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Just a very quick note to let you all know that Robert Rankin is giving away free editions of a couple of his ebooks on Amazon at the moment (Kindle edition) and there are discounts on the follow-up books. Continue reading
For those of you based in the UK, today’s Kindle Daily Deal might be of interest.
here
Thanks to Vortex for giving me the heads up that Arcfinity 1.3 has been released today. Most intriguingly, not for Kindle (yet) and equally intriguingly, free for a limited time (until October 3rd).
Click here for the link to download for free.
For those of you who have been following my reviews and have any of the listed devices, this is your chance to see what this magazine and futurism is all about. I’m going to try to download a free edition onto my Android phone over the weekend and I will let you know what I think. Hopefully, the Kindle edition should be available soon enough.
Enjoy!
So Arc 1.3 finally has a release date – Monday September 24th. By my reckoning that makes it a month overdue. Never mind, at least we can rest assured that the publication hasn’t died after the second edition. This would have been a shame because the first two editions have shown a lot of promise. If you haven’t bought either edition of this amazing digital magazine yet then get on over the Amazon to check them out.
They are already putting out a call for submissions for the next competition (scheduled to be published in Arc 1.4 due out December). The concept for this one is intriguing: Continue reading
US book seller Barnes & Noble are entering their rival Nook device into the UK market and it will be sold exclusively through chain store John Lewis Partnership. There isn’t much competition here at the moment in the ebook reader market. Amazon has the majority share and the Kobo, which sells exclusively through WHSmith, has not fared as well in the UK as it has done in North America. The Guardian suggests that Amazon Kindle sales represents a wapping 90% of the market share. Continue reading
By my reckoning it is late.
Arc 1.1 was released on 15th Feb 2012.
Arc 1.2 was released on 24th May 2012.
It is a quarterly magazine so surely Arc 1.3 should be out by now? I have received no communication on this, there is nothing on the Arcfinity tumblr and I’ve not received a single update about upcoming content. The competition link is still on the tumblr page and that closed sometime in July.
There is also nothing on The Tomorrow Project website.
Anybody know anything?
They said it was coming but now, online retail giant Amazon have claimed that Kindle ebook sales have overtaken those of printed books. Combining all hardback and paperback sales, digital downloads for Kindle devices is winning the war. But is it? Is there more to this story than meets the eye?
I’d like to go all “2012 and all that” on this post (my secondary blog where I challenge publicly believed nonsense and misinformation) and try to explain my understanding of how this is panning out in real terms. My alarm bells started to ring when I read this excerpt:
Much to the consternation of the publishing industry, Amazon has refused to release audited figures for its digital book sales, something it does for printed books. It told The Guardian that the company would not discuss future policy on the matter.
The theme of this, the second volume of the Arcfinity ezine, is about the future of humanity, subtitled Post human conditions. Intriguing concept to deal with how humans will change in relation to technological advances of the future. I mentioned in my “first impressions” post that I had not heard of most of the contributors so this was a whole new ball game for me.
This volume is just as slick and professionally made. The only difference from volume 1.1 is that it has more images. It also has far more links which, if like me you have the basic Kindle, you will not be able to follow. This is unfortunate and will give a better experience if you have a tablet such as an ipad. For a magazine dedicated to Futurism, it is a shame that these things were not taken into account.
For those of you who didn’t already know, the second volume of Arcfinity was released yesterday. Like volume 1.1, Arc 1.2 comes in at a price of £4.99 and is a digital download only (presumably as before with a handful of print edition copies available that come with a hefty price tag).
Volume 1.2 is on a theme of humanity and the human condition in futurism and subtitled Post Human Conditions. Looking through the contents I’m afraid to say that this list of contributors is far less familiar to me than in Arc 1.1. Where I knew most of the names in the first volume, here I recogmise only Frederik Pohl and Jeff VanderMeer. Anne Galloway, Nick Harkaway, Sonja Vesterholt (who contributes Prometheus art), Paul McAuley, Regina Peldszus, T.D. Edge, Gord Sellar, P.D. Smith, Holly Gramazio and Kyle Munkittrick are completely alien to me. Feel free to berate me if I’m clearly not geeky enough in that respect. Continue reading
The holiday that I am currently on (I’m writing this post four days before I leave by the way) is my first without The Holiday Reading Dilemma. And when I have such a large backlog as I generally do, it can often cause me a lot of stress. Seriously, I used to spend hours deciding which of my books to take with me and I had a very specific ritual:
* No fewer than three (in case I run out)
* No more than five (because I’ll never read more than that)
* Try to avoid having two of the same sub-genre (avoids repetition if the books are inadvertantly too similar)
* Paperbacks only (for weight)
* Light reading only (nothing too deep – I am on holiday!)
* Not too thick (for weight) Continue reading