With a summer full of beach reading (hopefully) ahead of us, we're faced with the technological dilemma of the season: How venture outside without ruining our fragile, not-amenable-to-the-elements e-reading gadgets. So what to do? The Atlantic Wire spoke with the Internet's tech experts and gadget nerds for their advice on e-reading outside like a pro.
Amazon Publishing is launching Kindle Worlds, a publishing platform that lets authors sell fan fiction based on properties like Gossip Girl. Amazon Publishing retains the rights to the works and will set the prices. So much for those 50 Shades problems.
As Amazon and Barnes & Noble are quickly discovering this year, the highbrow ideal all too often gives way to the mass-market realities. From tablets to TV shows and everything in between, the most high-minded of ideas for cultural consumption always seem to devolve toward mindless entertainment.
Today in books and publishing: News Corp. now wants to merge HarperCollins with Simon & Schuster; Sandy ruined 9,000 books in a New York store; you'll never guess which two series have sold the most Kindle books.
Today in books and publishing: Imprints shuffle at Simon & Schuster; Spider-Man musical debacle to be detailed in new book; Unitarians launch banned books club; Kindle lands in Japan.
Today in books and publishing: Conflicting takes on Why I Left Goldman Sachs; Amazon "are not pleasant people to do business with"; the genre markings of literary fiction; Animal Farm to be filmed.
Today in books and publishing: Herman Melville has his day online; a Colombian prostitute hired by the Secret Service has a book deal; Amazon coming after our children; the Asian Literary Prize loses its Man.
Today in books and publishing: Bezos confirms Kindles are a loss-leader; critics and publishers respond to Yan's Nobel; Ferlinghetti turns down Hungarian prize; Rich Dad author bankrupt.
Today in books and publishing: Emma Thompson hurls Michel Houellebecq across the room; Books-A-Million exec says he was wrongly fired; out-of-print books are an untapped e-goldmine.
This afternoon Amazon is holding a media event, where it is expected to introduce a line of new gadgetry, including an updated Kindle Fire.
Today in books and publishing: Amazon's fresh out of Kindle Fires; on the 'authenticity memoir'; states ready to end e-book suit; controversial Paterno bio sells like hotcakes.
Today in books and publishing: Cloud Atlas sweeps China; Kindle lands in India; China Miéville is cautiously optimistic; Martin Amis talks to Slate.
Today in books and publishing: The world sees the cover for J.K. Rowling's newest work, Tim Kreider's increased sales; a hotel in Britain replaces its Bibles with Kindles; and Richard Costello wins Hemingway lookalike contest on Facebook.
Unlike Apple, a company known for secrecy, Microsoft hasn't quite mastered this mysterious tech announcement thing, giving us too little information for its event later today.
State spokesman Philippe Reines explained more about how the program will work and clarified some things that aren’t included in the available public documents.
Update: A procurement contract between the State Department and Amazon worth $16.5 million over five years allows for the purchase of more than the 2,500 Kindles cited in the documents as the government's "immediate need."
Would you trust your e-reader to re-edit Tolstoy? As Fast Company's Neil Ungerleider reports, bloggers discovered that Barnes and Noble's Nook readers contain a universal find-replace on the word "Kindle,"substituting it with "Nook" in War and Peace.
Today in books and publishing: Target is kicking Amazon out of their stores, the Fifty Shades of Grey parody book boomlet is here, and Steve Coll also has a big, important piece of non-fiction out this week that isn't about Lyndon Johnson
With Microsoft putting $300,000,000 into Barnes and Noble's Nook business, the Windows 8 maker just bought itself something that could come in handy with that whole iPad killer strategy it's got going on.
Today in books and publishing: Amazon is selling Spanish language e-books, David Foster Wallace once misused a word, and you can now read Dickens with all the original ads.
The former British prime minister is writing a book about life in the year 2025, how Barnes & Noble is holding back the "post-apocalyptic world of publishing," and the fake Cormac McCarthy Twitter account has been suspended.
The co-chair of the Jaipur Literature Festival explains the decision to cancel Salman Rushdie's video speech, War Horse is a bestseller 30 years in the making, and the high cost of owning a Nook.
Today in books: Christopher Hitchens final memoir will be published simultaneously in the U.K. and U.S., a modest proposal to help authors make more money, and the "Jefferson Bible" will be back in print next month.
The European Commission announced an agressive antitrust investigation into Apple's e-book policies, leaving many to wonder the obvious: What about Amazon?
Today in books: Pippa Middleton will receive £400,000 for her party-planning book, Amazon's Kindle sales numbers remain infuriatingly vague, and The New Yorker's Adam Gopnik offers a theory on the appeal of fantasy novels.
Today in books: Mitt Romney will be the subject of a big, comprehensive biography, the size of the Kindle Million Club is getting out of control, and World War Z sells one million copies at its own pace
There are some scary privacy concerns about the Kindle Fire's browser
Low-price Kindles are made possible by turning people into purchasers of other products
With that price tag, it's easy to overlook the tablet's shortcomings
The Fire will be priced at $199, which is $300 cheaper than the iPad
Amazon is expected to launch its tablet tomorrow, here's what we know about it so far
Plus: a new manuscript from 'Mildred Pierce' author James Cain will be released next fall
Putting deals on the Kindle makes buying dangerously easy
The online retailer is in talks with publishers to launch a new e-book rental service
IKEA is redesigning their bookshelves to accommodate tchotchkes instead of hardbacks
The biggest online retailer's website redesign will change the way we shop
Plus: A new short story from Tom Rachmann is available as a Kindle Single
Edward Jay Epstein reports on his experiment in electronic self-publishing
The tech website's review of OS X Lion makes its way onto Kindle
New tablet computer with a nine-inch screen will run on Android
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