This is Read an eBook Week, with thousands of titles available at no cost, offered by many publishers in the hopes of attracting permanent devotees of downloads. E-Reads is a participant with a Warren Murphy “Destroyer” adventure and a Highlands historical romance by Hannah Howell. If the spike in visits to our website is any indicator, thousands of bargain hunters are endorsing the program. There is no better bargain than gratis.

Smashwords founder and blogger Mark Coker has interviewed Rita Toews, whose brainstorm seven years ago led to this annual tradition. “I hope to introduce electronic books to people who have been skeptical about them in the past,” she tells Coker on Huffington Post. “I also hope to give Joe and Jane E. Author a place to get their writing noticed. Now that the traditional publishing houses have shown an interest in e-books it is hard for the unrecognized author to spread the word about their books.”

RC

When the publishers of #1 bestselling hardcover Game Change windowed the e-book edition rather than issue it simultaneously, Kindle owners protested by deliberately downgrading the book in their Amazon reviews. Their action, which fell somewhere between populist revolt and temper tantrum, elicited an editorial by Publishers Lunch’s Michael Cader urging publishers to do a better job educating the public. “Publishing people who care about these pricing discussions need to get in the online forums and start issuing press releases and find other ways to address readers honestly about price,” he said. We agreed with him.

We’ve changed our minds.

What made us change our minds was the confrontation between Cablevision and ABC over how much the cable provider should pay ABC to carry its programs. Held as hostage was the Academy Awards, one of the most watched shows on the annual television calendar.

The reaction of subscribers was identical to that of Kindle owners deprived of Game Change. They didn’t understand the issues, nor did they give a damn who was in the wrong. They wanted their Academy Awards, and they wanted them now. Senator John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet, said this about the blackout: “When pulling a signal becomes the nuclear option in negotiation, it inflicts collateral damage on consumers who pay their bills and have done nothing wrong. Someone needs to be speaking up for them in this dispute and those like them, and make no mistake, this is the latest example of consumers getting caught in the middle because the high stakes incentives created in these negotiations are not working for the average customer who just expects their programming to be there when they want it.”

Fortunately for the average customer, the dispute was settled in time. (Actually about 18 minutes late, occasioning the wry observation by New York Magazine’s blogger that subscribers blessedly missed the egg laid by co-hosts Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin.)

The moral of Cablevision vs. ABC as far as the publishing industry is concerned is that consumers have no patience for such arcane issues as windowing, loss leader pricing or agency business models. They expect their book when they hit Download and they want it at a reasonable price. Educational initiatives are a waste of time. We need to get our pricing act together. Though there is no Academy Awards show to bring us to the brink of catastrophe, the e-book industry will not realize its full potential until we provide our products reliably and at prices that makes sense to customers.

Richard Curtis

To help promote E-Book Week (March 7-13th), E-Reads is making two of our favorite books available as free downloads in PDF format, exclusively from our website and for one week only!* We know you’ll love these two titles and come back to read more titles available from E-Reads. So, enjoy!

Highland Hearts by Hannah Howell (Romance)

A villainous rogue abducts Contessa Tess from her uncle’s castle in the Scottish highlands, and when he reveals her uncle’s terrifying plans, she follows him into a whirlwind of adventure and realizes that there is a hero beneath his criminal facade. (This title and others are also available in other e-book formats and paperback by Hannah Howell at E-Reads.)

To download PDF, click here.

Ship of Death (Destroyer 28) by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir (Action/Adventure)

Beware Greeks bearing gifts – especially when it’s billionaire Demosthenes Skouratis selling the biggest pleasure cruise ship ever built to the United Nations for their headquarters. CHEAP! Over three times the size of the QE II, this huge vessel has everything from high tech offices and communications equipment to luxury spas, casinos, restaurants and palatial apartments. But the deal doesn’t include a dozen dead bodies and a hull full of bombs being rigged to explode the night of the opening gala! And Remo Williams, the Destroyer, plans to crash the party. Tipped off the plot when CURE director Harry Smith is getting beaten up by some tough crew members, Remo and Sinanju master Chiun blast full steam ahead, drowning the sleazy rats and save the UN from a watery grave. (This title and others are also available in other e-book formats and paperback by Warren Murphy at E-Reads.)

To download PDF, click here.

To learn more about E-Book Week, visit the website ebookweek.com to find other special promotions by E-Book publishers.

* Terms of Service: These two titles are available for free to end-users only when downloaded from E-Reads.com. All distribution rights are reserved and they must not be redistributed in any way or form. Please do not link directly to these PDF files.

