I’ve always maintained that ebooks and digital publishing will bring the short story back to the mainstream. For over half a century now, short fiction has taken a back seat to novels.

There used to be a time when writers could make a living writing short stories that they sold to magazines (who paid a healthy sum for quality work). F. Scott Fitzgerald financed his novels by writing short fiction, as have other writers.

Today, I think it’d be nearly impossible for a writer to make a living solely on short fiction. But with ebooks now in the mainstream, it’s a lot easier for writers to publish their short stories and for readers to consume them. And publishers are taking notice.

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Note: Can’t decide on which ebook reader is right for you? Check out my post Ebook Reader Holiday Roundup that compares the major readers on the market. You might also want to read Nook Vs. Kindle: Sharing Ebooks with Others.

Barnes & Noble’s Nook ebook reader just got a face lift when firmware 1.3 became available for Nook owners to download. This is probably the biggest and most significant firmware upgrade for Nook to date. And it’s becoming even more obvious that the largest bookseller in the United States is serious about taking on the Kindle and the Sony family of ereaders.

Here are the new Nook 1.3 features:

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Last weekend I headed to the Apple Store at my local mall for a few minutes of hands-on time with the new iPad. I’ll be honest, I’m very impressed. If I didn’t want one before, I do now. The device is sleek and fun to play with. My only general complaint is that the iPad is way too heavy. Holding it up in your hands for any length of time would be very uncomfortable.

Of course, I most looked forward to testing out iBooks, Apples new ebook app for the iPad. I opened up iBooks and opened a random book. The text is crystal clear on a white background and the page turns are smooth. When you swipe your finger to turn the page, you see the page turn over like on a real book. Pretty nifty!

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The largest book retailer in the United States is making the bold move of considering bundling ebooks and print books. Barnes & Noble, who came out with their own ereader Nook last November, will begin testing the idea within the next few months. This is according to a recent article on Publishers Weekly and the Teleread blog.

I’ve been advocating for this type of bundling for a while now. The obvious advantage is that you can read the print version in the comfort of your own home, and then take the ebook version with you while you’re on the go. This would work especially well with dinosaur-sized books like Stephen King’s Under the Dome (which I’m currently reading as an ebook). If I had bought King’s latest magnum opus as a hardcover, you certainly wouldn’t see me lugging it around so I could read a few pages in the doctor’s office waiting room.

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Over the last year I’ve talked to a lot of people with e-readers. A majority of them have the Amazon Kindle, a few Sony Readers and a handful of the new Barnes & Noble Nook. Everyone says the same thing: They love their ebook reader. Those with the Kindle or Nook, which can download ebooks wirelessly tell me that they read a lot more with the e-reader than before.

Surprisingly (at least to me), the one subject that never comes up is DRM. I’ve “educated” a lot of newbies to the world of ebooks about the dangers of DRM, and most simply aren’t that worried about it. Their main concern is ease-of-use. Downloading an ebook via

Oh Apple, how you disappoint me. It appears that the new iBooks app for the newly announced iPad will be bogged down with DRM, making it hard (if not impossible) to share ebooks you buy from Apple. I’ve had a hard time getting specifics, but I found a few reputable blogs posting the same thing.

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Did you honestly think I’d go without writing a post about the newest cool gadget from Apple? Don’t worry, I’m not turning Brad’s Reader into a fanboy site, but the iPad has tremendous implications for the world of ebooks. Will it be the long awaited ‘Kindle killer’? I don’t know.

For the last year or so (maybe even longer) there have been rumors that Apple would eventually release a tablet device. That day has come. At first glace, iPad is a beefed up version of the iPhone/iPod Touch. But under the hood the iPad is impressive. I want onto the MacRumors blog and here’s what they had to say:

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Book publishers are still struggling to figure out a way to deal with ebook pirates in a way that will not alienate the average ebook reader. The music industry did a very crappy job of this, and they are paying the price.

In general, the publishers believe that ebooks strip sales from print books (of course, print books are more expensive) and that ebooks are so easy to pirate, they need to be loaded with draconian DRM to protect the financial interests of the publishing company and the author.

I think that these publishers are deluding themselves. Ebooks can help drive sales of print books and ebooks, in the end, are more profitable because of the ‘infinite supply’ theory. Furthermore, DRM has done little to stop pirates. DRM only serves to keep honest readers from buying an ebook.

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One of my biggest frustrations with reading ebooks is how they are formatted. I’m not talking about the file type (i.e. Epub, PDF, PDB, lrf, mobi, etc), I’m talking about how the ebook looks on the device’s screen. Like most other things with ebooks, there is no standard, at least not yet.

Right now I’m reading Stephen King’s new novel Under the Dome (aff link) as an ebook – one I purchased from Sony’s ebook store for my Sony Pocket Edition. When I first opened the ebook on my reader, I had to flip through about 10 pages of the usual copyright stuff, acknowledgments, a page with just the title on it (lest I forget what I’m reading between opening the ebook and clicking through those first few pages).

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Sometimes I just want to throw my hands up in the air and give up. I’m talking about those publishers and authors who are paranoid about their books being pirated if they’re released as ebooks. This ‘strategy’ is not very business smart. Why? Because when a publisher/author refuses to release a book in ebook format for fear of pirating, it gets pirated anyway. I’ve pointed this out in one of my most commented-on posts J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the definition of irony.

Now we can add Stephen King into the mix (yes, that Stephen King, the one who wrote an exclusive ebook for the new Kindle he helped promote). His newest novel ‘Under the Dome’ was released in ebook format several weeks after the print release of the book. Publishers didn’t want the lower ebook price to eat away at the higher hard cover price. Within days of the print release, pirated ebooks of ‘Under the Dome’ were circulating around the internet. In turn, this ate away at print and ebook sales.

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