I bought this tablet expecting it to be junk, and it turns to be from WonderMedia and running on a common chipset from VIA. That’s good, because there’s a support forum over at AndroidTablets.net, and it looks to cover a number of related tablets.

Here’s the spec page, in case you’re interested. Don’t read too much into it; my tablet is better than the specs suggest.

What I really like about this tablet is the firmware. It’s surprisingly complete, and it includes subtle touches like  custom home screen, lock screen, web browser, as well as support for 3G dongles and most of the basic apps you might need. My home screen looks  lot like this (only bigger):

The software is good, but the hardware is another matter. This tablet feels cheap – very cheap. The seam between the shell and the front isn’t well sealed and I could easily get  fingernail under the front. The button to the right of the screen also feels cheap and it doesn’t fit the space quite right. And I have the feeling that the screen is slightly crooked in the frame.

But aside from that, the specs and performance are okay. I haven’t instilled any apps yet, but it was okay at browsing the web. Youtube worked fine. And the camera was only VGA, but the image quality was decent.

All in all, it’s not the worst tablet I’ve seen. If you come cross this tablet on sale for less than $100, go for it.

I should be able to post a real review in a couple weeks.

Specs

• 800MHz WM8650 CPU
• 400MHz GPU
• Android v2.2
• 10″ (1024×600) resistive touchscreen
• VGA webcam (decent quality images)
• 4GB Flash storage
• microSD card slot
• ethernet
• Wifi
• 3 USB ports (2 host, 1 client)
• speakers, mike
• g-sensor

First Impressions of the 10″ WonderMedia wm8650 Android Tablet

The market research firm BlueKai pulled this together from  number of sources. It’s focused on the ad potential of ereaders, but it is still a fascinating read.

The full sized infographic is after the break.

Who Loves eReaders? (infographic)

It’s not live yet, so I haven’t tried it. But I did manage to connect with Red Staple, and they answered a few questions.

The Red Staple tool is entirely web based, so you’re going to have to upload all the components. That is both good and bad. Red Staple will make Epub, but it can also make an Epub with embedded audio and video (this is good). The bad part comes in when you try to upload the video and audio; let’s hope you don’t need to upload it a second time.

BTW, it does use Epub3 for the enhanced ebooks.

There’s no cost to assemble the ebook and edit it, but there is a charge for making the ebook. The charge is $29 a normal ebook, and if you make an ebook that has over 500 pages in size then the price jumps to $59. Enhanced ebooks start at $99, and if they go over 500 pages in size then the price increases up to $129.

Note that this tool only makes Epub; if you want a fixed layout ebook, Android app, or another format you’ll need to contact Red Staple and ask for a quote. The tool also doesn’t make KF8, but that is mainly because the format is so new and not widely supported. But Red Staple does offer that as a separate service.

Alternatives

While Red Staple does have a snazzy interface, it’s not the first online Epub creation tool. I know of at least one other. eBookBurn has been round since late 2010. It offers much the same service as Red Staple, and eBookBurn can also make Kindle ebooks as well as Epub. But it doesn’t yet support audio and video.

Free is also good

As for me, I prefer free tools, and there are several to choose from. You can make an Epub with Open Office (you’ll need to install a plugin). Or you can make one with calibre, though the output will not pass spec. And there is also Feedbooks. This ebookstore has a free online creation tool that works a lot like eBookBurn or Red Staple.

My preferred method is to first make the Epub with calibre and then use Sigil to fix the errors. I don’t like online tools – not when there’s an offline alternative.

Red Staple via The Verge

Red Staple is the Latest to Launch an Ebook Creation Service

Lagardere Publishing saw a 6% drop from last year, with the one bright spot being the US, where Hachette revenue increased by 12%. At the end of December, ebooks were pegged at 10% of revenue in the UK, and 20% in the US.

Yes, US revenues increased overall, but ebook sales only increased at the same rate. What I find interesting is that past reports from Hachette have pegged ebooks at 20% and 22% of US revenues. That’s a plateau, and the US market is still growing.

In fact, we’re seeing some smaller publishers reporting meteoric growth in ebook sales. This raises the question of why Hachette isn’t seeing the same growth as everyone else.

Ideas?

via

past coverage

Ebooks Revenue is Leveling Off for Hachette US

Google has another literature inspired Doodle today, and this one celebrates of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens.

Dickens wrote about a realistic view of the daily life of Victorian England. His works are praised to this day for their wit, satire, and social commentary.

If you’re interested you can find his books on Feedbooks.

via Google

Charles Dickens is Today’s Google Doodle

It’s gone from being a skeletal ad-supported video streaming service to one with content YouTube can’t match and a premium tier that has over 1.5 million subscribers and prospects of future growth. How’s that for fighting back?

