For the longest time now it’s looked like Barnes & Noble, with no savior in sight, was going to be killed by the current management.
Now a potential savior has stepped forward. The WSJ reports that the hedge fund Elliott Management Corp is the lead bidder in an auction to acquire B&N. This is the same hedge fund that acquired a controlling interest in Waterstones last spring.
Update: CNBC says B&N is being acquired by Elliot for $683 million.
This is still in the rumor stage, but they’re saying that a deal could be struck in the next few days. Should Elliott win the auction, James Daunt, founder of Daunt Books and CEO of Waterstones, would take over management of Barnes & Noble.
I hope this rumor comes true; it would mean that B&N had a better than even chance of getting turned around. Daunt has turned around Waterstones, so if there is anyone who could rescue B&N, it would be him.
Of course, it also means that B&N would quickly sell off the Nook, probably to Kobo. That division is a loser, and the new management is going to get rid of it ASAP.
Barnes & Noble currently operates over 600 stores and had a stock market capitalization of around $336 million as of Wednesday evening. The stock price is currently trading up 31%, at $6.03.
Yesterday Apple announced changes to the iPad’s OS that will positively affect how you can use the iPad to create. That was cool, but it’s not the only thing worth noting in yesterday’s news dump.
Teleread brought my attention to a new feature called "Daily Reading Goal" that will be coming to Apple Books.
Here’s how Apple described the feature:
Read a book or listen to an audiobook for five minutes while in line for coffee, on your commute, or before bed to achieve your Daily Reading Goal. Build streaks to celebrate your achievements and share books you’ve finished with the Books Read this Year collection.
What do you think of the news?
Me, I don’t care about gamified reading (it puts too much focus on the wrong thing), but if I did then I would be using Kobo’s badges instead. They have a whole host of reading badges that absolutely dwarfs Apple’s paltry single reading stat, and Kobo’s had those badges for years and years.
For the longest time now users have complained that software on the iPad was crippled compared to macOS or Windows while at the same time Apple has insisted the iPad is a PC replacement (a claim that is true only if you aren’t using the full abilities of your PC).
Yesterday Apple conceded this round of the debate. One of the announcements at WWDC yesterday was iPadOS, a new version of iOS that will include things like better support for running multiple apps in windows, keyboard shortcuts, and external storage.
For starters, the new iPadOS will feature a redesigned home screen that takes advantage of the iPad’s larger display.
Apple also plans to offer a desktop quality web browsing experience. I hope this includes ad-blocking, and other extensions, but reports from WWDC say that iPadOS would display the desktop version of a website (a feature we already have on the iPad, actually) and would gain better compatibility for web apps like Google Docs.
Apple also revealed yesterday that Safari for iPadOS will include about 30 new shortcuts, including:
Use default font size in Reader (Command + 0)
Open link in background (Command + tap)
Toggle downloads (Command + Alt/Option)
Open link in new window (Command + Alt + tap)
Use selection for Find (Command + E)
Email this page (Command + I)
Open link in new tab (Command + Shift + tap)
Decrease Reader text size (Command + -)
Zoom in (Command + +)
Zoom out (Command + -)
Save webpage (Command + S)
Change focused element (Alt/Option + tab)
Focus Smart Search field (Command + Alt/Option + F)
Dismiss web view in app (Command + W)
Increase Reader text size (Command + +)
Download linked file (Alt + tap)
Add link to Reading List (Shift + tap)
Close other tabs (Command + Alt/Option + W)
Scroll around screen (arrow keys)
Paste without formatting (Command + Shift + Alt/Option + V)
New Private tab (Command + Shift + N)
Actual size (Command + 0)
Open search result (Command + Return)
Toggle bookmarks (Command + Alt/Option + 1)
The keyboard shortcuts will work with Apple’s Smart Keyboard or any third-party Bluetooth connected keyboard,.
There’s also going to be a new compact layout keyboard mode for the iPad, one that shrinks the onscreen keyboard down to only occupy a fraction of the screen space. I for one am really looking forward to it; the keyboard is huge when the iPad is in landscape mode.
