Over at the Marginal Revolution blog, Tyler Coven wonders if the Times couldn’t “rent out somebody else’s sports section and stick it in the paper with a NYT label on it and maybe an extra article about the Knicks?" (Via Jim Romenesko.)

The winner is Redeeming Stanley, by Bodie Parkhurst. I enjoyed Jennifer’s description of the book:

I asked for original….I got original. Redeeming Stanley is like no other book I’ve ever read, and that’s saying a lot. Hilarious at every turn, Redeeming Stanley is a fast, fun page-turner of a novel.

I’m loath to summarize it because I don’t want to give anything away, but if you’ve ever woken up and realized you were sleeping with someone way below you in the cosmic gene pool, this book is for you. If you’ve ever sought to redeem someone who is unredeemable , this book is for you. If you’ve ever wondered where the old gods hang out now, this book is for you. And if you’ve ever thirsted for revenge – good, old fashioned, hell-raising revenge, this book is for you.

As a matter of fact I was so intrigued that I purchased a copy ($5.00) on my Kindle.

From James’ blog:

I’m pleased to announce that Artists’ eBooks, a project first mooted in this post a couple of months ago, is now live at www.artistsebooks.org.

eBooks, as we’ve been saying for some time, have massive potential to revolutionise not only how we read, but what we read. The incorporation of audio and video, the possibilities for curation, quotation, linking and sharing, the vast scope of low-to-no-cost distribution and the low barriers to entry should excite us all.

In particular, I’m fascinated to see how artists and writers respond to these new opportunites, platforms and technologies. It was in conversation with the writer Tony White that the idea for Artists’ eBooks first surfaced, and I’m very pleased and grateful that Tony has allowed three new short stories to form the opening line-up at Artists’ eBooks.

These stories, part of Tony’s ongoing “Balkanizing Bloomsbury” series, were written using a process which included cutting-up, remixing and renarrativising fragments from a number of sources including travel writing, Hague tribunal transcripts and mass media texts, to create completely new works of fiction which explore ideas of European identity. Each comes complete with notes on the text and links to the sources – allowing readers to explore beyond the boundaries of the traditional text, in ways unique to the eBook format.

This is but one example of the many conceivable routes the project could go down. We have more titles coming in the near future, and we’re very interested in hearing from artists and writers who would like advice, assistance, and collaborators to help them explore this territory. But for now, please visit the site, download the books – and send us your feedback.

It’s a pity they picked Microsoft as a partner. Windows Mobile is loosing market share rapidly and Android, Apple and Nokia would give them a far larger market.

Thanks to Eugene Woodbury for the links.

As part of a restructuring announced yesterday, Adobe has made the decision to expand its investment in digital publishing, creating a new organization focused on delivering products to increase digital revenue opportunities for book, newspaper and magazine publishers. This organization will combine the efforts of Adobe’s eBook business responsible for the Adobe Reader Mobile SDK, Adobe Content Server, Adobe Digital Editions, and PDF and EPUB authoring support in Adobe InDesign with Adobe’s digital newspaper and magazine efforts responsible for, among other products, the collaboration with the New York Times to create the AIR-based Times Reader 2.0.

The decision to increase investment in this area underscores the importance that Adobe has always given to digital publishing as well as the bright future it sees in helping publishers to deliver compelling digital publications that support a variety of business models: subscription, advertising, retail and other emerging models. We are particularly excited about what we have in store for 2010. We plan to further our reach to emerging mobile reading platforms to allow readers to read anywhere, on any device. With Adobe’s acquisition of Omniture, we will help publishers measure and understand how their readership interacts with and uses their content. But, most of all, we will continue to deliver products that make digital books, newspapers and magazines a terrific experience for readers.
We look forward to working with our existing customers and business partners and welcome any new inquiries as we continue our progress in digital publishing.

