I’ve shared a lot of my own posts with you in the past few days, but I’m not the only one in the Kindlesphere with important things to say. Here are a few links to other posts, articles, and reports by my colleagues that are well worth reading:
- Mike Serbinis, CEO of global ebook retailer Kobo (formerly Shortcovers) shares some predictions about changes we could see in the ebook work this year and beyond, and they include the $99 ereader, the $4.99 bestseller, 15 million ebook readers sold in 2010, and, “by 2015, at least 50% of eBook sales will come from entrants that don’t even sell hardcopy books today.”
- O’Reilly Publishing’s annual Tools of Change Conference just ended, with white hot focus on issues of importance to publishers, authors, and readers of ebooks and print books alike, and TeleRead editor Paul Biba did a magnificent job of reporting on the news and the discourse generated at the conference. His tweets here will lead you to the key stories.
- IndieAuthor April L. Hamilton has posted an interesting interview over at Publetariat with Leigh Cunningham, founder of the fledgling Association of Independent Authors. I’m a member myself, and it is an organization that I believe could become very important in the next few years. If you are a current or prospective independent author, I encourage you to join, and I’m happy to share the news that first-year membership fees are being waived through the end of February for new members who use the promotional code “COMP” while registering.
- As we’ve reported before, the number of free books in the Kindle Store is about to expand by more than 300 percent with the addition of some 65,000 books that have been digitized by the British Library, including thousands of 19th-century guilty pleasures that were known then as “penny dreadfuls.” We’ll let you know when the books are available for free download to your Kindle, and meanwhile, here’s the news release issued yesterday by the British Library.
- Len Edgerly just posted a terrific 25-minute interview with author and change guru Seth Godin at Len’s The Reading Edge podcast.
- At TheConsumerist, Chris Walters has an incisive analysis, entitled “Publisher: ‘If You Can Afford An Ebook Device, You Can Pay More For Ebooks,’ on some of the dreck issuing forth from self-appointed spokespeople for traditional publishers, like Michael Cader of Publisher’s Marketplace.
Enjoy. I’ll recharge my batteries, read some fiction, and be back tomorrow with a fresh post on what’s really going on as well as some Kindle tips and links to Kindle bargains.