The formation of Hulu should have been a wake-up call to the Big Six of publishing. They too should have banded together to form a Hulu for Books.

Instead, they decided to risk their future by betting on a price-fixing trust strategy instigated by Apple, today known as Agency Pricing. This has not saved them from the threat of being put out of business by Amazon and by all of the writers who have discovered they no longer need a publisher to reach readers.

It hasn’t saved them from the inevitable day when Barnes & Noble collapses under the weight of its stores, leaving the Big Six with basically only outlets run by tech companies to sell their eBooks: Amazon, Apple, Google, and Kobo. (Sony, given the way its been bleeding money, will not last.)

Is there still time for the creation of a Hulu for Books?

Is the Amazon threat ever going to go away? No.

Is the Apple threat ever going to go away? No.

Is the Google threat ever going to go away? No.

So there’s still time for a Hulu for Books.

And since no one in the Big Six seems to understand how this can be done, I will lay it all out for them.

Not because I love them and want any of them to survive — but because my proposal is first of all also good for my fellow writers.

1) The Big Six should pledge equal financial resources to form a separate arm’s-length company. For now, let’s just call it Hulu for Books or HFB.

2) HFB is to be a profit-making venture, not a beard to continue the failed policies of its retrograde publishing partners. Let me make this clear: The Big Six can have representatives on an Advisory Board. None of them should ever sit on the Board of Directors.

3) The task of this company — HFB — is to create an industry-standard eBookstore better than anything Amazon, Apple, Google, and Kobo have or can ever offer. It has to be so because this is the entirety of all book publishing that’s at stake.

4) It has to take in the reality of how the Internet works right now, how eBook marketing and selling works right now, and have a vision for how HFB can actually shape the marketplace. It must lead, not be a me-too venture.

5) The overarching structure of the HFB eBookstore is as one bookstore. No favoritism is given to any Big Six partner. HFB has as its goal pleasing customers first, selling eBooks second, and pleasing its partners last.

6) HFB would be open to all publishers, not just the Big Six. Why? Because the entirety of all book publishing is at stake. The emphasis of this company is to preserve the market for books first, not the Big Six. This reflects what Hulu itself does — preserve the market for conventionally-produced TV and movies, not just preserve its financial backers, and to compete against what YouTube offers in shorter form by “self-publishing” uploaders.

7) Unlike all other bookstores, each publisher (which, again, is not limited to the Big Six) can have its own store within it. It will have the same UI and purchasing system as the rest of the store, but this store-within-a-store is a place where each publisher can do its own style of marketing and speak in its own voice to its readers. Rather than seeing its big book of the month ignored by the general store, in this area of its own sub-store it can tout it to its heart’s content. Publisher brands and their brand imprints are thus preserved.

HFB would offer an open API that affiliated stores can tie into. If a small publisher has its own eBookstore on its own hardware and has been content to do it that way, it can continue to do so. But it can now tie into a larger entity. A small transaction and maintenance fee would be the price for using the API. This API is crucial to derail the anti-trust and restraint of trade charges that all tech companies — with their closed systems — are inevitably going to face at some point.

9) This open API would also be marketed to hardware makers. Kobo and other device makers could use it in their eBook readers. All Android tablet makers could use it in their hardware. There would be a small licensing fee for this. Do you think Kobo wouldn’t use it? Kobo ties into public libraries, so Kobo would. And Android tablet makers would jump at the chance to have a books outlet that didn’t require customized software and licensing from different companies just to offer books.

10) HFB would also offer affiliate links for all blogs that would have them, with priority going to sites and blogs that focus on books. Spam sites would be blackballed.

11) HFB, being the tech tail wagging the industry dog, would educate the Big Six and its other publishing partners on where it sees eBooks going and what is needed from all partners to help them stay current in the market. This is distinct from the statistical aspects of the site. This is Vision. HFB should be for eBooks what Apple has been to gadgets.

12) HFB would enable publishers to see how their books are selling directly, without the kind of reporting delays that other eBookstores have. Real-time statistics would be available and marketing departments of publishers could see for themselves the success and failure of their campaigns and strategies. Did you just tweet a special offer? Check in an hour later to see if there’s been any change in sales.

13) HFB would allow self-publishing, bringing back into the fold of the book world all of those who have been lost to the tech companies. There are writers out there who today have banded together to sell as co-ops. HFB would offer them the chance to relieve them of all of the housekeeping burdens such efforts require. They could set up their own store-within-a-store in HFB.