And last but not least, iPadOS will support external storage such as thumb drives and card readers; just buy an expensive converter, and then plug the storage in, and you can access the storage from the Files app.
Due to be released in the fall, iPadOS will be compatible with the iPad Air 2 and later, all iPad Pro devices, the fifth-generation iPad and later, and the iPad mini 4 and later.
Kobo rolled out a new update this week that parents, schools, and anyone else who wants to restrict access to their ereader will appreciate.
In addition to a couple minor tweaks including search improvements and better formatting in the TOC, Kobo has also added the option of setting a PIN that locks out the web browser and the Kobo store.
You can now set the pin and then hand your Kobo to anyone secure in the knowledge that they can’t buy books on your account.
This update will be automatically downloaded to your device over the next few weeks, but if you don’t want to wait, you can find a download link over at MobileRead.
Here’s the changelog for firmware update 4.15.12920:
Parental controls: You can set a 4-digit PIN that must be entered to access the store and web browser on your eReader. To turn it on, go to Settings and select Accounts.
Indented table of contents: If your book’s table of contents contains multiple levels, it will be indented for better readability.
Search improvements: Typing is now more responsive when searching.
Wifi now reconnects more quickly before you search the store, allowing search suggestions to appear as you type.
Fixed: Previously, when reading .MOBI books, your progress was not remembered.
We’ve all read the news stories about this college or that college removing books from their libraries. Stanford was one of the first to go bookless back in 2010, and many more colleges have followed suit. This includes Florida Polytechnic University, which opened a bookless library in 2014, and the University of Michigan, which reopened a medical library in 2015 but left the books in storage.
The University of Michigan has reopened its Taubman Health Sciences Library after a $55 million overhaul and rethinking of how a library for medical students should function.
Hundreds of thousands of books were moved to an offsite location and are available on demand for delivery, and by becoming “bookless” the school said that frees up space for medical student education. The facility on the school’s Ann Arbor campus officially reopened over the weekend.
While a traditionalist may object to a library without books, the fact of the matter is libraries have always been more than warehouses for books. Academic libraries in particular are used more for study than for storing old and possibly outdated books.
It’s about education and what works best to teach students. Just being able to browse shelves of old books, when medical information turns over about every five years, is not enough. Electronic databases with full-text articles and other online information are more accessible and more current. Browsing online is far superior to looking at shelves. Collaboration and group learning has been shown to be far superior to the solitary, no-feedback, one-way lecture of the physical book and doing it in the library is great.
And just so you know, UM’s books had been moved to storage a couple years ago when the renovations began. In effect, the library had gone bookless a couple years ago with little or no negative impact on the students.
Students simply don’t need the books taking up the space, not when they mostly used for studying, as another librarian over at The Passive Voice:
In 2009 I worked at a legal research library. Very few students ever got a book off the shelf. It’s all online. I would reshelve, at most, maybe 30 books a day.
Research libraries are NOT browsing libraries for the most part. You have a specific book you want to find in most cases. Usually people would ask me to fetch it without ever entering the stacks.
The stacks were used primarily for studying, the tables and chairs and couches were used extensively.
That librarian went on to add that when a student requested a book, it was usually either on reserve behind the circulation desk or in storage. Most of the rest of the books simply weren’t required, so they were taking up space which could be put to better use.
And frankly, the book-less library is simply the latest stage in a trend that has been building for over ten years now. As information becomes easier to access online, many categories of books have become redundant.
Phone books were the first to go, followed by atlases. Both were replaced by online phone books, map sites, etc. Guidebooks and factbooks were the next in the trash bin, and now some libraries have found that their entire collections can be pushed into the back room so more space can be dedicated to learning.
I expect the trend to continue to grow, but I don’t expect it to spread. Bexar County Public Library notwithstanding, the book-less library is an idea that won’t work in every situation.
Public school libraries, for example, can’t go book-less because they frequently lack the funding to do so. But most college libraries will look like Taubman Health Sciences Library over the next ten years, if not sooner.
I have no Kindle ebook sales to speak of, but according to the description:
The Royalties Estimator allows you to estimate your royalties in a single currency of your choice. Because you have at least one book with pages read from Kindle Unlimited, you can estimate the KENP royalties before the KDP Select Global Fund is announced.
