Tag: ebooks

Light reading: Five books repurposed as lights

I love books. Physical books. I like reading on my kindle, and even more on my iPad. But the tactile experience of a book, and the visual thrill of a well-stocked set of shelves will keep me heading to second hand bookshops, the book depository, and whatever physical bookshop is still solvent after this year.

Turning books into lamps is now old hat. Well. I saw these ones a while ago. I meant to post them, but then I forgot. The light comes on when the book is opened.

There’s a how to, including a video, here.

I love these ones for the steampunk bulbs. I can’t imagine they’d be cheap to replace if you kicked a soccer ball, or a shoe, or some sort of miscellaneous projectile into it.

These are available on Etsy.

This one, from Suck UK is a lamp/bookmark combo.

And here’s another that has a little more spine… each lamp uses a single book.

But for something a little more classy, you could always have a crack at putting together a book chandelier (or just buy one for 440GBP).

The best bookapp to read is…

According to Gizmodo the Bible is the most represented book app on the iPhone. There are 1000+ versions to choose from (see the infographic below for a comparison with other classics.

“The Holy Bible has more than a thousand applications at the App Store. We counted up to 1001, but it was too boring to keep on going. Of those copies, not all were free. Some of the most popular works also have multiple copies, some are free, some are paid. Pride and Prejudice is one of the most popular, with 48 copies, seven of them available for a few rupees. Dracula has 34, five being paid copies for whatever reason. And so on.”

Secret network costs book publishers billions

There’s a big furore going on over the cost of eBooks now that Apple has entered the marketplace. Amazon is fighting a big publisher, Apple is wanting to charge $15 a book. It’s the neverending story.

Ebooks present all sorts of opportunities for pirates – and new law suit opportunities for publishers and distributors.

But there’s a more serious game afoot that is costing publishers billions in lost book sale revenues every year.

Apparently there are these buildings operating in most cities where you can just borrow these books for free.

These so called “libraries” are running right under our noses – often under the auspices of governments. What’s with that. This blogger has a calculation of the loss publishers face (in the US alone) if these organisations are able to continue unchecked.

Go To Hellman has computed that publishers could be losing sales opportunities totaling over $100 Billion per year, losses which extend back to at least the year 2000. These lost sales dwarf the online piracy reported yesterday, and indeed, even the global book publishing business itself.