As expected, ebook sales were up again in August. This time, sales jumped 116%. Not too shabby. There’s really not much more to add here. I’ll let the Publishers Weekly article speak for itself:

E-book sales from publishers that report to the AAP rose 116.5% in August, to $88.8 million, compared to August 2010. The gain marked an acceleration in e-book growth compared to July when sales of the format increased 105%, the slowest in 2011. All trade print segments had a decline in August sales with the largest coming in mass market paperback where sales from reporting companies fell 36.4%. Sales of digital audio rose 30.2% at 12 digital audio publishers.

For the first eight months of 2011, e-book sales increased 144.4%, to $649.2 million, from 18 reporting publishers to the AAP monthly statistics program. Sales were off by double digits in all trade print segments in the January-August period, although sales in the religion category were up 9% in the year to date at the 22 reporting houses.

Steve Jobs really was a genius. And I’m not just saying that because of his recent passing (RIP). The products Apple comes out with are always beautifully designed and surprisingly simple.

But Jobs’ genius didn’t just extend to making great products, he was also a cunning businessman who knew how to give Apple a leg up on the competition.

A great example of this is how Steve Jobs single-handily forced Amazon’s hand when it came to ebook pricing. He looked at how Amazon’s was pricing their ebooks and basically said their business model was stupid.

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There’s nothing new about taking a newspaper, magazine or even a book into the bathroom while you do your…uh…business. Usually the bathroom is the one place people can get a little peace and quiet, making it ideal for reading.

Now we live in an age of iPads and eReaders. So it naturally follows that people will take their shiny new electronics into the bathroom to read as well.

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A few years ago I gave the writing software Scrivener a try. Back then I thought it was impressive but didn’t think it was for me. I said I preferred the simplicity of a bare bones word processor.

I gave Scrivener another shot several months ago and discovered this time I really liked it. Since then I’ve been working on a few writing projects using the software. The ability to organize everything from notes, drafts, research and the final product, all in one program is very convenient.

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If you’ve been wanting to trade in that dusty old Sony Reader for a shiny new Amazon Kindle, you’re in luck. Amazon has extended their trade-in program to include non-Amazon e-readers.

According to TechCrunch you can get anywhere from $25 to $135, depending on the condition and model of your old e-reader. Instead of cold-hard cash, Amazon will send your payment in the form of a gift card.

The process is relatively simple: Just enter in your product’s information and Amazon will give you a pre-paid shipping label to print out (that’s right, free shipping!). Throw the package in the mail and you’re set.

If you’re short of cash, like I frequently am, this might be a good way to help finance that new Kindle Fire you’ve been drooling over since it has been announced. Or, you can blow all the money on ebooks. Either way, you can’t go wrong.

Amazon wants authors to deliver their books directly to readers by cutting out the middleman: Large publishing houses. The largest online retailer has been doing just that for a few years now by allowing authors to self-publish their ebooks and sell them in the massive Kindle ebookstore.

But Amazon is getting into the “traditional” publishing game. They are scouting for authors, offering them contracts, and then promoting and selling their books. Amazon is the agent, publisher and bookseller – all wrapped up into one.

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Ebooks are taking libraries by storm. After all, why buy an ebook, read it once and then archive it when you can “rent” an ebook at no cost. And forget about checking out an actual print book. Those things are like dinosaurs.

Okay, I might be exaggerating a little, but not much. According to Mediabistro, ebook checkouts from libraries are up significantly from last year:

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Blackberry maker Research In Motion has been under fire the last few days for the worldwide service outage, that appeared to be resolved early this morning. While it did affect me, I’m not a super-user, so I was able to get through the outage unscathed.

Almost a year ago I traded in my 1st generation iPhone for a Blackberry Pearl. My reasons for leaving the iPhone boiled down to a lot of features I didn’t use and buying a lot of apps that also went unused. To a lesser extent, I also wanted to experiment with something new.

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While ebooks have surged in popularity over the last few years, there’s one group that has adopted ebooks the quickest than any other group: Romance fans.

The romance genre has always sold a lot of books. And the consumers of romance are all too eager to eat up the latest titles. One big reason why, I think, romance sells so many books (aside from the “sex sells” factor) is because so many books are a part of a series. You read one, you have to read more.

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There’s a new children’s tablet computer on the market. This one is from Vtech, called the InnoTab. In early September I wrote about the LeapPad, a similar tablet with similar features.

The Innotab has a small-ish 5″ touch screen and runs of four AA batteries. It’s also built with a rugged plastic case that can withstand all the temper tantrums a kid can throw.

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