The Royalties Estimator is a data analysis tool. Everything on the estimator page is an estimate and won’t match your actual royalty earnings. For official earnings records, see the Prior Months' Royalties and Payments reports.
A reader just clued me in on the iReader T6, the ereader I wrote about earlier this week. It turns out it was actually released last April, not this one. The new device is actually the iReader A6, an ereader that looks quite a bit likethe Tolino Vision 4 HD, and it launched a couple months ago.
The iReader A6 has a 6″ Carta E-ink screen like the T6, but that is about all it has in common. The A6 is also waterproof, and has a color-shifting frontlight. This ereader also has a built-in speaker and a microphone (for recording voice notes). It supports both playing MP3s and text-to-speech, and it can pair with speakers via Bluetooth or its Type-C port.
Measuring 7.8mm thick, the A6 is a little thicker than its predecessor. It is also a little shorter, and is waterproof up to a depth of 1 meter (it is certified for the IP67 standard, which means it is also dust proof). This ereader has a 1.5Ah battery, and weighs 166 grams.
This ereader sold for 998 yuan (about $144 USD) when it went up for pre-order a couple months ago.
Many authors and publishers use a company such as PublishDrive or Draft2Digital to handle their distribution to smaller ebook retailers. They trade a small cut of their revenue for less hassle in managing their ebook offerings across multiple smaller ebookstores whose sales do not justify a direct relationship.
One would think that it is a good deal all around. Google, however, would disagree.
I’ve just heard about a policy Google started enforcing a couple months backs. It seems that Google now wants all authors and publishers with titles in Google Play Books to have a direct account with Play Books.
The change in policy was first mentioned by PublishDrive a little over a month ago (Dale Roberts covered it at the time) but I first heard about it today in a forwarded email from Draft2Digital (Thanks, Steve!).
D2D informed its users of the change, and assured them that D2D would continue to manage existing titles in Play Books on their behalf. D2D will not, however, be distributing new titles to Play Books. And because the policy effectively requires D2D to manually manage each author’s account, they also cannot offer all of their services for books in Play Books.
What this policy looks like to this blogger is Google squeezing out the middlemen. It’s not clear why Google is enforcing this policy (could it be a result of Google’s rampant piracy problem of a few years ago?) but it is going to make it harder for distributors to operate.
Email:
For the last couple of months, we have been distributing titles to Google Play in a public beta program. As a beta, we anticipated that there would eventually be some changes and updates to the program, to incorporate what we’ve learned, as well as any policy updates from Google..
One such policy update is that Google Play now requires all authors and publishers to have a direct account with Google.
Though this change impacts how D2D distributes to the Google Play platform, we have been informed that Draft2Digital can continue to manage direct accounts on the author’s behalf. However, this new policy does create some challenges.
Google’s requirements do not scale for a service provider with 60,000 clients, which means that distribution to Google Play will require a more time-consuming process on our end. This method of distribution would also prevent us from offering you our full suite of services on the Google Play platform, though you will continue to receive these services for our other sales channels.
Effective immediately, we have temporarily suspended all new title distribution to Google while we investigate and discuss solutions to Google’s requirement.
If you believe that you would be unable to distribute your titles to Google Play without the use of Draft2Digital’s services, we encourage you to contact [email protected], and to explain why you depend on Draft2Digital to make distribution to Google Play convenient and efficient.
Please be polite and cordial in your communications with Google. Policies such as these, even if misguided, are meant to protect everyone’s best interests. But I do recommend that you stress what Google is losing by enacting this requirement, and I would encourage you to request that D2D be made an exception to this policy.
We ask that you please be patient as we work through implementing the best possible solution for you in this very challenging situation. We will continue to keep you informed about progress and changes as they happen.
Xiaomi’s first ereader is a fairly ordinary looking black rectangle that would be hard to pick out of a lineup.
The iReader T6 runs a proprietary version of Linux on a 1GHz Freescale iMX CPU with 1GB RAM, 8GB internal storage, and Wifi.