14) Note that I have not discussed concrete fees for anything. It will take imagination, determination, and far more number ability than I have to hazard a guess about what API licenses and transaction fees — for publishers and self-publishers — should be. But I do know there should be an aggressiveness to all this because the entirety of all book publishing is at stake. And that is not hyperbole.

15) HFB is meant to be the leader in eBooks, taking away that perception — if not current reality — from Amazon and to blunt the looming threat that hundreds of millions of iOS devices and Apple’s iBookstore present. As such, it would help develop tools and set standards for eBooks in a way that the slow IDPF cannot and never could accomplish. For example, it would see the wisdom of creating ePub Author and other tools like it. It would create the standards for eBooks, not have them dictated by the whims of tech companies.

16) The entire point of HFB is to:

1) Have books take a stand of their own
2) Preserve the idea of books
3) Shape the future of books
4) Promote books

Until a Hulu for Books is realized, the Big Six will find their futures becoming increasingly precarious. It’s not just Amazon, Apple, Google, and the rest who are threats. It’s every writer would can make a living selling one or two thousand $2.99 ebooks a month — a sum the Big Six consider insignificant until that writer catches fire and sells a hell of a lot more.

A Hulu for Books is a long play. It’s not something that should be seen as immediately generating profits. It’s an investment. But the history of such investments have shown that eventually the graph forms like a hockey stick, eventually shooting up with crazy growth. The market is big enough for everyone and everyone can profit — and stay in business.

Rather than continue the hostility that has developed — and which I have often also instigated — between the Big Six, writers, and readers, it’s past time to band together as lovers of books, as lovers of the written word and its distinct place in human culture, and ensure that the destiny of all book publishing remains in the hands of those who actually care for it and deeply love it. Those are emotions alien to every tech company currently competing with publishers and that continue to fool writers into thinking they’re a friend.

The Hulu For Books That Never Was

• Ebook Pricing: Why 99 Cents Might Be a Mistake for You (Lindsay Buroker)

• Jonathan Franzen is wrong: the digital age is making us smarter (The Guardian)

• Longform + iPad = world’s best general interest mag (BookSprung)

• Memo to publishers: Remind us why you exist again? (GigaOm)

• Putting Your Amazon Kindle Fire to Work (PC World)

• Readdle’s new Remarks app is an incredibly quick PDF markup marvel (The Next Web)

• Scrivener: 3 Reasons You Should Use It For Your Book (The Creative Penn)

• Startup profile – Widescript (FutureBook)

The Morning Coffee – 7 February 2012

That last generated  lot of fury because instead of generating a spec compliant Epub, iBA creates  custom flavor of Epub with any number of non-standard components. This upset  lot of people who work with Epubs, including me, but lately I’ve changed my mind.

I was reading an article in The Register earlier this evening that made me realize that it’s a little too late to complain about proprietary Epub formats; iBooks makes the 6th or 7th custom Epub format on the market now.

The article in The Register was arguing the point that Epub would win out over the Kindle format because of Apple and iBooks Author were going to pull in a user base from a young age. Those users would go on to use Epub, and so on and so forth.

I wouldn’t bother reading the article; it has many factual errors. But I did read it and I was making notes about how I would refute it. Eventually I stopped because I hit on the one point that rendered the article moot.

Epub might defeat the Kindle format, but which Epub format will do that, exactly? There are bunches.

• There’s the base Epub format.
• Kobo has a couple of their own Epub formats (KEpub, FLEpub).
• Apple has supported custom tags in iBooks since the app launched, and later launched a fixed layout format as well as audio and video tags. They also have their own DRM, and that makes even the specs compliant Epub as a new format.
• Adobe has supported their own subset of custom tags ever since their first Epub reading app. (Not many use them, but the tags are still there.)
• And B&N has their own DRM, but let’s set that aside and just consider their fixed layout format.

Depending on how you count, I have just listed between 7 and 9 Epub formats. And those are just the ones I know of; I’m deeply afraid that there may be others hiding somewhere.

What’s more, some of these formats have been round for a very long time. One of Kobo’s formats has been there since the company launched over 2 years ago (it was only used internally). B&N launched their DRM with the original Nook (2009), and they launched their fixed layout format with the NookColor (late 2010). And of course iBooks originally launched in early 2010 with custom tags and its own DRM.

But some of those still meet the Epub spec, you say. Yes, but they don’t work right on other platforms, even when the DRM is theoretically compatible. That renders the compliance issue irrelevant.

