Note: I began writing this post in early August, before my blog got hacked, so it was put on hold. I decided to finish the post and publish it anyway, even though it’s a little outdated.

Just how desperate are college students to save money? It appears they are very desperate. They are so desperate that 73% of college students in a recent study said they’d give up sex to buy an ebook version of their textbooks instead of the traditional (more expensive) print:

College students dislike textbooks so much that 73% said they would give up dating, sex, or something else in their life just to buy an electronic version instead of a hardbound copy. This came from a survey by Kelton Research which was sponsored by education software startup Kno, so you can imagine how pleased they are with the results.

The study also said that 63% of students said they’d study more if they didn’t have to lug those heavy textbooks everywhere. I’m not sure how a lighter load translates into more studying, but I guess some students will find any reason to avoid studying.

As much as I love ebooks and as much as I evangelize their magical powers, I’m not quite sold on ebooks being used as textbooks. When I need to study from a book, I do prefer print.

I do think e-textbooks will overtake their print counterparts as demand for lower price texts continues to increase. College students are cash-strapped as it is, so any savings, especially with ridiculously overpriced textbooks, would be a very welcome relief.

Whether or not I’d personally be willing to give up sex for lower cost e-textbooks, well…

I was in the locker room at my local gym last night after an invigorating swim, getting ready to go home. When I’m in the locker room I usually try to get in and get out as fast as possible.

But as I was changing, I couldn’t help but overhear two guys with lockers close to mine talking about the downfall of Borders Booksellers. They lamented how sad it was that the chain had gone bankrupt (which I agree, it is sad). Then they listed, what they thought, were the reasons for Borders’ downfall:

1. Apple’s iPad

2. Ebooks in general

3. Amazon.com

I desperately wanted to tell them that they were wrong. Dead wrong. I wanted to tell them that Borders began their descent into bankruptcy back in the 90s. That it was a slow fall.

My general shyness in public, and my strict rule about not talking to other guys changing in the locker room, prevented me from saying anything. That, and I was in a hurry to get home. If I was a good promoter, however, I would have had a business card with this blog on it and I would have told them to read my blog.

While this was only one isolated incident, I do see it as further anecdotal evidence that people are blaming ebooks (and Amazon) for the fall of Borders. I’ve written many posts here about why Borders went belly-up.

Barnes & Noble issued a press release today announcing a Nook Color firmware upgrade to 1.3 and the bookseller is adding interactive editions of popular magazines. These periodicals will be optimized for the Nook Color’s display and offer bonus features.

They also issued a few other announcements:

New York, New York – August 23, 2011 – Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world’s largest bookseller, announced today it is enhancing its best-in-class NOOK Newsstand, giving NOOK Color customers even more interactive versions of the country’s favorite magazines and newspapers. With the addition of top titles including FORTUNE, PEOPLE, SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, TIME, Parents and Fitness magazines, Barnes & Noble now offers more top 100 magazines than any other digital newsstand service. These newly added titles include a selection of interactive special editions optimized for NOOK Color’s stunning 7-inch color touchscreen with all the print magazine content along with an exciting array of bonus features. Print subscribers to FORTUNE, PEOPLE, SPORTS ILLUSTRATED and TIME can enjoy the NOOK Magazine(TM) versions on their NOOK Color at no additional cost. These new magazines and periodicals – totaling more than 200 – along with other enhancements can be enjoyed by NOOK Color customers through a free software update available at www.nookcolor.com/update or provided over the air (OTA) to customers connected to Wi-Fi beginning this week.

An Even Richer Reading Experience

With the version 1.3 software update, millions of NOOK Color customers will get more from their favorite magazines than ever before. Starting with special edition versions of FORTUNE, PEOPLE, SPORTS ILLUSTRATED and TIME, Time Inc. will make all 21 of its U.S. titles including Real Simple, InStyle, Entertainment Weekly and Cooking Light available on NOOK Color by the end of the year. Additional special edition versions are expected this fall from Better Homes and Gardens and others. These NOOK Magazine special editions offer customers all of the great content in the current print edition, along with a host of extras, built right into the pages to get more of the story – from videos and audio podcasts, animations, photo galleries and other bonus features. With these embedded multimedia enhancements, magazine lovers will be able to watch celebrity interviews, see the week’s sports highlights, listen to podcasts, take quizzes, get how-to’s on arts and crafts, and even learn new exercises with fitness videos to stay in shape. These special editions also feature a portrait-centric reading experience that’s fun and simple to use, as well as the ability to get to desired content quicker. Just tap the article promoted right on the magazine cover or in the table of contents.

“We’re proud to work with leading periodical publishers to deliver an unmatched selection of bestselling digital magazines to NOOK Color customers,” said Jonathan Shar, Vice President and General Manager of digital newsstand at Barnes & Noble. “With more than 200 of the top periodicals available in NOOK Newsstand for NOOK Color, Barnes & Noble continues to provide customers with the best digital periodical collection.”