Its 6″ Carta E-ink screen has a screen resolution of 1448 x 1072 with frontlight and capacitive touchscreen. Measuring a mere 7.4mm thin, the T6 has a 1.5Ah battery and weighs 160 grams.
The iReader T6 supports several common ebook formats, including Epub, Mobi, PDF, and more, and is now selling in China for 928 yuan, or about $135 USD.
Amazon still won’t convert a user’s Epub ebooks to Kindle format, but luckily there are alternatives such as Calibre or the converter Reedsy launched a few weeks ago.
I got an email from Reedsy on Friday which brought the converter to my attention. I didn’t have a chance to play with it until today, however. The converter has a simple interface; you just drag your Epub file over the window, and let go. You’ll then be prompted to enter your email so the resulting Mobi ebook will be sent to you, and that’s it.
I tested the converter just now. The Mobi I made from an Epub file arrived quickly and looks just as good as the the Mobi I got from from the publisher, although Reedsy’s file is well over twice the size.
All in all, it’s always good to have another option.
Writing is in danger of becoming an elitist profession, with many authors being subsidised by their partners or a second job in order to stay afloat, according to new statistics.
The full findings from the annual Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society report into author earnings paint a more nuanced picture than the headline results from last summer, which revealed that median earnings for professional writers had fallen to less than £10,500 a year. While the average professional writer earns £10,000 a year, the mean earnings for a writer’s household were more than £81,000 a year, and median household earnings were at £50,000 per annum. “Most writers supplement their income from other sources, such as a second job or household earnings contributed by a partner”, according to the report, which analysed answers from more than 5,500 professional writers.
…
“There is a danger of writing becoming an elitist profession which excludes new and diverse voices,” said Society of Authors chief executive Nicola Solomon. “This report should act as a wake-up call for the industry.”
The problem with this piece, well, there are two problems. The first is that the piece is predicated on the assumption that the only type of writing that matters is book authoring, and that things like writing for TV, movies, or ad agencies, or reporting the news, aren’t even worth acknowledging. This is actually an elitist assumption, one that the writer of the piece overlooked.
The other problem with this piece is that it is framed with the assumption that there was a time that book authoring wasn’t an elitist pursuit.
As one commenter on the piece put it:
Who the hell thinks writers are wealthy? Someone who’s never read New Grub Street, that’s who, and not read much else. Writing has never been a well paid profession except for the tiny minority and everyone else gets to sneer at those lucky few for writing bestsellers. Writing has always had a large aristocratic contingent.
They are right. It doesn’t matter what period you look at, whether it’s before the printing press was invented or after the typewriter was developed, book authoring has always been a hobby more than a profession.
That was true even after the book publishing industry came into being; it’s not just that only a minority of book authors could make a living at it but also that in any given year the majority of books were written on the author’s time in the hopes of selling the book to a publisher.
And yet no one involved in this piece is aware of the historical context. Instead, as another commenter pointed out, everyone seems to think book authors are owed a living simply because they are book authors:
I don’t really understand this article. Since when did artists in any field think society owed them a living? There are more than ever before. Only a few can manage to make a reasonable living from their work, and the rest of us realize and accept that we need to have back-up in the form of a regular job or supportive partner.
I was browsing MobileRead this morning when I read that earlier this week a Kindle Unlimited user in Australia has had their KU subscription suspended until the end of the month:
Has anybody else been locked out?
I received an email from "M" at Amazon.com.au telling me:
"I have checked the details and I see that you have reached maximum number of books you can borrow per month. You will be able to borrow books in a few days once the borrow books goes below the limit in last 30 days.
To learn more about the terms and conditions please visit the link below :
I can’t find any mention of maximums or monthly limits.
I can still purchase fine, just not download KU.
It’s hardly "unlimited" if there’s a limit! Especially since there’s a limited no of titles to begin with!
I am still trying to figure out what Amazon thinks it’s doing here, but it would appear that Amazon is now imposing limits on the number of ebooks you can borrow in Kindle Unlimited.
