Yesterday Google announced the all new Google eBookstore. Google boasts over 3 million titles in its store, many of which are free. Major publishers as well as indies have signed on. Supported eBook formats include EPUB and PDF, which, as you might guess, leaves Amazon partially out as the Kindle does not support the EPUB format (the Kindle does, however, support PDF). Books purchased or downloaded from the eBookstore can be read on Android, iPhone, and iPad devices, as well as over the web.

Google's eBookstore is a direct attack on the dominance of both Amazon's Kindle store and Apple's iBooks initiative,  launched earlier this year alo... [More]

The news about how Amazon intends to remove free eBook titles from the Kindle Bestseller List is a couple of days old now, but I still wanted to comment on a few points.

The article states that currently "the top ten bestselling titles on Amazon’s Kindle bestseller list are free downloads". I took a quick look and found that, actually, the first nine out of ten are free. The tenth is not. Not a big deal, and not one of the points I wanted to make. But here's the list for nostalgia purposes if nothing else:

What's interesting about this list is that none of the titles are self-published. In other words, publ... [More]

Not everyone has a handheld device a la an iPhone or Blackberry. Nor does everyone have an eReader (Kindle, nook, etc.). As of this moment, I don't own either. As of December 25, 2009, I own a Kindle 2. Fortunately for those who aren't willing to pay for one of those options there remain other ways to read eBooks: on your PC or Mac.

Now a desktop or laptop is not the best way to read eBooks. LCD technology by its very nature causes eye fatigue of varying degrees, and few people enjoy curling up in bed with their laptop or tablet. Sitting at my desk, with my laptop open, I rarely do more than read short stories or quickly scan through so... [More]

I'm anticipating receiving hoping to receive an eReader for Christmas this year. Without getting into which eReaders support which eBook formats, I wanted to take a look at what eBookstores are out there and what eBook formats they sell.

Granted, if you own a Kindle you're probably going to get your content from Amazon since they're the most restrictive on format types (for a long time Kindle only supported AZW format, though now it also supports PDF natively, a step in the right direction). But even still it seems as if open standards like EPUB are making their mark while competing eReaders are raising the bar, so I do wond... [More]