Move over Kindle?

August 4, 2009 by Lori Calabrese · View Comments 

Sylvan Dell Publishing recently debuted its next generation eBook, proving the company represents “so much more than a picture book;” it represents a full-fledged campaign for literacy in America.

Sylvan Dell publisher and co-founder Lee German said, “These are the most technologically advanced eBooks in the world today, featuring Auto-Flip, Auto-Read, and Selectable Language. There is nothing even close to this on the market. Amazon/Kindle and Barnes & Noble eBooks are not even in the same category. I encourage parents and teachers to take a test-drive and see for themselves. Let the children play with these for a few weeks, and you’ll be amazed at their excitement and improved reading performance. For children wanting to learn a foreign language or ESOL families learning English, these are phenomenal tools.”

Below is a link to a 90-day trial of all 45 Sylvan Dell eBooks:
http://www.sylvandellpublishing.com/ebooktrials.php?e=MSBL9J
Code expiration date: 10/31/2009
For guided directions: http://www.sylvandellpublishing.com/documents/eBookOperatingInstructions.pdf

Sylvan Dell is no newcomer to literacy education and no stranger to technological advances. Since the company’s founding in 2004, co-founders Lee and Donna German have been ahead of the picture book publishing curve. Last year, Sylvan Dell awarded free eBook site licenses to over 2600 elementary and Title I/III schools nationwide through their School Resource Grant Program.

What’s next? According to German, “We want moms, dads, and grandparents to be able to record a reading of our books and add that audio to the language selection list. This is especially important for military families with a parent overseas. We are also developing an iPhone, iPod, and iPod touch application so that our eBooks will be available on handhelds and an online data capture system to allow teachers to track student reading and quiz performance.”

Sylvan Dell eBooks are available on the company website, http://SylvanDellPublishing.com, as are an array of free educational resources, which include Teaching Activities and Interactive Math and Reading Comprehension Quizzes. For more information about the eBooks, visit http://www.sylvandellpublishing.com/ebooks.php. For more about the eBook Resource Grants: http://www.sylvandellpublishing.com/ResourceGrant.htm.

Kindle vs. Sony Reader–The Competition Heats Up!

March 26, 2009 by Lori Calabrese · View Comments 

Aiming to outdo Kindle: Amazon’s Wireless Reading Device and recapture the crown for the most digital titles in an e-book library, Sony recently announced a deal with Google to make a half million copyright-free books available for its Sony Reader.

For now, Google can only make full digital copies available of books whose copyrights have expired, which means the books available to Reader owners were written before 1923 and include classics like “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court,” by Mark Twain, and “The Awakening,” by Kate Chopin, as well as harder-to-find titles like “The Letters of Jane Austen.”

Sony is hoping the partnership and its newly expanded library will help slow some of the Kindle’s momentum. Amazon currently has 250,000 books in its Kindle library, but it stresses they are the books people want to read, like new releases and best sellers.

Google is displaying only short snippets on its web site of books that remain under copyright protection, which are the vast majority of the books it has scanned. Under a sweeping settlement of a class-action lawsuit brought by authors and publishers, which has yet to be approved by a judge, Google would have more freedom to sell copies and split the proceeds with rights holders.

Read the article in The New York Times.

Kindle Application for the iPhone!

March 5, 2009 by Lori Calabrese · View Comments 

Man, I WISH I had an iPhone and a Kindle 2: Amazon’s New Wireless Reading Device (Latest Generation)! I’m a marketer’s dream in that I’m always reeled in by the hottest, coolest, new gadgets out there and these two top the list. If you need a little bit more convincing…Amazon has just released a Kindle application for the iPhone and it’s FREE! Turns out, with the app, every book you purchase for your kindle is available on your iPhone. All you have to do is download the free Kindle for iPhone application and their new Whispersync technology saves and synchronizes your reading location across your Kindle and your iPhone. Now you can read a few pages on your iPhone and pick up right where you left off when you return to your Kindle.

The only negative is that the application doesn’t connect to the Kindle store, so you must access the Web browser on your iPhone, iPod or computer to buy the content.

FYI: Amazon currently has 240,000 books available for the Kindle, and its library will grow.

Publisher Simon & Schuster said the program’s release was a plus. Some of the company’s e-books are already available on the iPhone and iPod through Stanza and a program by ScrollMotion called Iceberg. Looks like Amazon’s keeping up with the competition!

Read Amazon Unveils Kindle Application for iPhone from The Associated Press.

Read Kindle for iPhone may benefit Amazon, analysts say from The Associated Press.