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Library e-books
From Seattle:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2015419039_ptebooks25.html
A nice summary, showing the popularity, the variety of devices, difficulties in making the connections work both from a technical perspective and from an educate-the-user perspective. Some numbers included showing a big recent spike in checkouts, surpassing audiobooks through OverDrive. Repeated favorable mention of BlueFire.
From Minnesota:
http://www.startribune.com/local/south/124573733.html
Towards the end, a comment that romance is quite popular in e-book form and that is somehow surprising. Yeah. Sort of like the popularity of country music. People who ran shops that sold music didn't like country so they didn't stock it so it didn't sell. When there was a more accurate way of keeping track of music that sold in all venues, suddenly, country music was "surprisingly" popular. Same with romance. It's okay to dislike or even feel contempt for something, but please don't say you're "surprised" to find out that other people like it. This is pretty obvious stuff.
[ETA: h/t Nate Hoffelder at The Digital Reader:
http://ereads.com/2011/06/harlequin-raises-e-book-royalties-retroactively.html
Lots of ways to interpret this, including that HQN is a little concerned about losing authors to indie, say, at Amazon.
]
The article as a whole is somewhat interesting, altho some of the quotes are risible:
""It's super easy," said Jeff Shelman of Golden Valley, who checks out e-books from the Hennepin County Library. "I would never go to the library and check out a book, but I like the e-books.""
This is particularly humorous in view of the discussion of how much of the calls for assistance involve difficulty in this "super easy" process, in the first article listed above. This quote should not have been included without additional commentary. It is misleading.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2015419039_ptebooks25.html
A nice summary, showing the popularity, the variety of devices, difficulties in making the connections work both from a technical perspective and from an educate-the-user perspective. Some numbers included showing a big recent spike in checkouts, surpassing audiobooks through OverDrive. Repeated favorable mention of BlueFire.
From Minnesota:
http://www.startribune.com/local/south/124573733.html
Towards the end, a comment that romance is quite popular in e-book form and that is somehow surprising. Yeah. Sort of like the popularity of country music. People who ran shops that sold music didn't like country so they didn't stock it so it didn't sell. When there was a more accurate way of keeping track of music that sold in all venues, suddenly, country music was "surprisingly" popular. Same with romance. It's okay to dislike or even feel contempt for something, but please don't say you're "surprised" to find out that other people like it. This is pretty obvious stuff.
[ETA: h/t Nate Hoffelder at The Digital Reader:
http://ereads.com/2011/06/harlequin-raises-e-book-royalties-retroactively.html
Lots of ways to interpret this, including that HQN is a little concerned about losing authors to indie, say, at Amazon.
]
The article as a whole is somewhat interesting, altho some of the quotes are risible:
""It's super easy," said Jeff Shelman of Golden Valley, who checks out e-books from the Hennepin County Library. "I would never go to the library and check out a book, but I like the e-books.""
This is particularly humorous in view of the discussion of how much of the calls for assistance involve difficulty in this "super easy" process, in the first article listed above. This quote should not have been included without additional commentary. It is misleading.