Nilay Patel has posted on Engadget a preview of the excruciatingly long awaited Microsoft Courier tablet. It could well give Apple’s iPad a run for the money.

” We’re told Courier will function as a ‘digital journal,’” writes Patel, “and it’s designed to be seriously portable: it’s under an inch thick, weighs a little over a pound, and isn’t much bigger than a 5×7 photo when closed. That’s a lot smaller than we expected…The interface appears to be pen-based and centered around drawing and writing, with built-in handwriting recognition and a corresponding web site that allows access to everything entered into the device in a blog-like format complete with comments…Most interestingly, it looks like the Courier will also serve as Microsoft’s e-book device, with a dedicated ecosystem centered around reading.”

No news on price or release date except a vague “Q3/Q4″. Below is a video demo. For the full Engadget article click here.

RC

Since Cory Doctorow began writing a monthly column for Publishers Weekly (see What Can Publishers Learn from Cory Doctorow?) we’ve been monitoring it, because Doctorow never wants for fresh insights into publishing processes that jaded denizens of the industry take for granted.

In the latest Cory Doctorow column in Publishers Weekly he shines his beam on the mysteries of book and e-book pricing, a swamp into which many have waded recently but few returned with any insights.

His particular focus is what he calls price discrimination, “the idea that you make more money by segmenting your customers based on how much they’re willing to spend…In publishing, price discrimination is accomplished through ‘windowing.’” To put it simply, windowing is the practice of starting with an expensive hardcover edition for the well-heeled and the impatient; then, in time, releasing cheap editions such as mass market paperbacks or e-books.

Price discrimination, says Doctorow, is balanced by what he calls “demand elasticity.” Instead of starting with a high priced edition and stepping down to cheaper ones (and making many customers wait), you start out with a low price to begin with in order to attract the largest audience in a concentrated period of time.

The crossroads of these two concepts also happens to be the crossroads of traditional publishing and digital publishing. The exigencies of the traditional require a stepped rollout of editions from higher priced to lower. But the economies generated by digital enable a publisher to slash list prices. The latter means a lower profit margin per unit sold but that’s made up by – more units sold! And that happens to be the retail model practiced by Amazon with the Kindle.

That works great for customers and it sure as hell works great for Amazon, says Doctorow. But, as the recent shooting war between Amazon and Macmillan demonstrated (see Publishing’s Weekend War: 48 Hours That Changed an Industry), that model represents a grave threat to traditional publishing.

“That’s because the Kindle is a ‘roach motel’ device,” says Doctorow. Its terms of sale “ensure that books can check in, but they can’t check out. Readers are contractually prohibited from moving their books to competing devices…It means that e-book customers can’t break with Amazon without jettisoning their digital libraries.”

As is so often the case, Doctorow’s views are colored by personal experience. “Amazon refused to allow any changes to its terms for my last book, both in the Audible edition and the Kindle edition, refusing to allow me to offer the book with some introductory text affirming readers’ rights to move the books to devices that Amazon hasn’t approved.”

For this reason, Doctorow is not buying into the Amazon business model, no matter how many other benefits the company offers.”Amazon has done an incredible job of figuring out how to cross-sell, upsell, and just plain sell books. They have revolutionized bookselling over the course of a decade. As a reader and a writer, and as a publisher and a bookseller, I am constantly amazed at how good they are at this. But I don’t believe in benevolent dictators. I wouldn’t endorse a lock-in program run by a cartel of Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and Mohandas Gandhi. As good as Amazon is at what it does, it doesn’t deserve to lock in the reading public. No one does.”

And by “no one,” Doctorow includes Apple. “Don’t hope for a better shake from Apple, either,” he says. “Apple’s longstanding love-affair with proprietary formats and lock-ins will very likely make the iPad every inch the roach motel that the Kindle is.”

You can hear Doctorow on the topic on BlogTalk Radio.

Richard Curtis

Every Blogger owes a debt of gratitude to newspapers and magazines. This posting relies on original research and reporting performed by Publishers Weekly.

Barnes & Noble to Test Bundling e-Books, p-Books, reports Jim Milliot in Publishers Weekly.
“Barnes & Noble will begin testing the sale of bundled print books and e-books in the next 60 to 90 days.”

That means that if you buy a print edition at a B&N store you’ll be able to add the e-book at a discount. “Providing e-books and print book bundles is just one way B&N hopes to use its retail footprint to increase sales of e-books while maintaining its lead position as the nation’s largest bookseller,” says B&N.Com president William Lynch.

