’m going to have a photo session with it for “Aircraft Industry”. The photographer is flying in on Friday and I want to have everything fixed and ready to roll by then. And it needs work too, you know, in case I have to jump out with this parachute from my lil’ blue sports plane for real.”

“I can suggest having the ropes made to order. Soft SkySafe in Button-down Shirt Blue.”

“Just what I wanted to hear. Now the canopy. Can someone get me unhooked? How can I check the canopy if I’m hanging here. Gentlemen, more initiative, please. I didn’t hire you, so you could sleep here on the sofa for twenty thousand.”

Five men jumped up to get him unhooked. They put him on a ladder where he spent another two hours examining the canopy’s fabric. This was not easy. Not this color, not that that “texture”, not that intensity of light reflection.

“S… sir, the strikers have blocked the arrivals. In the main hall, about three thousand people are currently camping out, and violence is breaking o… out,” the secretary stuttered, and her voice, coming from six speakers, was full of panic.

“I am busy. OK gentlemen, do you have other samples? Because what you’ve offered me so far, I must regretfully say is acceptable for a not-so-bright manager of a field airstrip in Asswhack. At my airport, we live by the motto “imagination is no limit.” I’m expecting your suggestions, now.”

“There are swatches of course, sir, but if you prefer to take care of the strikers, we can wait, no problem. As I understand, this might be a more pressing matter than the canopy.”

“You think?” There was a moment of deep thought on the seventh step of the titanium ladder.

“Sir, excuse me,” the terrified, quadrophonic voice of the secretary could be heard again.

“Yes, talk to me!” The manager yelled back.

“Sir, Mr. van Hookjes is here. He says he brought the proposal for professional parachute helmets with an air-bag system.”

“Ah, yes, tell him to come in, of course. Gentlemen, do something. I can’t stand here on this ladder all day long. I have helmets to look at.”

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• 19.01.2011 -- Aldiko 2.0 released! Packed with new features, check this overview [video]
• 04.12.2010 -- Smashwords: e-book publishing and distribution made easy [presentation]
• 27.04.2010 -- The most absurd way to store and read books
• 09.04.2010 -- iPad e-reading apps part I: iBooks and Kindle [video]
• 06.04.2010 -- Ebook Resell Markets: is the future of books in mobile e-book reading?

"Parachute no limit" is a post from Password Incorrect Blog.

Posted via web from Password Incorrect

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"Ebook Resell Markets: is the future of books in mobile e-book reading?" is a post from Password Incorrect Blog.

Yes, it’s an iPhone. Big guys will never admit it because they can’t make that much money from a device being a game changer completely unintentionally. One of the most famous contemporary quotes on reading is about the iPhone:

It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore. – Steve Jobs

It’s much more profitable to bring a new game changer and draw all attention to it. This is what happens with iPad and iBookstore.

From a point of view of an average e-book reader it all started with the iPhone. We readers can prove it not with forecasts, simulations and awesome demos, but a sheer user experience.

I’m just one of fans of the e-reader called iPhone. Here is my list of changes this single device already made or at least ignited:

:. Made e-books more accessible

Some time ago the only way to read e-books was either a computer or an e-ink device. The second option was an expensive one. And then the iPhone came and said: “hey, you can turn me into an e-reader with no extra costs”. One day millions of people were given a chance to try e-books, and what’s most important, the mobile ones, so the major problem we all had with 1st gen e-books (no mobility at all) was gone in no time.

Easy access to e-books was one thing. The next big benefit was that those books were in most cases for free. Many apps like Stanza or Eucalyptus were giving an access to free public domain books from catalogs based on Project Gutenberg resources. Amazon was not interested in making free books popular. They wanted to sell not to give.

Was it a good deal for readers? Enough to say that with 3.5 million unique users of a single application, Stanza, iPhone became the most popular e-book reading device in the world.

:. Changed the way we look at e-books

The first generation of e-books were just boring pdf documents on a screen of a desktop computer in an office – and this was the major reason people refused to try them. iPhone, more than a Kindle, changed the attitude. Everything done with such a sexy thing becomes sexy as well.

In my opinion Kindle was and still is a device to convert heavy readers from “p” to “e”. iPhone serves another purpose. It has the biggest potential to bring people back to reading. Those who escaped to the world of social media, on-line video and gaming. Thanks to the iPhone reading belongs to the same world of interests.

:. Pushed big players to change attitude

It didn’t took much time for big e-bookstores to see potential of the iPhone.

Business thinking goes like this: if there is another device, through which I can sell books, why shouldn’t I use it, especially when the device’s producer is not interested?

Bookstores on iPhone? Amazon, Barnes&Noble, Kobo, Fictionwise. Really, making an iPad version of an existing application is not such a big deal as entering Apple platform in a first place. And there are also newspapers in the iPhone game, naming only The New York Times. Who knows how engaged NYT would be in the iPad if there were no iPhone before.

