App Development

In April, Wattpad receieved $46 million in funding led by OMERS Ventures, reported TechCrunch, and with around 25 million monthly active users, it's not hard to see why. Lau told TechCrunch, "To give some idea of how much content users are posting on Wattpad, they're uploading one chapter every half a second. That's about 150,000 uploads every day, and if you translate that to reading time, that's about 10 hours of reading uploaded to Wattpad every minute." Nazia Khan, Wattpad's communications manager, answered some of our burning questions about the exciting story-sharing platform.

Amazon is looking to crowdsource the publishing industry. The ecommerce giant announced the launch of its Kindle Scout program on Tuesday, which lets prospective authors submit manuscripts that will then be read and voted on. One part Kickstarter, one part American Idol, the program offers the chance for authors to become published through Kindle Press if their book is popular enough. Authors chosen through the program receive a $1,500 advance, 50% of eBook royalties and Amazon marketing.Participating readers can browse, read, and nominate manuscripts; readers can then nominate books they enjoy.

The app's features include a social feed which will allow users to follow their friends, favourite authors and celebrities on Bookmate, while also sharing their favourite books and passages. 

The chance to publish the second edition of our Guide to Digital Publishing Platformswas a great opportunity to rethink many of the basic concepts of book publishing such as the role of the cover, and the need for using as many digital bookstores as possible. It is common wisdom that when publishing a book, the cover design is one of the most important elements that will influence a book's sales success. Much money is spent employing book design experts to make sure a book cover is attractive and lures the reader in.

Penguin UK launches one of its most ambitious projects ever this week in which it effectively aims to crowd source the future of the book. On Thursday it will release a chunk of free, cross media content from Stephen Fry's new volume of memoirs More Fool Me - as well as material from the earlier Fry Chronicles - and will actively invite creative disobedience, digital play, tech mash-ups and all kinds of online mayhem on a global scale. 

A few weeks back we posted a video of Ikea's new breakthrough in reading technology, the "bookbook". One of our commenters (along with Daring Fireball's John Gruber) pointed out the connection to this now classic Norwegian comedy sketch, showing that every new technology has support problems with early adopters.

For years, people have been forecasting the death of the e-reader. Ever since more flashy, multi-function tablets became mainstream - prompted by the launch of Apple's iPad in 2010 - black-and-white e-readers with their matt e-ink screens have come to be seen as poor relations.

Indeed, earlier this year, Sony was forced to admit defeat in the e-reader market, withdrawing its Librie series of devices from stores in the US, then from Europe and Australia, and finally its home turf, Japan.

Google is allegedly working on a free, open access platform for the research, collaboration and publishing of peer-reviewed scientific journals.

At least, that is apparently what one individual wants us to believe. Wired.co.uk is in possession of a document, sent anonymously, detailing how "Google Science" would bring together existing services such as Google Docs, Google Plus, YouTube and more to create a platform that challenges the paid-for model of scientific publishing and provides academics with an opportunity to connect with each other more efficiently.

It sounded like a good idea: fans of cultural figures like Kurt Vonnegut and G.I. Joe get permission to use their favorite characters to create new stories under the umbrella of Amazon, and everyone gets a cut of the profits. So how it did turn out?

So far the results of the project, known as Kindle Worlds, appear lackluster at best. Take the popular series Pretty Little Liars, which became available as an Amazon-licensed fan fiction title last year.

Mobile e-reading needs to be much more than just a way to access a library of books, they must focus on the experience around reading itself. This is where social and messaging features play a major role. Social media is an element that has, so far, been mostly neglected in this space. By giving readers the opportunity to share their favourite quotes, what they are reading and message favourite passages to friends, e-reading apps are mimicking the social aspect of book clubs.