Bundling has long been a dream of digital technologists hoping to satisfy the needs both of print and e-book readers and offers a rare exception to the proverb that you can’t have your cake and eat it too. B&N’s plan may kick off yet another round of pricing debate when pundits and consumers question whether the e-book shouldn’t simply be thrown into the bag free with purchase of the printed book. In any event, bundling gives B&N an advantage over some retailers that are not in a position to sell a print book and an e-book in a single transaction.  Amazon’s response to B&N’s gambit will be interesting to see.

Lynch also discussed adding print on demand to B&N’s roster of core services, and hinted that it might even buy into a POD company. More likely, for the near future, B&N might experiment with installing Espresso POD machines on the premises of certain stores.

Pictured here is a bundling bed. According to Wikipedia, “bundling, or tarrying, was the traditional practice of wrapping one person in a bed accompanied by another, usually as a part of courting behavior. The tradition is thought to have originated either in the Netherlands or in the British Isles and later became common in Colonial America, especially in Pennsylvania Dutch Country. When used for courtship, the aim was to allow intimacy without sexual intercourse.”

Sounds like the perfect metaphor for joining book and Nook.

Richard Curtis

Fiesta San Antonio
by Janet Dailey
Romance

Colter Langston’s daughter Missy needed a mother, and Deirdre wouldn’t do. She was too sexy to play housewife. That’s why sweet, young Natalie Crane was so perfect. And when they were married, Colter decided he had to be honest with her about his heart: it was cold. Natalie didn’t know what to do–could she make him love her? Or would Deirdre lure him back into her arms?

For Bitter Or Worse
by Janet Dailey
Romance

Stacy and Cord Harris had the perfect marriage. Their love, they thought, would see them through any troubles that came along. But when Cord is seriously injured in a catastrophic crash, he forgets that he and Stacy vowed to love each other always. Believing he is too disfigured to deserve Stacy’s love, will he look for affection in the arms of his attractive nurse? Stacy is determined to defeat Paula Hanson in the battle for her husband’s love.

Something Extra
by Janet Dailey
Romance

Jolie Antoinette Smith wants to marry the man of her dreams. But when she meets that man in the form of brash and confident Louisiana native Steve Cameron, he quite clearly wants something different. Jolie’s sensitive soul and passionate heart are now at odds–and she wishes she had never found true love!

With an Information Packed New Introduction PUBLISH INTRO SEPARATELY

Talking Back to Prozac
Peter R. Breggin, M.D.,
Bestselling Author of Medication Madness
and
Ginger Ross Breggin

Prozac. Millions of Americans are on it. And just about everyone else is wondering if they should be on it, too. The claims of the Prozac chorus are enticing: that it can cure everything from depression (the only disorder for which Prozac was originally approved) to fear of public speaking, Pre-Menstrual Syundrome, obesity, shyness, migraine, and back pain—with few or no side effects. But is the reality quite different? And, maybe most important of all – at what price do we buy Prozac-induced euphoria and a shiny new personality?

Psychiatrist Peter Breggin, M.D., and coauthor Ginger Ross Breggin answer these and other crucial questions in Talking Back to Prozac. Starting with what Prozac is and how it works, they take a hard look at the real story behind today’s most controversial drug:
Prozac was tested in shockingly brief trials before receiving FDA approval
Prozac’s manufacturer had difficulty proving its effectiveness
Side effects that the FDA failed to include in its final labeling requirements
How Prozac acts as a stimulant not unlike such addictive drugs as cocaine and amphetamine
The dangers of possible Prozac addiction and abuse
The seriousness and frequency of Prozac’s side effects, including agitation, insomnia, nausea, diarrhea, loss of libido, and difficulty reaching orgasm
The growing evidence that Prozac can cause violence and suicide
The social and workplace implications of using the drug to change personality and enhance performance

Using dramatic case histories as well as scientific research and carefully documented evidence, the Breggins expose the potentially damaging effects of Prozac. They also describe the resounding success that has been achieved with more humane alternatives for the treatment of depression. Talking Back to Prozac provides essential information for anyone who takes Prozac or is considering taking it, as well as for those who prescribe it.

Peter R. Breggin, M.D. is a psychiatrist in private practice in Ithaca, New York. He is the author of many scientific articles and more than twenty books, most recently Medication Madness: A Psychiatrist Exposes the Dangers of Mood-Altering Medications (2008). Many of his cutting edge discoveries on the dangers of psychiatric drugs have been affirmed by recent scientific research and by FDA regulatory actions. He has taught at numerous universities and acts as an expert witness in legal cases involving harm done by psychiatric medication and electroshock.