:. Changed the way people collect books

This is one of the most essential points. Collecting books evolved from sticking to one device and one bookstore.

iPhone became another access device to Kindle Store or B&N shelves. But at the same time, opposite to Kindle or Nook, it was giving an exceptional benefit – access to both Amazon and Barnes&Noble. How was it changing a habit? iPhone users were first to realize that sticking to one shelf is not needed any more. More important was freedom to choose and freedom to access.

:. Brought a book to next level

iPhone caused creativity to explode. There were thousands of apps created for the book category. Developers were using all the possibilities iPhone was giving to them. Enhanced books started to appear in the AppStore. A wonderful example is The Death of Bunny Munro. In my opinion this book is a symbolic birth of a new generation of books.

The next gen books, the ones which can be consumed with many senses, were not waiting for the iPad.

It’s no doubt that this unprecedented storm of ideas was caused by Steve Job’s lack of interest in e-books. Everybody wanted to be smarter and benefit from iPhone’s e-book friendliness before the Apple guys. With iPad everything will happen in a shadow of an iBookstore and creativity will flourish to level allowed by Apple.

The game is not over yet. Comparing to current 300 thousand iPad users, there are 70 million people with iPhones. Those who haven’t done it yet, can turn their iPhones into an e-reader in a couple of minutes. And this is what will happen as a result of all the Apple/iPad/e-books buzz.

I wish every device designed for reading to be able to influence the way we consume books in such an extensive and innovative way.

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• 29.11.2010 -- iPad jako e-czytnik – lista przydatnych artykułów
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• 21.01.2011 -- iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch – jak dodać własne pliki do aplikacji e-książkowych

"E-books: iPad is a Game Changer No. 2" is a post from Password Incorrect Blog.

Posted via web from Password Incorrect

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"AndroGeek: Top Smartphone e-Book Apps for iPhone" is a post from Password Incorrect Blog.

TidyRead is a fantastic service, which converts web pages into fast-loading, minimalist yet eye-pleasing versions, so that you can read them on your iPhone, Android or any other smartphone with a browser.

How it works? You paste an url address of a page, click “Read” button and in a moment you’ll have it mobilized. The service is using special algorithms, which extract only the main headline, text, images and videos, while removing everything else (like a sidebar, footer, widgets or ads). As a result the page you mobilized with TidyRead has a real e-book feel.

More importantly, while classic mobilizing services like Mippin or Mofuse can use only RSS feeds, TidyRead turns any web content into a mobile friendly format. I’ve checked no-RSS websites as well as forums and it worked. Surely, there are pages written in such a way, that their content just can’t be properly shown through any code simplifying script, but that’s the problem most of web mobilizing tools can encounter.

You will say “hey, Google Mobilizer does this job already”. Yes, it does… the basics. It simplifies the page to the ugly core, the pictures are too downsized, the font is ultra small and there is no way to personalize it ( = make it bigger).

Google mobilized pages are optimized for any cellphone, not only touchscreens, so the devices with the bigger screen show everything small. Now the thing is that it is big touchscreen users to be more eager to read on a phone than those with small screens.

MakeUseOf has a good review of the service, so I’ll focus only on features, which make TidyRead a really exceptional proposal for mobile web users.

Killer features

:. Personalization

This is smartly done. Not too complicated, not too basic. Just the right amount of options to manage from a mobile phone (yes, TidyRead can be managed from both desktop and mobile browser). A list of options includes: display style (f.e. novel, e-book, newspaper), font size, text alignment and font family. I’ve chosen my favourite screen font. It’s Georgia and it does a tremendous job in making on-screen reading a real pleasure.

:. Bookmarklet

This is such a simple tool and saves so much time. Just drag this bookmarklet to your toolbar and when you’re at the page which you want to mobilize, just do it in one click. You need another click (“Save to reading list” button) and the page is saved for later reading.

Bookmarklet is directing you to a TidyRead url address, so this is at the same time your shortcut to mobile friendly reading list.

:. Save

Yes. Saving pages into a personal reading list is the most useful feature of TidyRead. This is, in my opinion, number one factor to boost TidyRead’s popularity among mobile readers. What does it mean? You can start making your own catalogue of favourite reads. They can come from many sources, but at TidyRead they’re given one, personalized, familiar look.

Compare screenshots – Google Mobilizer (left) and TidyRead (right):

User tips

I see a lot of potential in TidyRead and I’d like to give you some tips how to maximize the use of it.

:. Share mobilized links

One of the major reasons, why so many links on Twitter are retweeted without reading is that users who access Twitterverse via mobile phones are afraid of opening them. They are afraid to wait ages for a page to load and messy layouts fitting into their phone screens.

Not only Twitter, but also Facebook are heavily populated by mobile readers. Sending them a mobile friendly link makes a lot of sense. With TidyRead it’s super easy. You’re on a page you want to share. Before, you were just using a Bit.ly bookmarklet (or any other url shortener). Now you can first click on a TidyRead bookmarklet (the page is mobilized) and then Bit.ly (the address is shortened). Having one more click makes the content you share accesible by mobile readers.

