Barnes & Noble Launches Publishing Platform PubIt To Rival Amazon’s DTP

TechCrunch

Barnes & Noble this morning launched PubIt! (oh please, not another exclamation mark as part of a brand name), a platform that offers independent publishers and authors a way to digitally distribute their works through BN.com and the Barnes & Noble eBookstore.

Amazon, for your information, has a similar platform dubbed DTP (Digital Text Platform).

With the release of PubIt!, the bookseller says it is already adding tens of thousands of titles from thousands of independent publishers and self-publishing writers who pre-registered for the new service since it was announced in May 2010. Newly submitted PubIt! content will be available for sale within 24 to 72 hours after upload, B&N adds.

PubIt! uses an all-online platform for publishers to set up their accounts, upload their eBooks, set the list price and track their sales and payments. Publishers can price their titles between $0.99 and $199.99 and receive a royalty based on the given price.

For PubIt! eBooks priced at or between $2.99 and $9.99, publishers receive 65 percent of the list price for sold content. For those priced at $2.98 or less, or $10.00 or more, publishers receive 40 percent of the list price.

Amazon with its DTP program offers a 70 percent royalty option, but this is net of delivery costs (which are calculated based on file size). Barnes & Noble points out that it is not charging any “hidden terms or fees”, clearly alluding to its rival’s pricing model.

Publishers with U.S. rights to their content can upload ePub files or Microsoft Word, TXT, HTML or RTF files, which the PubIt! platform will convert to ePub. Publishers can also see how the content will look on one of Barnes & Noble’s eReading devices using the NOOK emulator.

Titles can be added to all of the company’s NOOK products and software, including NOOK eBook Readers, third-party eBook Readers powered by the Barnes & Noble eBookstore, and NOOK software-enabled iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, Android smartphones, as well as Windows-based PCs, laptops or netbooks.

More information is available in the FAQ section.


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Currently Reading: The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

The Woman in White is widely regarded as the first in the genre of 'sensation novels'. It follows the story of two sisters living in Victorian England with their selfish, uninterested uncle as their guardian. Marian Halcombe is the elder of the two sisters, and a remarkably ugly woman, but with courage, strength and resourcefulness in abundance. The younger, her beautiful half-sister Laura Fairlie, is engaged to a rich man by the name of Sir Percival Glyde.
via manybooks.net

I continue to be amazed at the great stories made available in the public domain. The ManyBooks library is also a great browsing experience with descriptions and reviews to help you make your choice.

iPad Apps For Writers - For Writers, Librarians, Editors and Bibliophiles

I've divided up my list of iPad apps for writers into sections for: (1) Writing apps that focus on longer notes and documents, (2) Brainstorming & outlining apps, and (3) Other useful tools for writers.

These days, there are SO many iPad apps in the iTunes store just for taking quick notes that I can't possibly review them all. See the bottom of this page for a list of other people's reviews and lists of iPad apps for writers.

via inkygirl.com

Calibre 0.7.21 released | TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

October 1st, 2010

Calibre 0.7.21 released

By Paul Biba

calibre.pngNew Features

* Automatic backup of the calibre metadata database
* Virtual columns
* calibre templates now much more powerful
* Metadata plugboards: Allow you to perform sophisticated transformations on the metadata of a book when exporting it from the calibre library.
* User defined columns are now fully integrated into calibre
* Driver for the jetBook Mini
* Add tweaks to control which custom columns the content server displays.
* Bulk downloading of metadata/covers now shows progress and can be canceled
* New plugin to download covers from douban.com. It is disabled by default and must be enabled via Preferences->Advanced->Plugins->Cover download plugins
* Add option to change titles to title case in the Bulk metadata edit dialog
* Add option to bulk metadata edit dialog to force series renumbering to start with a specified value
Bug Fixes

* Fix various bugs that could lead to stale files being left in the calbre library when editing title/author metadata on windows
* Fix various regression in the preprocess and de-hyphenation code that broke conversion of some files, especially PDF ones.
* Alex driver: Fix books not being placed in sub directories. Send covers. And allow sending of FB2
* MOBI Output: Fix bug that could caused left margins in the MOBI file to have twice the size of the left margins in the input document, when viewed on the pathetic Kindle MOBI renderer
* MOBI Input: Interpret blockquotes as having a left margin of 2em not 1em to reflect recent Amazon practice
* MOBI Output: Remove transparencies from images. Pathetic Kindle MOBI renderer strikes again
* Revert removal of inline toc from news downloaded in MOBI format as this makes it unusable with the pathetic Kindle For PC application
* Content server: Remove special characters from filenames in download links to accomodate broken browsers like the one in the Kindle
* Conversion pipeline: When rescaling images, dont replace gif image data with jpeg data
* EPUB Input: Ignore OPF files in the EPUB whose names start with a period
* RTF Output: Handle a larger set of broken images in the input document
* epub-fix: Handle dates before 1900
* Welcome wizard: Prevent the user from choosing a non empty folder as her calibre library
* Automatically enable the Douban metadata download plugins if the user choose chinese as the interface language in the welcome wizard
* Linux DBUS notifier: Fix causing freezes on some DBUS implementations
* Workaround for windows limitation when reading from network sockets. Should fix issues with large files in calibre libraries on network shares.

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This entry was posted on Friday, October 1st, 2010 at 8:15 pm and is filed under Calibre, Paul Biba. Tags: , , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Also, please note that if you're commenting for the first time, your remarks will be held for moderation. If you still have problems, email TeleRead Editor Paul Biba. Pinging is currently not allowed.

via teleread.com

More ebook goodness thanks to Calibre!

AirStash™: wireless flash drive + pocket media server + SD adapter for iPhone, iPod touch & iPad

AirStash stores your movies, music, photos, and documents and wirelessly shares them with your phone, media player, netbook, tablet, computer, and more. Use AirStash like a USB flash drive to drag & drop the files you want to your SD card while charging the built-in lithium polymer battery, then unplug & play on all of your browser-enabled WiFi devices*.

If you know how to use a USB drive and a web browser, you know how to use AirStash. Once you own AirStash, every other USB flash drive will seem less evolved.

via airstash.com

Dear Santa . . .