Now that the Nook has been around for a little while, some really great cases have started coming out to protect it in style.  When I saw the new lines of cases coming out from JAVOedge, I was immediately intrigued and couldn’t wait to get my hands on them!  Judie’s recent review of the new Croc cases for Kindle 2 only made me more eager to review the Nook cases.

JAVOedge was kind enough to send me two cases from their Cherry Blossom Collection to review and keep for my Nook–the Flip Style Case in Twilight Purple, and the Book Style Case in Cocoa–as well as a surprise…a Flip Style Case in Cork! Continue Reading

Looks like you won’t have to resort to wandering airport bookstores for your John Grisham fix anymore! Now just flip a switch on your Kindle or nook, fire up your Sony Reader, or open Shortcovers or eReader on your smartphone…because every book he’s written is now available as an ebook!

A few great deals to help you round out your collection:

- eReader.com is offering 50-100% rewards on all Grisham titles. Their email said 100%, but the site says 50%, so check before you buy.

- Fictionwise also has 100% rewards on Grisham’s books.

- Get a $1.50 off any ebook with the code Grisham at Kobo books (good through March 17th).

- Barnes and Noble and Amazon of course also have the full John Grisham catalog available. They don’t typically offer coupons or rewards for ebooks, but their prices are on par or a bit lower than eReader/Fictionwise or Kobo, even with the special incentives offered, so be sure to shop around if you can!

It’s very exciting to see a mainstream, prolific author like John Grisham enter the ebook world. Hopefully this will show publishers and authors that going digital can only increase their sales potential! It will be interesting to see if some of his titles become test cases for “enhanced” ebooks; I could see a publisher trying something new where a relevant scene from the movie adaptation plays at the start or end of a chapter, for example. It would certainly make comparing and contrasting the film and book versions easier!

Did you snag any Grisham books for your ebook reader? Are you hoping for a wave of enhanced books, where you can watch the movie “The Firm” and read the book at the same time? Share your thoughts below!

Welcome to this week’s “State of the ebook”. As usual, we’re diving in with news, then looking at a few major stories that have been floating around the ebook world.

Apparently the eInk/Android mashup is becoming very attractive these days, as on the heels of the Entourage Edge and the Alex Reader we have yet ANOTHER similar device. This one is the 1Cross Tech MIDHybrid, and it has an LCD screen with Android and a QWERTY on one side, and an eInk on the other. Sort of like the cousin of the Entourage Edge. There’s no info on pricing, but it’s so darn cute!

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(image courtesy engadget)

Samsung has announced their E60 ebook reader, a basic 6 inch eInk device with a touchscreen and wifi…and it will be tied into the Barnes and Noble ecosystem. Honestly, I don’t entirely understand how this is a win for B&N or Samsung. The E60 is stuck living in the shadow of the nook, and Barnes and Noble ends up confusing their brand further.

In my opinion, Samsung would have benefited more from tying in with a store like Kobo Books. Kobo has made it their philosophy that they do not want to tie down to one reader, but be a content provider to all kinds of devices. Partnering with B&N means playing second fiddle to the nook constantly. Talk Barnes and Noble and ebooks, and everyone knows nook first and foremost. While it’s great to get the content boost from a large store, there are other dance partners out there. Plus, B&N says they’ll be opening their DRM up to all Adobe-compatible devices, so eventually that compatibility is not going to be anything special. And the pricing is a bit high for what you get. For $299, you get a touchscreen enabled reader with wifi, so you can take handwritten notes, which is nice. But on the other hand, that’s still higher than the nook, which has the potential for far more interesting functionality through rooting.

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It’s Read an eBook Week! Have you read one yet? If not, pull up a chair…lots of sites are getting in on the action! Plus we’re giving away some Kindle2 cases, so read on for more details!

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Uh oh, Amazon…hope you’re sitting down for this one. Looks like a survey of future ebook buyers shows everyone’s waiting on the iPad. According to Changewave, specifically 40% of prospective ebookers are marking April 3rd on their calendars. The real bad news, though, is for Barnes and Noble and Sony. At least Amazon claimed 28% of potential future sales. Poor B&N and Sony are only picking up a 6% and 1% share, respectively.

(Image courtesy Investors.com)

So what’s going on with these numbers? Has Apple pre-emptively won the ebook war? Maybe not…let’s put some context into this.

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I recently start re-reading one of my favorite books of all time: “Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping“. It was my bible when I worked for Borders, and even on the consumer side of retail I find it fascinating. The author, Paco Underhill, runs a company that studies how people shop. Everything from how much time people need to acclimate to entering a store to sitelines, signage and spacing of aisles is scrutinized and tweaked for maximum impact based on Underhill’s teams observations and suggestions. In this newer, updated version, he also touches on the internet and e-commerce.

Somewhat unsurprisingly, he’s not a big fan of the internet. When your whole career is built around the tactile aspects of shopping, I can see where e-commerce is very alien. But he does have this to say about online shopping that I think is very prescient with respect to ebooks:

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While the last few months have been dominated by publisher drama, it looks like things are quieting down, and we’re starting to hear more about upcoming readers (hardware and software). We have a lot to cover, including the (supposed) upcoming release of a much anticipated reader, so let’s get started!