A tip: give your friends a hint the link is mobilized, for example add “mobile frendly link” at the end of a tweet.

:. Store your mobilized links

Some time ago I listed blog mobilizing tools. TidyRead is a strong next one. If your blog is not mobilized yet and you don’t want to use another plugin for that, you can always pull your home page through TidyRead and save the link. You can also save particular posts to have an immediate access to them from your TidyRead’s reading list.

:. Build a catalog of Scribd books

This is a tip for Scribd lovers. Recently the service has introduced a neat feature. When you’re on a book page (desktop web), you can click the “Mobile” button and Scribd will send to your device a link to the mobile friendly version of a book (two options: SMS or mail). This is a fantastic tool, as there are over 10 million books available via Scribd.

Now, what to do with your favourite links? Scribd can’t store them yet. Looking through old SMS messages can be frustrating. TidyRead does the job. Just paste a Scribd link (it’s shortened by Bit.ly and it works in TidyRead), get the mobile version and store it in your reading list. This way you can collect a pretty long list of the books with a “to-read” status.

:. Collect online fiction

Are you a member of an online writer community? Do you frequently visit pages listing flash fiction, poems or any other kind of online writing? Just mobilize the landing page with TidyRead and all the links within will be mobilized as well.

To give you a hint of how it works – if you like reading FridayFlash, just go to Twitter search, type in the hashtag (#FridayFlash) and use the TidyRead bookmarklet to mobilize the results. Store it in your reading list and refresh the results every Friday for a new set of great stories. Type in your browser http://bit.ly/cp5KH0 and check for yourself!

Note: yes, this is big – TidyRead is also mobilizing the links from the Twitter stream!

:. Read without distraction

Last thing. TidyRead bookmarklet lets you in one click remove all the content, which can distract you from reading. So you can use it not only on a mobile phone but also on your computer – any time you really need to focus on what you’re reading.

Recently there was a lot of buzz around the report saying, that mobile web is more popular among young Europeans than reading. In my opinion it’s not the question how to bring young people to reading, but how to bring reading to young people. And TidyRead does this job perfectly.

Related posts

• 04.04.2010 -- E-books: iPad is a Game Changer No. 2
• 15.11.2009 -- 5 Reasons Why Writers Should Mobilize Their Blogs
• 04.12.2010 -- Smashwords: e-book publishing and distribution made easy [presentation]
• 27.07.2010 -- iBooks: How to Add Books Without Connecting to iTunes
• 26.07.2010 -- Use Dropbox as a Cloud Bookshelf for Stanza

"TidyRead brings reading to mobile web" is a post from Password Incorrect Blog.

Please read this great guest post about it. His author is a fellow mobile fiction writer – Small Stories.

You can subscribe to Small Stories at Posterous. Please visit also his writing website as well as a collection of pictures made with an iPhone.

Small Stories’ books, all of them, are a fantastic choice for mobile readers. Download them for free from Feedbooks.

It’s true we increasingly live in a mobile world but it seems to be having a more rapid change that I imagined a year or so ago.

Take eBooks for example, everyone is trying to get into or investigate them, changing behaviour, and reading trends.

Google thinks the desktop will be irrelevant in three years – everything will come from the cloud and the Internet browser, through devices like the iPhone or iPad. Apple don’t call themselves a computer company any more. They say they are a mobile devices company.

So the momentum is there.

Publishers know it too and don’t want people to flock over or come to expect cheap ebooks. They want to make the business model profitable, they want to control prices. As a result they’re working hard to get consumers to pay hardback prices for ebooks.

New eBooks will, they hope, sell for a premium and gradually go down in price using a three tier price structure.

To get away with this they will need to pull off the same move the film industry did moving from VHS to DVD … up the price and sell quality and extra features. It was the expensive (at the time DVD) that needed a directors commentary and extras to justify the price hike.

Fine then. If that’s what they want bring on those extra features, interviews, author commentaries, videos, images from the book tour, etc … If I love a book enough that might persuade me.

It already has … The Death of Bunny Munro, by Nick Cave came as an enhanced edition for the iPhone for the same price as a hardback but it was still a bargain.

Why?

Because it came with a free audiobook read out by Nick Cave. It was brilliant, like having him over for the evening to read the thing out to me. It was a great book and a beautifully designed iPhone app.

So it seems people don’t mind paying a little extra than they thought (as Apple knows) so long as we get something of perceived value in return.

Mobile fiction has a fantastically exciting time ahead of it. Starting with the iPhone and more importantly the iPad …

Stay tuned :)

Related posts

• 04.12.2010 -- Smashwords: e-book publishing and distribution made easy [presentation]
• 03.01.2010 -- Mobile fiction – what is it and why is it at all?
• 20.04.2009 -- Password Incorrect – mobile flash fiction
• 16.02.2011 -- Self-Publishing przebojem wchodzi na rynek (oraz co zrobić, żeby był to rynek polski)
• 22.11.2010 -- Does 30,000 downloads convince you to read a book?

"Mobile world: mobile fiction: eBooks" is a post from Password Incorrect Blog.