With several new color ereaders (such as the Onyx Boox Poke 2 Color) launching in 2020, everyone is wondering just what kind of screen tech is going into the new devices.

And now I have the answer.

E-ink's new screen tech is called Kaleido, as I have previously reported.  This is a reference to kaleidoscopes, those toys "with two or more reflecting surfaces tilted to each other in an angle, so that one or more objects on one end of the mirrors are seen as a regular symmetrical pattern when viewed from the other end".

A Kaleido E-ink screen does not have a new type of E-ink screen. Instead, it pairs a Carta HD E-ink screen with a color filter layer. This is similar in design to the older Triton color E-ink screens, although obviously with a much higher resolution and better color quality.

The Carta screen is capable of displaying 16 shades of gray at a resolution of 300 PPI, which the color filter layer is responsible for converting into 4096 colors at a resolution of 212 PPI.

Edit: Color screen resolution is unknown. Some sources say this screen tech can display color at 212 PPI, while Pocketbook says the screens going into their device have a color resolution of 100 PPI. (I trust Pocketbook.)

(BTW, it's worth noting that E-ink made a similar claim about the Triton being capable of displaying 4096 colors, but that screen never lived up to the promise. It remains to be seen if the new Kaleido screens will pull it off.)

A back of the envelope calculation shows that the Kaleido screens require two grayscale pixels for each color pixel. This raises interesting questions which E-ink has not yet answered. 4096 colors is 2^12 colors. The intensity of a color is controlled by the grayscale pixels underneath, and the Carta HD screen is capable of displaying 16 shades of gray, so theoretically the Kaleido screen should be capable of displaying 2^15 colors (32,768).

Edit: With Pocketbook saying this screen is capable of displaying 100 PPI in color, it suggests that each color pixel requires 4 grayscale pixels.

I have asked E-ink about the discrepancy, and will report back.

In the mean time, here's the new screen in action on the Onyx Boox Poke2 Color.

You just finished reading All You Need to Know About the E-ink Kaleido Screen Tech which was published on The Digital Reader.

When Onyx announced their new color ereader earlier this week, all they gave us was a single graphic. I can now report that the new device will be using the same hardware as the Poke2, which was also announced this week.

Furthermore, I can show you the Poke2 Color in action.

The Onyx Boox Poke2 (and I assume the Poke2 Color) features a 6" Carta E-ink display with a capacitive touchscreen and a color-changing frontlight. Screen resolution for the grayscale screen is 1072 x 1448, or 300 PPI.

The Poke2 Color's screen is capable of displaying 4096 colors at 212 PPI, or 16 shades of gray, at 300 PPI.

Edit: Color screen resolution is unknown. Some sources say this screen tech can display color at 212 PPI, while Pocketbook says the screens going into their device have a color resolution of 100 PPI. (I trust Pocketbook.)

The Poke2 runs Android 9.0 on a 2GHz octa-core CPU with 2GB RAM. It also has 32 GB storage, Wifi, and Bluetooth. Battery capacity is 1.5Ah, which can be recharged through the micro-USB port.

The Poke2 is available now, while the Poke2 Color is scheduled to ship later this year (according to Pocketbook).

You just finished reading First Look at the Onyx Boox Poke2 Color (video) which was published on The Digital Reader.

Amazon is well-known to have a problem in the Kindle Store due to their failure to invest in QA processes to keep out the spammers, the cheats, the book stuffers, and the outright criminals.

Kobo does not have that problem, mostly because (as I pointed out a couple years ago) Kobo has a content approval team. The scammers aren't getting in to the Kobo Store, but they are still making their presence felt.

On Thursday Kobo CEO Michael Tamblyn took to Twitter to express Kobo's collective frustration at the scammers.

2/ We are rejecting over 50% of the ebooks submitted dealing with #COVID19 and #Coronavirus. They are filled with near-criminal snake-oil quackery, conspiracy theories, and raw disinformation. ??

— Michael Tamblyn (@mtamblyn) April 23, 2020

4/ In case you weren't sure, trying to sell this stuff during a pandemic puts you in the category of people who knowingly sell fake antibiotics and faulty lifejackets, who peddle bogus cancer cures or shout fire in a packed theatre. You are choosing to be *that* person. ??

