Sep 23 2008
BookPub News & Rumors, v.6: Google’s answer to “Search Inside”, Brisingr breaks records, and a new digital reader is coming
Today is definitely a good industry day with companies making leaps and bounds in new developments. What effect will they have on the consumer and our reading habits? Guess you’ll have to stay tuned to find out… Here are the news and rumors in the book publishing industry this week.
In response to Amazon’s popular “Search Inside” feature, which allows browsers to read a sample of pages (often the front matter and first chapter) of a book, Google has unleashed a new feature to its Book Search program, a widget-like tool called Google Previews. Looks like a pretty cool tool if you ask me, although the ability to search inside a book digitally is nothing new. But check out the fun widget anyway–I’ve used it here with Sue Monk Kidd’s book, The Secret Life of Bees, because I’m told there’s a movie coming out based on the book:
Wow, I just tried it and it blew my mind. I love widgets!
Brisingr, Christopher Paolini’s new children’s book that had a whopping 2.5 million copy print run, did quite well on its first day, selling 550,000 copies. To celebrate, I was going to post a preview of the book, but it’s not available. Actually, there are a lot of books that aren’t available for preview. I’ll keep an eye on that. But anyway, way to go Random House.
And a new digital reader is emerging in the world of Kindles and Readers. Publisher’s Weekly announces:
iRex Technologies, the Dutch firm that developed the iLiad wireless digital reading device, announced the introduction of the Digital Reader Series, a new line of three professional level digital reading devices with bigger screens, touch screen functionality, super-thin design and, for the top model, enhanced Wi-Fi capabilities. Earlier this year iRex introduced the iLiad Book Edition, a lower-priced and simplified version of its standard iLiad Reader that does not offer wireless connectivity.
Sounds pretty fancy, right? Well unfortunately, so is the price tag. The devices range from $650 to $800 and considering that not all of them have Wi-Fi, they seem kind of pointless compared to the Kindle… but for those professionals with money to throw around, they may turn out to be must-haves.