I could not find out what those limits are, however, and in fact Amazon didn’t even tell this user they were approaching the limit or had reached it. Instead, Amazon just locked the user out of their KU subscription.
"I’d have to go back and check for an exact number but I’d agree, probably more than enough to flag my account for April but no excuse for not contacting me to check that my account hadn’t been hacked, if they really were worried. Instead, they just lock the account without notice – even though they can phone you in seconds if you request it under Support," the user wrote over on MobileRead. "They pulled the plug without warning or subsequent contact, I had to make numerous Support tickets before "M" finally told me what was going on … and I’m still waiting to be told what the undisclosed limit really is now, 'so I can follow the rules'."
Amazon sent out an email late on Friday, informing us that it was shutting down its script-writing tool Storywriter and :
As we have grown and evolved over the last several years, we are making changes to our website. Amazon Storywriter will no longer be available after June 30, 2019. Please access your dashboard to export and download your projects before June 30, after which time you will no longer be able to access your account. Thank you for being a part of the Storywriter community. For more information, please access our FAQ.
Of all the writing and publishing tools that Amazon has developed, Storywriter was in a field of its own. Launched in late 2015, this online tool (also available as a Chrome extension at launch) enabled writers to easily format a script for movies, TV, or radio.
I can’t say that I ever heard of writers using it, although it’s not impossible.
I seriously wonder whether anyone used Storybuilder, however. This is a companion tool that Amazon released with Storywriter, and then never told anyone about. You could use it to lay out a story on virtual corkboards, and it too is shutting down at the end if June.
This is literally the first time I have ever even heard about Storybuilder, much less written about it.
Did you use it to lay out a story? What did you think?
Cleveland-based Findaway gets most of its attention on this blog for its audiobook distribution (as well as services like Chirp) but in the library market it is better known for Playaway, a pre-loaded audiobook player, and Launchpad, a pre-loaded Android tablet.
Now Findaway is adding another device to its hardware lineup. A couple weeks ago Findaway announced a new read-along format called Wonderbook.
Wonderbook features a hardcover book with a Playaway-inspired pre-loaded audiobook player permanently attached to the inside cover. Designed for circulation in the school and library market, Wonderbook gives beginning readers a new way to experience books.
“We’re incredibly excited to debut Wonderbook and change the way kids learn to read along,” said Brittany Gonzalez, Head of Marketing & Strategy for Playaway. “Studies show that when print and audio are combined, immediate recall in children increases to 100%. Wonderbook delivers a powerful experience that encourages a love of reading at every level.”
At launch, the Wonderbook catalog includes 175 titles from a number of publishers, including Scholastic, Hachette, HarperCollins, Penguin, and Simon & Schuster. Findaway plans to add 500 more titles in by the end of the year and continue to add more titles each season.
Around 25% of Wonderbook’s catalog are new productions exclusive to Findaway, and were developed via Findaway Voices. The recordings feature narration enhanced by read-along elements including page-turn prompts, music, and sound effects.
Prices for the Wonderbooks start at $39.99. According to PW, the hardware has a 10-hour battery life and can play for up to 50 listens before it has to be plugged in to be recharged.
Google Docs is a popular word-processing tool that lets you access your documents and files from any internet-connected device. I for one have found it to be immensely useful as an editing tool; I like to review a Doc on my iPad, and then make changes on my laptop before sending the updated Doc to my collaborators.
Google Docs makes it easy to work with people both near and far, but do you know how to use it to its full capacity?
Go beyond just editing a doc and leaving comments with these 14 Google Doc hacks and add-ons.
Translate a Doc
Google Translate is one of the more useful features in Chrome, but few people know that Google Docs has the same integration.
If you frequently work with documents in another language, you can translate the docs into English or another language by selecting the Translate Document option in the Tools menu.
The translation is handled by GTranslate, so it’s going to be far from perfect, but if you need to translate a multi-page PDF this is still a better option than opening the PDF in Chrome and translating it there.
Insert a Table of Contents
If your doc gets long enough you will need a tablet of contents. Google Docs can make one for you almost automatically. Simply choose where you want it to go and Google Docs will automatically create the TOC based on the headings in the doc.