— Michael Tamblyn (@mtamblyn) April 23, 2020

6/ And, ever the bookseller, if you want an antidote to the unhelpful and unscientific, I recommend this book by my favourite public health hero Dr. Bonnie Henry of @CDCofBC - "Soap and Water and Common Sense". https://t.co/bp02d7jT52

— Michael Tamblyn (@mtamblyn) April 24, 2020

In related news, Amazon has (belatedly) cracked down on the Coronavirus  scammers. There are many reports on FB and in the KDP support forums that it is suddenly much harder to publish a book that even mentions COVID-19, much less one that offers quack cures.

That's nice, but do you know what would be even better?

It would be great if Amazon could match the standards set by their competitors, and proactively filter out the content. It would make the Kindle Store better for both readers and authors.

image  by A Girl With Tea via Flickr

You just finished reading Kobo’s Michael Tamblyn To Coronavirus Spammers “Just. &%$*@. Stop.” which was published on The Digital Reader.

Here are a few stories to read this Monday morning.

• MS Word now flags two spaces after a full stop as an error. 
• The Washington Post takes a look at Bookshop, the retail platform for indie bookstores that Amazon will be buying shortly. (It is succeeding where many have failed.)
• Bookbub digs into how the quarantine has changed book-buying behavior (like many, they think buying is the same as reading, which it's not).
• Kris Rusch explores how trad pub is going wither away during the quarantine. 
• Gabino Iglesias has a hate list consisting of ten types of writers. 
• Mike Shatzkin notes that POD is suddenly more important given how the print supply chain has been disrupted by the current crisis. 
• BookRiot has culled a list of the best parts of Reddit to find book recommendations. 
• "And when the librarians returned, they found that the cleaner had put the books back in order of size." (no, that is not a horror story - it actually happened)

You just finished reading Morning Coffee – 27 April 2020 which was published on The Digital Reader.

Did you by any chance get the free copies of Martha Wells's MurderBot series that Tor.com was giving away last week?

I did, and in addition to four fun stories, I also got an object lesson in what's wrong with trad pub.

The content is great, but there's very little actual content there, and they are charging an extortionate price for it.

The 4 books in the Murderbot series are novellas, and their combined length is 625 pages (about the same as Game of Thrones). The writing is great, but the price is ridiculous.

I got these stories for free last week, but if I had bought all 4 I would have had to pay $36. Yes, Macmillan is charging $36 for one novel's length of content.

The first installment costs $4, while the second, third, and fourth books cost $10, $11, and $11, respectively. To put it another way, the latter three cost the regular retail for a trad pub ebook, and yet you only get a story about half as long as the minimum expected length of a novel (300-ish pages).

While some people are buying the ebooks, they sure as hell are not happy about the prices.

• Enjoyed the series, very brief reads. Not a fan of the price for a sub two hour read.
• The first book is delightful. However, at the rate I read, I can't afford the other three novelettes at$10 each.
• First story was very good - and I can see where this might go - but the next set of stories is way too expensive for very short works. $10 for 160 pages? I can read 160 pages in a couple of hours.

What's especially interesting about this series is that both the top positive review and the top critical review complained about the price.

John Sargent wonders why his ebook sales are down, and he has repeatedly blamed library ebooks. It's really weird how he never seems to realize its his own policies (as evidenced by this series) that are causing the shortfall in sales.

I mean, Sargent was running Macmillan when he decided that the publisher's first move into ebooks was to conspire with Apple and bring about agency pricing, raising Macmillan's ebook prices in the process.  And he was still in charge when he brought about Agency 2.0 in 2014.

And now, as a result of Sargent's policies, we have Macmillan charging $36 for a novel-length story.

The reason this is the perfect example of what is wrong with tradpub, folks, is that for the past decade trad pub has refused to sell the public what it wants at a price the public wants to pay. The whole point of agency pricing was to raise ebook prices and force consumers to buy the print books the publishers want to sell.

In this example, Macmillan split a novel into 4 parts (it honestly feels like it was written as a single novel) so it could try to get people to pay four times the going market rate.

And y'all wonder why trad pub ebook sales are down?