First, let’s start with the big picture. eBook sales increased 176.6% in 2009, showing they are easily the fastest growing segment of the publishing market. Not to be outdone by Amazon’s constant crowing about the Kindle being their best-selling item ever, Barnes and Noble is making the same claims about the nook. Not to rain on B&N’s parade here, but how exactly are they measuring this? It’s not like it’s outselling Harry Potter or the Da Vinci Code. Still, it’s great news that the nook is selling so well, and Barnes and Noble is making it clear they plan to make digital media their future. Now, if only they would fix their pricing disparity…

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(image courtesy CFO Daily News)

Friday afternoon The Consumerist reported on a comment made by Michael Cader on a publishing industry site. Essentially, he said that if you can afford an ebook reader, you can afford higher ebook prices. Needless to say, many of us at Gear Diary vehemently disagreed. Each of us had our own take on the publishing industry, high prices, and our general frustration with publisher’s attitudes towards ebooks. Continue Reading

Teleread noticed this weekend that there’s been an increased amount of chatter on the Barnes and Noble forums regarding their ebook pricing. It looks as though B&N has very suddenly jacked up their prices on a number of books, causing some serious pricing disparity with their competitors.

What kind of disparity? Well, I threw together the chart above to highlight a few examples. These books are being highlighted only because they were mentioned on the B&N forums, and it was easier than random spot checks.

The most egregious, by far, is Stephen King’s “Salem’s Lot”. Amazon is charging $7.19, Kobo is charging $20, and Barnes and Noble is clocking in at $26! For a book that was first published in 1975, and whose paperback sells for 7.99!!!

Then there’s Michael Palmer’s “Second Opinion”. The Kindle version is $6.67, the Kobo version is $7.41, and Barnes and Noble charges $16.21.

Finally, Gene Wolf’s “An Evil Guest” clocks in at $9.99 for a Kindle and $18.53 for Barnes and Noble. Unfortunately “An Evil Guest”  was not available at Kobo Books for a third price point comparison.

These could be random one-off pricing issues, but what’s really odd is that it appears the prices all changed in the last few days. Reports from the B&N forums indicate many books went from ~$9.99 to suddenly double that! Hopefully it’s a Barnes and Noble glitch and not a sudden price hike. With Amazon still pushing for lower prices, and Apple pushing for lower prices for bestsellers, B&N does NOT want to be the odd man out with outrageous pricing!

When Steve Jobs announced the iPad, he also mentioned that iBooks would be using ePUB. There was a brief ray of hope among the eBook world…maybe, just maybe, the majority of ebooksellers would rally around a single format. Unfortunately, it looks like that was a false hope. Teleread is reporting via the LA Times that Apple will be using their Fairplay DRM for iBooks. This will be the 3rd variant of ePUB DRM: Adobe, Fairplay, and Barnes and Noble. And of course, Amazon has their own DRM and ebook format.

So what does this mean for eBook fans? We’re seeing a shattered landscape, one where there is no inter-compatibility, and no easy way to transport your library from device to device. Continue Reading

Did you root your nook? Be honest, it’s ok if you did. In fact, nookdevs is rewarding you with a shiny new launcher! The nook has had so much development from the rooting community that it is astounding, and adds a great deal of potential value if you don’t mind some tinkering.

From their website:

NookLauncher is a simple program that works to allow users to run non-stock programs on the nook without having to get into any sort of complicated command line or VNC. It looks and feels a lot like the launcher from 1.1.1, which was full square icons. The stock 1.2 launcher has rounded icons and a shiny look to it.

When NookLauncher is first run, you will notice you can not only tap on icons to select them, but also scroll side to side to show more icons in the list. Icons can be added using the Launcher Settings app.

Check out the video above, and if you’ve tried this on your nook, please share your experiences!

Via Nate’s ebook news

Still searching for a Valentine’s Day gift? Freaking out that the east coast Snowpacalypse is going to severely limit your shopping options? The eBook stars have aligned this week, with the nook back in stock, Sony Reader bundles, and of course, Amazon is prepared with plenty of Kindles!

Let’s start with Sony. They’re offering a special “Valentine’s Day Bundle“; a red Sony Reader Touch Edition, a case with booklight built in, and a free copy of “The Heart Speaks: A Cardiologist Reveals the Secret Language of Healing“, all for $329.99.

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I’m one of those odd weirdos who reads his eBooks not on a Nook, or a Kindle, or on the desktop, but on my handheld.  I first started reading eBooks with my (late lamented) Tapwave Zodiac, and have subsequently read them on an HTC Universal and now on my iPhone.  So I haven’t exactly kept up with what’s happening in various desktop reader software.  (Carly keeps y’all updated on advances in the eBook reader device arena.)

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(image courtesy The Hogshead)

Well, it’s time for another State of the eBook. Of course, this week was under the iPad shadow, but-gasp!-there’s other news out there too! Plus, with Apple landing smack in the ebook game, plus the final “Google Books” settlement, it has led to some interesting discussion about the nature of ebook digital rights management and how we, as consumers, can either accept or challenge the status quo. Not to mention the argument between Amazon and Macmillan books! All of these really touch upon many of the issues surrounding ebooks; as their popularity increases, questions about how they should be treated versus their paper siblings become more apparent, and the answers become more controversial.

Let’s start with some quick news:

-Acer, not to be outdone by Asus, has also announced plans to release an ebook reader this year.

-Amazon sold 3 million Kindles so far.

-Read an eBook Week is coming this March!

-Asus’s DR-950 posed for some glamor shots.

-Apple became a bookstore!

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