And as for iBooks Author making just  the one format, and how that’s an unbearable sin in the eyes of any Epub lover – Yes, but all the other companies I listed above will provide you with tech specs to make their custom formats, while Apple is happy to give you  tool to make their custom format. If one is worse, it is only by a matter of degree.

And I’ll bet dollars to donuts that B&N and Kobo are upset right now not because iBA makes a custom format but because they didn’t think to do it first. iBA gives Apple a decisive advantage over Kobo and B&N in ebook creation, so I think the others will follow suit as soon as they can.

At this point, really, there is only one key difference that sets the new iBooks format apart from all the other custom Epub formats. Apple changed the file suffix. That’s it.

So if you’re upset that Apple split up the Epub market, I’m sorry but that ship has sailed.

It’s a Little Too Late to Complain About Apple’s Proprietary Ebook Format

That's not an index finger that Amazon is showing you.

Shortly after the time that the Kindle Fire launched, I discovered that Amazon had quietly blocked all their competitor’s reading apps from being seen in the Appstore on the Kindle Fire. That prohibition continues to this day (with one exception – Wattpad).

Well, today I got a hint that whatever Amazon may have hoped to achieve with the block, what they’re really doing is adding to the frustration of KF owners.

An email went around today from a PR firm working with Bluefire, the reading app developer. The email pointed us to  recent post on the Bluefire blog, and that post provided instructions on how to get around Amazon’s block in a few simple steps.

Now, that email went around because Bluefire was hoping we would write about it. (By “we” I am referring to probably everyone who writes about ebooks; at a minimum TeleRead, eBookNewser, and I got it.) But don’t you wonder why the email was sent out? I do, because that’s the more interesting story.

I think Bluefire posted the instructions (just basic steps on how to install apps) because they are probably seeing an ongoing stream of frustrated readers. This tells me that Amazon’s block isn’t working quite the way that Amazon expected it to.

The people who make it as far as Bluefire’s website are probably people that you don’t want to piss off. They’re tech-savvy enough that they figured out that an app is missing. And they cared enough about this app to take the time to find Bluefire and ask what happened. When the readers get to Bluefire they’re told that Amazon is blocking the app, and that there is nothing Bluefire can do about it (there isn’t).

The readers are already puzzled, but when they discover the cause of their frustration, the common responses will range from annoyed to pissed. That is going to come back and bite Amazon in the arse one of these days. Even if there’s no immediate complaining about Amazon’s prohibition, it’s still creating a subtext in the minds of Kindle Fire owners.

Amazon, a company who supposedly likes customers, will secretly screw with you if it suits their purposes.

Just wait until the next time that Amazon gets some bad PR. This thought, even if it has been forgotten, will be influencing many of the people who were frustrated by the prohibition. They might never talk about it explicitly, but this issue is still going to affect how they talk about Amazon.

Next time you see  bunch of complaining about something Amazon did, this prohibition will have exacerbated the situation.

Amazon Still Blocks Reading Apps on the Kindle Fire & Continues to Frustrate Customers

Ben Bova is an SF author that all should recognize. He’s had a career spanning decades, and in that time he’s made any number startling predictions, some of which have since come true. This prediction came from Cyberbooks, a novel that was originally published in 1989.

The book focused on the invention of the first ereader, the Cyberbook. It was more of a satirical take on the publishing industry than a prediction of the near future, but that just renders the accuracy all that much more amazing. Here’s the money quote:

“Cyberbooks will bring down the cost of publishing to the point where thousands of writers who can’t get their works published now will have a viable marketplace for their books”.

Doesn’t that sound like the current state of self-publishing?

While it’s not clear that Mr. Bova predicted that so many would bypass the traditional gatekeepers, there is still a ring of truth to this. Would you believe it was just tossed off in a brief phone conversation near the end of the book? And there’s even more predictions in the book which have come true, including online sales and the amount of effort publishers put into resisting change.

Laugh Lines

Just to put this into perspective, Cyberbooks was published the year before the first Sony Data Discman hit the market.  That was the first device to even come close to the ereader described in the novel, but it still fell short.

If anything, Mr. Bova was probably inspired by the DynaBook, a theoretical tablet/ereader developed by Alan Kay in the late 1960s. The Dynabook, which bears  striking resemblance to the Kindle DX, was supposed to have very long battery life and was conceived as  way for children to gain access to digital media. (Of course, that last detail is amazing all on its own; digital media itself didn’t exist at the time.)

You can look at the Dynabook and see that it was the godfather of all ereaders, but the one device that comes closest to the original ideal would probably be the XO laptop from One Laptop per Child. It’s bigger and heavier than the concept, but it is does follow the spirit of the idea.

Ben Bova Foresaw the Self-Pub Movement