You just finished reading The #MurderBot Series is Everything Wrong With TradPub which was published on The Digital Reader.

Calibre is widely considered the best tool for managing your library of DRM-free ebooks, but it's not your only option. About 5 years back I reviewed an app called KDeasy (alas, that review got eaten), and today I would like to show you a second ebook library app, one that was also developed by the same developers who brought us KDEasy.

Launched about 4 years ago, Epubor is designed to be a multi-format replacement for KDEasy. The older app only supported Kindle ebooks, while Epubor supports multiple formats, and can even strip DRM from Epub and Kindle ebooks.

While Epubor is primarily marketed as a DRM-stripping tool, it does have library ebook management features. You can edit an ebook's metadata, give it a rating, add a note or introduction, and change the cover image.

Epubor also includes an online ebook reader, and it can convert DRM-free ebooks between Epub, Kindle, and PDF formats.

Opinion

I was given a free license to Epubor so I could write this review And that's great, because I would have regretted buying it.

I don't think Epubor is worth the money. Yes, it does work (after a fashion), but I think you should be using calibre instead. Calibre works as well or better than Epubor, and doesn't cost $25 for an annual license.

Take stripping DRM, for example.  Back when I did this more, I liked to use calibre because it was free and because when the process failed, I would (usually) get an error message that helped me troubleshoot the problem so I could try again.

While Epubor can strip DRM, some times it fails. When that happens it doesn't tell me why it failed to strip DRM from an ebook, which means if I really want to strip the DRM from this ebook, I will have to use a different tool, so I figure I might as well use that other tool in the first place.

Furthermore, Epubor just doesn't have the same features as calibre. They are both ebook library management tools, but only calibre lets you install plugins which add features. Also, calibre converts to and from far more formats, while Epubor only supports 3. And where they do have comparable features, such as the ebook viewer feature for example, calibre's feature just works better than the comparable feature in Epubor.

I could go on to list a half dozen other reasons I prefer calibre, but I think you get my point.

P.S. This app has a rating of 1.7 stars on MacUpdate. Clearly I am not the only one who is not impressed.

Epubor

You just finished reading Review: Epubor which was published on The Digital Reader.

Here are a few stories to read this Monday morning.

• The newly launched Publishers Weakly activist Twitter account was interviewed this week.
• A survey conducted at the Edinburgh book festival revealed that over half of authors hear voices in their head – the voices of their characters.
• Wired fell for the cover story on the IA’s National Emergency pirate site.  The real story is that this is not about helping libraries; it’s about Brewster Kahle wanted to get sued in order to rewrite copyright law.
• Holly Brady reminds us that Ingram double dips when it comers to fees on the POD books it distributes.
• The state of Georgia lost its claim to the copyright on its law code this week when the US Supreme Court ruled that the law cannot be copyrighted, nor owned.
• Morgan Hazelwood has advice on how to get accepted as a guest at cons and book fairs. 
• How would you like to use a bookstore as your Zoom background? 
• A school boards plan to take five classic novels off the curriculum backfired. 

You just finished reading Morning Coffee – 4 May 2020 which was published on The Digital Reader.

Here’s something to keep you interested while we wait for the new color ereaders to ship. A couple days ago E-ink announced they are developing a larger color screen to be used for station signs in  mass transit systems.

The new screen panel uses the ACeP (Advanced Color ePaper) tech, and not the Kaleido tech that will be used in the new color ereaders. ACeP uses multiple inks, and takes too long to refresh to be used in mobile devices, but it could be used for signs.

Although I don’t see any reason why you would (aside from thinking it would look cool).

This story inspired me to check with a construction manager I know, and they told me that they couldn’t imagine why anyone would use this kind of screen.  They also could not name any display systems supplier that even offered E-ink screens as an option (which means it’s not being used in anything more than small-scale pilot projects).

It would look cool, though.

You just finished reading E-ink and Innolux Are Developing 28″ Color ePaper Signage which was published on The Digital Reader.

Apple still doesn’t care if you want to read an ebook you buy from them on non-Apple hardware, but they have finally launched a publishing portal that anyone can access using a web browser.

