Two Cool New Bookworm Features

There's no question that there's plenty of room for improvement among EPUB readers. From simple things like poorly handling multiple author names to more complicated issues like CSS support, readers...

Amazon Acquires Lexcycle

Lexcycle, the company behind Stanza, has just announced it's been acquired by Amazon: We are not planning any changes in the Stanza application or user experience as a result of...

Over 160 O'Reilly Books Now in Kindle Store (without DRM), More on the Way

I'm happy to announce that more than 160 O'Reilly books are now available on Kindle, and are being sold without any DRM (Digital Rights Management). Though we do offer more than 400 ebooks direct from our website, the number for sale on Kindle will be limited until Amazon updates Kindle 1 to support table rendering ("maybe this summer" is the most specific they would get). We expect to add another 100 or so titles in the coming weeks; those have needed a more detailed analysis of the table content to identify good candidates. There were two main reasons we held our books back from sale on Kindle: poor rendering of complex content and compulsory DRM.

Open Publishing Distribution System -- an Open-Standards Catalog Format

It's no secret we're big fans of the iPhone/iPod reading app Stanza. While the Kindle App has overtaken Stanza for the top-spot among free book apps in iTunes, Stanza offers a much better reading experience than the Kindle App (for example, by supporting standard formatting like tables and whitespace-preservation). But more than the quality of the software, the major reason I'm so bullish on Stanza is their willingness to experiment.

Sony-Google Deal Adds 500k Public Domain Books to E-Reader

Sony is adding 500,000 public domain EPUB-based titles to its Reader catalog through a partnership with Google. Paul Biba at Teleread examines Sony's rationale: Sony's apparent intent, meanwhile, beyond...

At TOC: Bookworm Online EPUB Reader Now Part of O'Reilly Labs

Update: There are now 400+ shiny DRM-free EPUB books from O'Reilly if you want to give Bookworm a test drive. Much of what's on our complete list with a green...

Popping the Hood on the iPhone Missing Manual App

Over on Teleread, Chris Meadows has a nice review of our iPhone Missing Manual app, which echoes several other reviewers (and my own personal experience with the app): How...

Amazon Dropping Non-Amazon Ebook Formats (Sort of)

Via Publishers Weekly, Amazon announced Monday it will stop offering ebooks in formats other than Kindle and Mobipocket: In the future, the online retailer says it plans to offer...

Format Comparison: PDF, EPUB, and Mobi Downloads from Ebook Bundles

We've been selling PDFs of our books on oreilly.com for several years, but this summer began selling "ebook bundles" of many titles, which include PDF, EPUB, and Mobipocket versions. Here's...

Random House Expands Ebook Offerings, Embraces EPUB

Random House is pursing digital with a vengeance, recognizing a growth market. From the Huffington Post: The publisher already has more than 8,000 books in the electronic format and...

Experimental O'Reilly Ebook iPhone Integration with Stanza

UPDATE: The Stanza integration is no longer experimental. All of O'Reilly's ebook bundles are now available for sale in the Stanza online catalog. Back in August, I showed how to...

Slides from "What Publishers Need to Know about Digitization" Webcast

Slides from the "What Publishers Need to Know about Digitization" webcast.

[TOC Webcast] Tomorrow: What Publishers Need to Know About Digitization

Tools of Change for Publishing will host a free webcast tomorrow at 1 p.m. eastern (10 a.m. pacific). Digitization expert Liza Daly will discuss "What Publishers Need to Know...

First Frontlist O'Reilly Ebook Bundle (Including EPUB) Now Available

With today's release of iPod: The Missing Manual, Seventh Edition, by J.D. Biersdorfer and David Pogue, we're beginning the release of nearly all new (frontlist) titles as ebook bundles. SharePoint for Project Management, by Dux Raymond Sy, will be available tomorrow, and Web Security Testing Cookbook, by Paco Hope and Ben Walther, will be available next Tuesday (Oct. 14)

How To Read O'Reilly EPUB eBooks on your iPhone with Stanza

Update 12/1/08: O'Reilly ebooks can now be downloaded directly to an iPhone or iPod Touch through Stanza. Learn more here. Since we released 30 of our books as ebook bundles...