More Periodicals, Across More Devices

In addition to the six new special edition magazines available on NOOK Color, NOOK Newsstand now offers an even wider variety of popular titles including new additions such as Ladies’ Home Journal, Traditional Home, Siempre Mujer, Smithsonian Magazine, The Knot and more. Engaging digital magazines are offered in rich color, featuring Barnes & Noble’s innovative ArticleView(TM) which allows customers to customize the article text to their favorite reading style.

NOOK Color and NOOK(TM) device customers will also find an even greater selection of major market daily newspapers with many recently added titles. All periodicals are available for subscription with a 14-day free trial or via single copies. NOOK device customers can also enjoy Time and Fortune in digital versions, designed for NOOK’s crisp E Ink(TM) display. And most NOOK Newsstand titles are also accessible to iPad(TM) and Android(TM) tablet owners using the free NOOK for iPad(TM) and NOOK for Android(TM) reading applications (www.bn.com/freenookapps).

NOOK Color v1.3 Now Available

Through its latest free NOOK Color firmware update, Barnes & Noble has made ongoing enhancements for Wi-Fi connectivity, other performance improvements and is adding a new feature to give parents and organizations the much-requested ability to disable the built-in Web browser. The NOOK Color v1.3 software update is available at no cost via immediate manual download at www.nookcolor.com/update. A free over-the-air (OTA) update will begin rolling out to customers connected to Wi-Fi beginning this week.

Experience the NOOK Newsstand special interactive editions and other great new content at the NOOK Boutique(TM) or display in one of Barnes & Noble’s more than 700 bookstores across the country, hundreds of Barnes & Noble College bookstores or by visiting www.nookcolor.com. NOOK Color, along with NOOK devices, can also be found at Best Buy, Walmart, Staples, Books-A-Million, OfficeMax, and Fred Meyer stores.

 

One strong selling point of ebooks has been they can be enhanced, meaning, authors can add links to related websites and even videos, audio, music and anything else you wouldn’t find in a print book.

I’ll admit, even I promoted this idea as a step forward in the reading experience. But as I’ve been reading more and more ebooks though, my thoughts have shifted on the subject.

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There’s more good news for ebooks: Publishers Weekly is reporting that ebook sales for the month of May jumped 147%. At the same time, print sales have continued to decline.

Not much else to say here other than I’m not surprised. I think we’ve reached the tipping point where ebooks will continue to overtake print book sales.

Here’s the brief Publishers Weekly article:

All major adult print segments—hardcover, paperback and mass market—showed a decline in sales in May, according to the AAP’s monthly sales report. While e-books showed a steep uptick of 146.9% for the month, bringing in $73.4 million in sales, adult hardcovers dropped 38.2%, adult paperbacks dropped 14.3%, and adult mass market fell 39.4%. For the calendar year, e-books brought in $389.7 million in sales, a 160.1% climb over the same period 2010.

The few bright spots for the month, on the print side, came from YA paperbacks, which saw an uptick of 4.7% for the month; university press paperbacks, up 3.4%; and religion books, which were up 21.6%.

I found this great video review of the Amazon Kindle (3rd generation) – the same one I have. It’s one thing to read my raves about the Kindle, but quite another to see a video of it in action.

This review shows you all the features of the Kindle, and even does a side-by-side comparison of this latest generation to the first Kindle that came out in 2007.

This video comes from our good friends at CNET. Enjoy!

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AT&T is partnering with Amazon to sponsor a Kindle 3G for a new low price of $139. The eReader will be ad-supported (or as Amazon calls it “With special offers”).

The new Kindle deal was announced today in this press release:

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I’ve written a lot about the concept of “free” on this blog: Give stuff away and make more money. The word “free” is a very loaded word that has a huge psychological impact on consumers. After all, who can pass up a free offer?

US convenience store chain 7-Eleven is reaping the financial rewards of the “free” concept. Since today’s date is 7/11, it only makes sense that they should have some kind of special promotion. They do; and if you’re a Slurpee fan, you’re in luck.

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People tend to read more ebooks than they did with print. At least, that’s what my own anecdotal evidence has shown. I know I’ve been reading a lot more since I began reading ebooks back in 2007.

What kind of ebooks are people reading? It seems that genre fiction is winning – that guilty pleasure we indulge in to take brief escapes from our daily lives.

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Somehow this NYT article about using ebooks to sell more print books slipped through the cracks of my Instapaper reading list. The idea about using ebooks and print together is hardly new, although it hasn’t received much attention and publishers haven’t appeared to take it seriously.

Until now.

According to the article, Algonquin Books will be giving away discounted ebooks when customers buy their trade paperbacks:

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