David Gaughran brings us the news that Apple launched a new portal today called Apple Books for Authors. This is primarily an information portal, and it has lots of useful info on marketing, ebook design, audiobooks, cover images, and so on, but if you drill down you will discover that there’s a new way to upload Epub ebooks to be sold in Apple Books.

You can find the upload page here. (You’ll still an iTunesConnect account to upload ebooks, but you can set that up using your existing Apple account.)

This is a huge change for Apple; they used to require that you use a macOS-only app to upload ebooks, or go through a distributor such as Draft2Digital. (Another way around this was to lease a Mac in the cloud, and run the app there.) Now everything is accessible via a web browser.

Go check it out!

Apple Books for Authors

You just finished reading Apple Launched a Publishing Portal for Book Authors – And You Don’t Need a Mac to Use It! which was published on The Digital Reader.

Remember when Penguin Classics published A Canticle for Leibowitz?

Thanks to Nicholas Love’s Penguin Classics cover generator, now you can do just that.

This site lets you create your own Penguin Classic covers in either the Oxford World Classics or the Penguin Classics look. All you have to do is upload an image and set the author and title, and then click the button.

This is cool, but I’d rather see covers in the classic classic design (the one with a single color on the top and bottom thirds of the cover, and white in between).  Those covers would be a lot simpler, leaving less room to be clever.

BTW, if you are interested, there are many excellent spoof covers in this Twitter thread.

What you see at left is my own creation; what would you like to make with this tool?

via Boing Boing

You just finished reading With the Penguin Classics Cover Generator, Anything Can be a Classic which was published on The Digital Reader.

After almost getting retired for good last summer, Bluefire Reader is now back under development, and a new version of the venerable iOS app was released last week.

Bluefire Reader v3.1 gained two incredibly useful features. You can now import ebooks into the app, including DRM-ed ebooks distributed via ACSM files, and you can also export ebooks from your collection.

You can find the app in Apple’s unnamed app store.

Here’s the changelog:

• New Feature: Import ePub, PDF and ACSM files.
• New Feature: Export eBooks from your Library.

You just finished reading Bluefire Reader v3.1 Adds New Export, Import Options which was published on The Digital Reader.

Don your jacket with puffy shoulders, because WordPerfect is back. The latest version of this office suite now supports Epub export. (Side note: I’ve added it to my post on ebook creation tools.)

In just a few clicks, save WordPerfect documents in the popular EPUB eBook format for easy publishing to popular devices. Improved file format compatibility enables users to save WordPerfect files in OpenDocument Text (ODT) format, while updates to PDF functionality give control over the resolution of linked and embedded content. When it comes time to print, take advantage of improved support for labels, table headers, and more.

WordPerfect Office Standard 2020 includes:

• WordPerfect® word processor
• Quattro Pro spreadsheet program
• Presentations slideshow creator
• WordPerfect® Lightning digital notebook
• WordPerfect®? eBook Publisher
• AfterShot 3 photo-editing and management
• 900+ TrueType fonts; 10,000+ clipart images; 300+ templates; 175+ digital photos; BrainStorm training videos; The Pocket Oxford English Dictionary; the WordPerfect Address Book; and much more.

This app costs $250 for an annual license, making it much less attractive than free alternatives like Google Docs and Libre Office, but it still has its advocates.

You just finished reading WordPerfect 2020 Adds Epub Export which was published on The Digital Reader.

Here are a few stories to read this Monday morning.

• When “Lord of the Flies” happened for real, the result was almost peaceful. 
• Someone’s building a database of book-buying habits of major 20th-century authors. 
• There’s a factoid going around that 80% of authors quit after their third book.  It appears that I am the only one who considered the possibility that some of the authors may have changed their pen name.
• Ten ways to feel like a writer even when you are too stressed out to write. 
• ICANN blocked the sale of the DotOrg registry to a for-profit company (they would have jacked up the cost of registration). 
• People were apparently shocked that Amazon would stop collecting VAT on ebooks when it was no longer required. 
• The British Library is building a digital platform for UK libraries.  (They probably stole it from another country.)
• BTW, I updated my list of book promotion sites on Saturday.

You just finished reading Morning Coffee – 11 May 2020 which was published on The Digital Reader.

