Levi Asher, the writer behind the long-running Literary Kicks site, has decided to move into the world of Kindle ebook publishing.  He’s starting the series off with a philosophical essay on the Objectivism of Ayn Rand.  Why Ayn Rand is Wrong (and Why It Matters) expands upon several posts Asher has made recently in his [...]

Creating some good healthy competition for the likes of Amazon and iBookstore, Google has opened its online ebook store.  Ebooks are available for Android, iPhone, iPad, iPod and Web reading.  You can keep your ebooks in your Google library for access from different devices and readers, always maintaining sync with where you left off.  Downloads [...]

Open Letters Monthly has an article called In Defense of the Memory Theater, by Nathan Schneider in which he argues that books on shelves perform the function of reflecting memories back at us.  They are a constant reminder of the various events, stages, and emotional states of our lives.  We look at our shelves and [...]

I don’t understand much about the book business.  But I do know what makes a person want to go and be somewhere.  I read a good blog post at The Devil’s Accountant about the troubles small bookstores have with the existing book business and the emerging business of ebook publishing.  Small bookstores have to purchase [...]

After two years of reading reviews, watching products come out and compete, listening to people gripe about DRM and ebook pricing, I jumped directly into the fray and opted for the Kindle from Amazon. I am completely and utterly smitten with the thing.  It feels like a magic book.  No – more like a printing [...]

There’s been a huge battle of the ebooks going on between Amazon.com and publisher Macmillan.  Last week, Macmillan, in response to rotten Apple’s announcement of $14 and $15 ebooks on its new iPad, insisted that Amazon give Macmillan the right to choose its own higher ebook pricing for the Kindle ereader device.  Amazon got peevish [...]

Last week, Amazon.com unwittingly dealt an enormous body blow to the concept of Digital Rights Management (DRM) by remotely deleting legally purchased copies of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four from all Kindle ebook devices.  The excellent TeleRead site devoted to all things e-book and e-reader has a very well-considered post about the dangers of DRM and [...]

We have totally had enough of Amazon.com at Candlelight Stories and have completely removed them from advertising space on this site and permanently severed our ‘associate’ relationship with the company.  The reason is simple.  Over the weekend, Amazon went into customers’ Kindle ebook devices and deleted purchased copies of George Orwell’s classic novels, Nineteen Eighty-Four [...]

Tim O’Reilly has posted quotes from an interview with Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. “We’ve co-evolved with our tools for thousands of years,” he says, explaining how ease of Kindle buying changes behavior. “Reading is an important enough activity that it deserves a purpose-built device….It’s a myth that multi-purpose devices are always better…. I like my phone… [...]

Here’s a reprint of a fascinating and well thought out CC-licensed article by Ransom Stephens on the openDemocracy Network about the future of books and publishers.  The main thrust of the article is that books will survive mainly in hardback versions, electronic on-demand publishers will take over the bulk of book publishing, this takeover will [...]