StoryBundle Gets Epic

StoryBundle fans, be sure to check out their Epic Fantasy Bundle, billed as their "best bundle yet". It includes works by Brandon Sanderson, Neil Gaman, David Farland, Tracy Hickman, and Kevin J. Anderson. 

Like all of their offerings, you can set your own price: you can get the main bundle (six ebooks) for as little as $3. For $12, you can get the three bonus ebooks, and you can choose how to allot that money between the company, the authors, and a charitable organization. 

The Epic Fantasy Bundle expires in three days, so check it out!

Ebooks are Helping the Book Industry

There's been a lot of hand-wringing over the future of the book industry, but reports of its demise are greatly exaggerated: Yahoo! Finance has a great article on how the industry is actually growing, thanks in part to ebook sales. According to the Association of American Publishers, US book publishers enjoyed revenues of $15 billion in 2012, an increase of 14% from 2008. Although print book sales shrank 8% in that time frame, ebook sales grew $68 million to $3 billion. Clearly, ebooks are making up a bigger portion of the pie. 

If you're in the market for a new reader or tablet, the Green Bay Press Gazette has a piece on which is right for you: a simple e-reader or a full tablet. 

For you gamers out there, Humble Bundle will be adding ebooks to their bundles. Humble Bundle has been selling video game bundles at whatever prices users choose, letting them split the price between Humble Bundle, the publisher, and a charitable organization. Story Bundle, which we've posted on before, adopted a similar pricing strategy for ebooks. Now Humble Bundle is getting into the book game. Their plan is to offer regular ebook and audiobook bundles along with their usual game bundles. 

Unlimited Ebook Services

One of the great things about ebooks is that they're so easy to buy. One of the crappy things about ebooks...they're so easy to buy. It's easy to ignore the price tag, click "BUY" and see it show up in your digital library as the money disappears from your bank account. It's great to be able to carry your entire library with you, but that can get pricey. Two new services have emerged that can help. 

Scribd offers a subscription service for $8.99/month. Your first month is free, and you can choose from a library of over 100,000 books. Scribd's titles tend to be older, but popular books. With just a quick glance I noticed titles from New York Times bestselling authors Pearl S. Buck, Pat Conroy, and Michael Chabon. Scribd works on Android and Apple devices, and via a Web browser for any other device. 

A new startup called Oyster offers a library of over 100,000 ebooks for $9.95. Like Scribd, the first month is free. Unlike Scribd, Oyster is only available for Apple devices. Oyster has more partnerships with small publishers but there are some big names available, such as Tolkien's The Hobbit, The Best American Short Stories, and Dr. Phil McGraw. 

What do you think? Each service offers its own unique reader and an extensive list of titles. Could either one become the Netflix of ebooks?