You can find the table of contents option at the bottom of the Insert menu.
Add words to your Dictionary
Is there a word that you use all the time that isn’t found in the standard dictionaries?
Why not add it to your own. like many word processing apps, Google Docs lets you assemble a custom dictionary. simply right-click on the word and then choose the relevant option from the pop-up menu.
You can also tell Google Docs to automatically fix the words you frequently get wrong. I, for example, misspell "believe" all the time.
Go to next/previous Typo
Google Docs makes it easy for you to quickly correct your errors. There are a couple keyboard shortcuts which let you jump from one typo to the next.
To find the next typo in your doc, press Ctrl + ‘ (apostrophe). And if you want to find typos earlier in the doc, press Ctrl + ;.
Google Docs also has a spellcheck feature that allows you to quickly skim through the spelling errors in a current document. Just select the Spell Check option in the Tools menu to use it.
Export as Epub
Not only can you edit a doc in Google Docs, you can even export it as an Epub ebook. You won’t be able to edit it after you export the file, but that’s okay because you can always export another copy of the doc after you’re done editing it.
You can find the export option under the File menu. Check out the Help Center for more information.
List Keyboard Shortcuts
Keyboard shortcuts are a productivity hack that is guaranteed to boost your typing speed. Almost all word processing apps have them, but who can keep track of them all?
I know I can’t, and that’s why I made sure to memorize the shortcut which brings up a list of all the keyboard shortcuts in Google Docs: Ctrl+/.
Create custom Shortcuts
If you have some special symbol you use all the time, Google Docs has a way for you to enter the symbol without cutting-pasting it and without entering the HTML/ASCII code every time.
The Preferences menu gives you the option to set your own shortcuts. These aren’t shortcuts that let you execute actions or change settings but are instead shortcuts that swap out one piece of text with another.
We all make mistakes sometimes, and Google Docs has us covered. It keeps a record of the changes you make to a doc, and you can use this revision history and even restore an older version of the doc.
To access revision history, open a Doc and then select the "See revision history" option under the File menu. Google has more info in this support doc.
Remove Formatting
I’m sure you know that copying text from a web page or from one app to another can introduce all sorts of funky formatting problems. This can make for an ugly doc, and the problem only gets worse if you combine multiple sources.
Luckily for us, Google Docs has an option to strip the formatting from a piece of text. Simply highlight the text in question and then press Ctrl+I. (FYI: Gmail has a similar feature.)
Type with your Voice
One of the lesser known features in Google Docs is voice typing. You can use this feature to capture ideas, compose a letter, or even write the next great novel – all without touching your keyboard.
You can find voice typing under the Tools menu. Once enabled, a pop-up with a microphone icon will appear. You’ll need to click on it to speak, and once you do you can add punctuation and line breaks, and even correct typos – hands-free.
All of the tricks mentioned so far are core features of Google Docs, but they’re really just the beginning of what you can do with Google Docs.
You can expand the core abilities of Google Docs by install add-ons that add features, tools, and export options. My current favorite add-on is a consistency checker, but that is just one of the possibilities.
Publish to the Web
Google Docs is part of an office suite, but did you know that in a pinch it can create a website? No, really!
There’s an option in the File menu for "Publish to the Web" which lets you make a doc publicly accessible with a URL and everything. It won’t look much like a website, but if all you want is to share the info then this is a viable option for a poor man’s website.
You can even unpublish the doc when it is no longer needed.
Publish to WordPress
But why settle for simply publishing a doc as a pseudo webpage when with a little more work you can have the real thing?
There are several Google Docs add-ons which will let you export a doc as either a post or page on a WordPress site. You’ll need to install the add-on and you may also need to install Jetpack on your WordPress.org site, but once you do you should be able to export a doc as a draft page or post.
I have had the best luck with WordPress for Google Docs, but that add-on doesn’t work for everyone. Luckily there are several other options.
Offline editing
You might think that Google Docs only works online, but you would be wrong. There’s an offline editing mode which lets you access and edit your documents even when you have no internet connection, and then sync the changes when you’re next online.
There’s a catch, though. You have to set this up before you lose internet access.