If you want to give a gift to the writer in your life you might want to consider getting a subscription to a monthly subscription box service.

A subscription box is the term given to the recurring delivery of niche products.  Around 2,000 companies offer a subscription box of one kind or another, each focused on a niche customer. This includes Amazon, which offers hundreds of different subscription boxes. Not all of the services ship the subscription in an actual box, but most ship every month and bill you automatically.

I have been interested in the subscription boxes for some time now, but I only recently learned that there are subscription boxes specifically for writers. I haven’t seen any reviews of these boxes, and I thought it would be great fun to order them for myself and let you know if I think they are worth the money.

I plan to add to this post as I hear about more subscription boxes for writers, but so far I have found only two subscription boxes for writers. One is worth buying, while the other is not.

Disclosure: I bought all the boxes using my own money, and have not been given anything by any of the companies.

ScribeDelivery

ScribeDelivery is a themed box for stationery aficionados. It costs $29 a month and gets you a curated selection of pens, pencils, and notebooks.

It is most definitely not worth the money. Each shipment arrives in a plain white envelope, and the one I got included only a single notebook, three inexpensive pens, and five postcards.

Scribbler

This subscription comes in a custom cardboard box and includes a selection of books, stationery, and fun gifts. The box I received had a “drafting”-scented candle,  green apple rock candy, two novels, a couple pamphlets on writing, an invite to an online chat with an agent, and more! (There was even fuzzy orange packing material that didn’t really serve a purpose but still added to the experience.)

I actually had trouble photographing it, there was so much!

Just getting the box was fun, and opening it was even more fun.  This service wasn’t just designed to send you stuff but to also give you a great experience when you get it. Next time I need to get a gift for a writer friend, this is the one I will buy.

The Scribbler box cost me $39 for the one box, but a subscription starts at $29 per month, and you can get a discount if you pre-pay.

* * *

I am relatively new to subscription boxes, so I bet you know more than me. I’d love to hear what you think of the idea, and your experiences with the various services.

Also, I want to order and review any and all subscription boxes for writers, so if you know of a subscription box I missed, please let me know in the comments.

You just finished reading Subscription Box Review: Scribbler v ScribeDelivery which was published on The Digital Reader.

Amazon released its annual update to its Kindle Fire tablet line today. We got a new Kindle Fire HD 8, Kindle Fire HD 8 Plus, and a Kindle Fire HD 8 Kids Edition.

These tablets replace a model that shipped in 2018, but unlike that model, the new devices feature significant upgrades to the hardware.

The new tablets have a faster CPU than the last model (2GHz, vs 1.3GHz) and and a bump in RAM: the Kindle Fire HD 8 has 2GB RAM, while the Kindle Fire HD 8 Plus ships with 3GB.

Amazon is also boasting of a doubling of the storage (32GB and 64GB) and support for 1TB microSD cards. The new tablet also have longer battery life (12 hours, vs 10 hours).

The Kindle Fire HD 8 costs $89.

The Kindle Fire HD 8 Kids Edition, which is essentially the same as the Fire HD 8, only with a 2-year warranty, a case, and a year’s subscription to Kindle Freetime Unlimited, costs $139.

The Kindle Fire HD 8 Plus has more RAM, and it comes with a more powerful 9W charger. Even better, it also supports wireless charging (the dock is sold separately). And finally, Kindle Fire HD 8 Plus customers  get six months of Kindle Unlimited included with their tablet purchase.

The Kindle Fire HD 8 Plus costs $20 more, or $109.

While I am fine with the tablet I have, if I were looking for a new device I would probably go for the Kindle  Fire HD 8 Plus. I think the extra features are worth the extra $20 in price.

You just finished reading Amazon Updates Kindle Fire Android Tablets which was published on The Digital Reader.

If you have ever tweaked the text on a book cover, advert, or internet graphic then you’ve probably at least experimented with changing the spacing between characters in order to either improve readability or convey meaning.

A newly created font called Times Uncertain plays on this concept. It was developed by Third Street Attention Agency based on Times New Roman, only now the well-known font has greater kerning between the characters. The characters have also been distressed to better convey how the current times are fraught with uncertainty.

