Good e-Reader Radio

Over the course of 2015 there has been a number of notable new e-readers that have hit the market. Barnes and Noble released their first new model in almost three years with the Nook Glowlight Plus, while Kobo released two different units. All eyes are on Amazon right now for their Kindle Voyage 2, Kindle Paperwhite 4 and entry level Kindle Basic, which should be announced in the next few weeks. With so many models to choose from, what features is the average customer looking for? We seek to address this question with new research report, from Good e-Reader.

Two weeks ago we asked the question What do you look for in an e-reader. 1724 people took part in the survey and they weighed in on everything from the size of the screen, to brand name recognition.

The number one feature that is most important to people looking to buy a new e-reader is resolution. In the last two years with the advent of e-Ink Carta e-readers have dramatically increased in clarity and 300 PPI is the norm. This results in crisper text and being able to accurately read a wider variety of digital content, such as manga, newspapers and PDF files. 314 people, which amounted to 18%, said this was most important.

252 people or 14.62% of the vote said that an e-reader that supported multiple e-book formats was most important to them. This is not surprising because there are a number of formats out there, each with their own virtues. Amazon has their own proprietary e-book format, which makes their entire line of e-readers not very viable if you want to borrow e-book from the library or shop around online for deals. Most other devices on the market support EPUB, which is compatible with most e-readers.

242 people, which represented 14% of the overall vote said that screen size was one of the most important feature they looked for in a new e-reader. Almost all of the e-readers currently available in the North American market are six inches in size, which is fairly pocket friendly and cheap to manufacture. Meanwhile, in Europe there are a number of companies making larger screen e-readers, such as the Icarus XL and Onyx Boox i86, but they suffer from viability issues and brand awareness.

Other notable features that people look for, is PDF compatibility and a good rendering engine (12.65%) and an SD Card, to enhance internal storage (11.48%). The average user also thinks running Android is important, so they can install their own e-reading apps and not be locked into any one specific ecosystem (7.37%)

What surprised me about this data is that some of the features that I thought were important to the current generation of e-readers did not resonate well with our audience. Only 5.74% said audio was important, while 2.67% said Bluetooth was critical for their buying decisions. Finally, 4.81% mentioned that brand name recognition was most important, a Kindle for Kindles sake.

This is great data, and should be seriously considered by any company looking to enter the e-reader space or are in the process of designing one.

Listen to the audio version of this report, with expanded commentary.

Michael Kozlowski( Editor in Chief )Michael Kozlowski has been writing about audiobooks and e-readers for the past twelve years. His articles have been picked up by major and local news sources and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Adult coloring books is the hottest new segment in publishing and everyone is getting involved. Disney has released a new 3D coloring book based on popular characters, to mainstream celebrities such as Kim Kardashian and George R.R. Martin who have jumped into the fray.

The current coloring-book craze was ignited in 2013, when Scottish illustrator Johanna Basford published “Secret Garden.” The seemingly obscure offering had an initial printing of 16,000, but has since exploded into a runaway international bestseller, selling nearly 6 million copies — almost 4 million in the past five months alone, according to Debra Matsumoto, marketing manager at Laurence King publishers.

This phenomenon has primarily been fueled online with  colorists posting their elaborate creations on Facebook and Pinterest. Here professional and newbies alike debate such issues such as Prismacolor versus gel pens, or how to make that tricky owl in the corner pop.  The coloring craze has even spawned all sorts of offline gatherings — coloring clubs, meet-ups, even coloring parties at bars.

There is growing medical evidence that not only are adult coloring books stress revilers but contribute to your overall health. It has been well documented that art therapy is helpful among people dealing with a variety of conditions, such as depression, dementia, anxiety, and PTSD.  One 2006 study, found that mindfulness art therapy for women with cancer helped to significantly decrease symptoms of physical and emotional distress during treatment. Another study from the same year concluded that after only one hour of art therapy, adult cancer patients of all ages “overwhelmingly expressed comfort” and a desire to continue with the therapy.

The adult coloring book craze is fairly limited to print and this has resulted in a number of booksellers posting strong revenue.

WH Smith has just reported an 8% in profit in the 12 months to the end of August 2015, compared to the year before, with "coloring therapy" books helping to deliver a strong second half for the high street sector of the business. Stephen Clarke said "In the High Street business, our profit focused strategy continues to deliver sustainable growth. In our core categories of stationery and books we had a stronger second half helped by the new phenomenon of 'color therapy' for adults.

"We've always loved adult coloring books, featuring them from late 2012 when the 'Colour Me Good' Ryan Gosling and Benedict Cumberbatch titles were selling like hot cakes. But the popularity of the new batch of coloring books has even taken us by surprise -- a nice surprise -- sales are up 1786% year on year. It doesn't seem to be slowing down either. I suppose once you've colored in one book, you need to buy another," Verity Batchelded, Head of Marketing for Book Depository, told The Huffington Post Australia.

Bookstores in Brazil are reporting strong revenue too, in April, two adult coloring books were the bestselling books in the whole country with 232,000 copies sold at the nation’s top 12 bookstores. By comparison, the 18 next bestselling books combined sold just 8,000 more copies during the same time period, according to the website Publishing Perspectives, which tracks book sales. By May, nine of the top 20 bestsellers were coloring books including the top eight books in the nonfiction category. Between April 20th and May 17th, coloring books accounted for over 17% of all book sales, and almost 15% of industry revenue.

Coloring books has been one of the critical segments in publishing over the course of 2015. This is a niche that traditionally sells better in print form, rather than interactive e-books or dedicated apps. Stay tuned to our blog next week, when I will discuss the best methodologies to self-publish an adult coloring books and how to get it into bookstores.