Robot Comics is also experimenting with comic releases specifically designed for higher resolution touch screens. Currently they publish mobile comics for the iPhone and iPod Touch, Android mobile phones, Nintendo DSi and the Kindle.

Additionally, audio books will be available later this year on the 360 platform.

Thanks to E-Ink-Info for the link.

Sure, he’ll lose market share, but he’ll make it up by catering to a clientele made up entirely of money-spending, hard-partying young people, plus a single undercover detective who infiltrates the shocking world of underground websites to track down a killer by having conversations in front of pole dancers. I assume.

I would say something about how silly Murdoch’s decision is, but after reading Sjoberg’s piece, I have literally nothing to add.

The Newsvine article says that Amazon is aware of these problems and a spokesman said that Amazon is working on it.

But long term, will price differences with Amazon hurt B&N?

Some readers are up in arms over B&N’s e-books not being inexpensive enough for them, and there’s talk of buying Kindles instead.

Among various projects, Bill and his team have been involved with Adobe Reader Mobile SDK, Adobe Content Server, Adobe Digital Editions and Adobe InDesign. Bill sits on the board of the International Digital Publishing Forum, the e-book industry’s main trade group, and has played a major role in the ePub standards movement.

To put it mildly, Bill and I haven’t always seen eye to eye, but the “best of luck” is far from mere politeness. One of TeleRead’s main missions, as I see it, is to encourage open standards—so that people can own e-books for real, without worrying about new formats and DRM. Not all our contributors are as fervent about it as I am. But that’s my priority, at least, in addition to the fight for a well-stocked national digital library system. How has Bill figured in this? By corporate standards, he has been a positive phenomenon despite our differences.

When Jon Noring and I set up OpenReader, Bill was smart enough to realize that the IDPF needed to get more serious about open standards before we or others preempted the group. The result? ePub. Dozens of e-book devices use ePub or will use it—for example, the Sony Readers—and major publishers are standardizing on it. You can thank Bill more than a little for that. Similarly, it was Bill who had the courage to call for social DRM, the use of which would make it far, far easier to own e-books for real than the usual DRM would.

About Bill’s future hopes, he looks “forward to the opportunity to push for open standards and interoperability from a completely neutral perspective. I can be reached at whmccoy ‘at’ gmail.com.” Great priorities, Bill. Again, good luck!

Meanwhile I’ll be interested in knowing who ends up as Bill’s replacement on the IDPF board, and how that person feels about issues such as open standards and DRM. I suspect a special election will come up soon.

Bill writing on his continued involvement in the industry—and the need for vigilance: “…there is no doubt that I’ll continue to be involved in the future of digital books, especially where that future intersects with web standards and open source. I believe that Adobe will continue to play a critical role as an enabler of interoperable solutions, but I also believe that the community needs to stay vigilant to ensure that for-profit corporations don’t just talk the talk about being open, but also walk the walk. I’ve certainly tried my level best to do this from the inside, but look forward to the opportunity to push for open standards and interoperability from a completely neutral perspective.

Detail: Although Adobe is laying off people, Bill writes: “While my transition comes as Adobe is restructuring, it’s really more about Adobe creating a new, expanded organization focused on digital publishing media monetization. My team is the nucleus of this group, and the additional wood that Adobe is putting behind this arrow should be great news for our customers and business partners. We’ve got a lot of exciting stuff on our roadmap, and it’s been an exceptional honor to have worked with such an incredible group of people. But, it was a logical time for me to move on.”

This is the replacement for Nokia’s various internet tablets. It uses the new Maemo 5 operating system that Nokia may use to replace Symbian in its high end devices. Along with hardware accelerated graphics the machine has a 1 GHz processor, 32GB of internal storage, 1GB of internal memory and up to 16GB of external storage with a micro SD card.

This is a device that most techies are watching closely. It is more of a pocket computer with a phone included. Currently the Maemo software site doesn’t have any ebook reading software, but I’m sure it will only be a matter of time. FBReader, where are you?