It’s pretty cool, but I think the point would get across better if the characters showed signs of an improper print job – some parts would be overly thick, while others would be almost translucent or splotchy.

You just finished reading “Times Uncertain” Font which was published on The Digital Reader.

From its earliest days, one of the Kindle’s secret strength’s was that it would automatically upload all your notes and highlights to your Kindle account, and then also download the notes to your ocher Kindle devices. This was revolutionary in 2007, and it was still ground-breaking when Amazon added support for third-party ebooks in 2011, and then gave its apps cloud notes support in 2012.

Several of Amazon’s competitors, including Pocketbook and B&N and Kobo, have since launched similar services, and now the Chinese ereader maker Onyx is joining the club. They’ve just released an app that you can use to sync an Android device with your Boox ereader over Bluetooth.

Once the files are transferred, they can be viewed in the app, and uploaded to push.boox.com. (This is Onyx’s alternative to Read.Amazon.com/kp/notebook).

You’ll need to be running the Onyx Boox 2.3 firmware on your ereader, and you’ll also need to have an Onyx account. (That account comes with 1GB free cloud storage space, BTW.)

This looks like a pretty cool app. Have you tried it yet?

You just finished reading Onyx Boox Assistant App Lets You Sync a Boox eReader With An Android Tablet which was published on The Digital Reader.

It has been three years since Kobo launched its subscription ebook service Kobo Plus, and for all that time the service has been limited to Belgium and the Netherlands.

I am told that is about to change.

I am attending The Career Author Summit virtual conference this weekend, and I just heard Tara Cremlin of Kobo say that Kobo Plus will be launching in new territories. She did not give a timetable, but she did confirm the news in the chat.

Kobo Plus currently offers 270,000 ebooks and audiobooks for which can be read for 9.99 euro per month.

The service differs from Kindle Unlimited in that Kobo Plus does not require exclusivity, but like KU Kobo Plus does pay from a limited funding pool. If you would like to get your ebooks into Kobo Plus, you can do so via Kobo Writing Life, Draft2Digital, or Streetlib (and probably other distirbutors).

BTW, this might not be news to you, but it’s the first I have heard about it. Have you heard any rumors?

You just finished reading Kobo Plus is Launching Soon (?) in The US and Canada which was published on The Digital Reader.

I am about a week late on reporting this story, but while I was catching up on news Sunday morning I noticed that a Publishers Weekly report on book sales needs a second look. I thought it was worth following up and pointing what the original story missed.

According to PW:

Solid gains in the adult fiction and juvenile nonfiction categories lifted print unit sales up 4.7% in the week ended May 2, 2020, over the comparable week in 2019, at outlets that report to NPD BookScan.

While that is technically true, if you look at the data you will see that print book sales are down across almost all categories and almost all formats (trade paperbacks sales are up 1.7%, but that is the exception in terms of format).

As you can see in the chart below, the only categories where print sales are up are kids non-fiction. As Alex Shephard pointed out on Twitter, these are the books that parents are buying to educate their kids. This is not a surge of interest in the category so much as purchases that parents are being forced to make.

Furthermore, as Alex also pointed out, at least part of the rise in sales can be attributed to the sales shifting from a channel that isn’t tracked to a channel that is. Last year many of these sales would have been made through book fairs and schools (where NPD doesn’t track), but now the sales are being made through retailers, which do report data to NPD.

So basically, print sales are down for virtually everyone, and the current surge is more akin to when the popularity of coloring books caused a surge in print sales. (That blip was gone the next year, as you may recall.)

You just finished reading Print Sales Down at the End of April – NPD which was published on The Digital Reader.

Here are a few stories to read this Monday morning.

• Why it’s so hard to read right now. (It’s not just you.) 
• Surprisingly, this list of the most mis-pronounced words in tech does not include blockchain, which should correctly be pronounced as “con”. 
• A class-action lawsuit has been filed over college students being forced to buy expensive digital textbooks under universities’s “inclusive access” programs. I do not see how this can possibly succeed; it’s like suing over being forced to pay tuition.
• On the origin of blurb. 
• A recent survey found that time spent reading has almost doubled during the lockdown. 

You just finished reading Morning Coffee – 18 May 2020 which was published on The Digital Reader.