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Adult coloring books is the hottest new segment in publishing and everyone is getting involved. Disney has released a new 3D coloring book based on popular characters, to mainstream celebrities such as Kim Kardashian and George R.R. Martin who have jumped into the fray.

The current coloring-book craze was ignited in 2013, when Scottish illustrator Johanna Basford published “Secret Garden.” The seemingly obscure offering had an initial printing of 16,000, but has since exploded into a runaway international bestseller, selling nearly 6 million copies — almost 4 million in the past five months alone, according to Debra Matsumoto, marketing manager at Laurence King publishers.

This phenomenon has primarily been fueled online with  colorists posting their elaborate creations on Facebook and Pinterest. Here professional and newbies alike debate such issues such as Prismacolor versus gel pens, or how to make that tricky owl in the corner pop.  The coloring craze has even spawned all sorts of offline gatherings — coloring clubs, meet-ups, even coloring parties at bars.

There is growing medical evidence that not only are adult coloring books stress revilers but contribute to your overall health. It has been well documented that art therapy is helpful among people dealing with a variety of conditions, such as depression, dementia, anxiety, and PTSD.  One 2006 study, found that mindfulness art therapy for women with cancer helped to significantly decrease symptoms of physical and emotional distress during treatment. Another study from the same year concluded that after only one hour of art therapy, adult cancer patients of all ages “overwhelmingly expressed comfort” and a desire to continue with the therapy.

The adult coloring book craze is fairly limited to print and this has resulted in a number of booksellers posting strong revenue.

WH Smith has just reported an 8% in profit in the 12 months to the end of August 2015, compared to the year before, with “coloring therapy” books helping to deliver a strong second half for the high street sector of the business. Stephen Clarke said “In the High Street business, our profit focused strategy continues to deliver sustainable growth. In our core categories of stationery and books we had a stronger second half helped by the new phenomenon of ‘color therapy’ for adults.

Welcome back to the Good e-Reader Radio Show! Today you will be taken on a magical journey into the realms of digital magazines, e-books and e-reader news! Today on the show Michael gives you his impression of Texture, formerly Next Issue and Magzter. Additionally Kobo has a new loyalty program called Super Points and has just unveiled its first contest. A great show as always, so check it out.

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Welcome back to the Good e-Reader Radio Show! Today you will be taken on a magical journey into the realms of digital magazines, e-books and e-reader news! Today on the show Michael gives you his impression of Texture, formerly Next Issue and Magzter. Additionally Kobo has a new loyalty program called Super Points and has just unveiled its first contest. A great show as always, so check it out.

Michael Kozlowski( Editor in Chief )Michael Kozlowski has been writing about audiobooks and e-readers for the past twelve years. His articles have been picked up by major and local news sources and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

goodereader.com/blog/

Google is privately testing a new service that will compete against Apple News and Facebook Instant Articles. The new program is called Accelerated Mobile Pages and 30 different publishers are participating in he closed beta program.

Accelerated Mobile Pages aims to dramatically improve the performance of the mobile web. Google wants webpages with rich content like video, animations and graphics to work alongside smart ads, and to load instantaneously. They also want the same code to work across multiple platforms and devices so that content can appear everywhere in an instant—no matter what type of phone, tablet or mobile device you’re using.

There are a number of benefits with the Accelerated Mobile Pages program that the established players in the industry can't match. There is support for subscriptions and paywalls. Google wants help in defining exactly what publishers need by their closed beta program.

via Google Blog

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Welcome back to another edition of the Good e-Reader Radio Show! Today on the show you will be informed about all of the new devices expected to be released soon, such as the Nook Glowlight 2, Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 for Nook and the Kobo Touch 2.0. Also on the show is plenty of Amazon and digital library news.

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Welcome back to another edition of the Good e-Reader Radio Show! Today on the show you will be informed about all of the new devices expected to be released soon, such as the Nook Glowlight 2, Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 for Nook and the Kobo Touch 2.0. Also on the show is plenty of Amazon and digital library news.

Michael Kozlowski( Editor in Chief )Michael Kozlowski has been writing about audiobooks and e-readers for the past twelve years. His articles have been picked up by major and local news sources and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

goodereader.com/blog/

Today on the show we talk about all the major deals that Amazon will having for its one day Prime Day event on July 15th. Also, Books-A-Million has announced they are taking the company private and Barnes & Noble has given us a date in which the Nook College Bookstore and educational unit will become its own company.

This week has been crazy for authors organizations trying to fight the power. The Authors Guild is demanding a revenue increase from 25% to 50% citing e-books are selling like crazy and they are partners with the publishers.

Almost every single organisation that represents authors have simultaneously filed their own petitions to the US Justice Department to look into Amazon and how they control the e-book market. How will this play out and will anything actually happen?

Tons of other tech and e-reader news is also on the show! Find out more about the new Kindle Paperwhite 3 and how it stacks up against the Kobo Glo HD.

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Today on the show we talk about all the major deals that Amazon will having for its one day Prime Day event on July 15th. Also, Books-A-Million has announced they are taking the company private and Barnes & Noble has given us a date in which the Nook College Bookstore and educational unit will become its own company.

This week has been crazy for authors organizations trying to fight the power. The Authors Guild is demanding a revenue increase from 25% to 50% citing e-books are selling like crazy and they are partners with the publishers.

Almost every single organisation that represents authors have simultaneously filed their own petitions to the US Justice Department to look into Amazon and how they control the e-book market. How will this play out and will anything actually happen?

Tons of other tech and e-reader news is also on the show! Find out more about the new Kindle Paperwhite 3 and how it stacks up against the Kobo Glo HD.

Michael Kozlowski( Editor in Chief )Michael Kozlowski has been writing about audiobooks and e-readers for the past twelve years. His articles have been picked up by major and local news sources and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

goodereader.com/blog/