Nov 19 2008
Stanza Makes Deals with Romance ePublishers
Stanza is an ebook reading program for the iPhone. It boasts over 500,000 downloads since it’s debut. All Romance eBooks, an etailer that carries a number of small epublishers, has it’s own bookshelf whereby it lists the titles available for download. You select the book you are interested in and an excerpt downloads to your Stanza program. The excerpts have a link at the end in blue – www.allromanceebooks.com. You touch just the link and it should take you to the allromanceebooks.com website where you can then purchase the book.
BooksonBoard is offering the entire Samhain library through its site. You go to BooksonBoard and then purchase the books to download. Apparently these books are then downloaded to your iPhone and viewable via Stanza.
Like Fictionwise.com, neither AllRomance eBooks nor BooksonBoard have an iPhone optimized site. Half the time, the BooksonBoard special iPhone landing site has a 404 error for me. No idea why. For my druthers, the AllRomance Ebook has an easier interface since it works directly through Stanza for browsing. I’ve not been able to get the “buy link” to work. Maybe they could make it bigger (I think I must have inept fingers).
But kudos to Samhain, BooksonBoard, and AllRomance Ebooks for making it easier to get content on the iPhone.
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Nov 20, 2008 @ 05:34:59
Lyrical Press is proud to say we’re also working with BooksOnBoard to make our titles available for Stanza. In fact, we’ve finalized the contract only last night!
ePub is an incredible advance in digital reading and will give eBooks a tremendous push forward. To optimize our catalog, we’re working furiously to offer our readers this format directly through our store, Once Upon A Bookstore.
Nov 20, 2008 @ 12:07:57
Lyrical Press books are currently available on Stanza through All Romance eBooks! They were part of our catalog on initial launch. We have thousands of ePub versions currently available for direct download now. Just go into the Stanza app on your iPhone.
Punch the “Online Catalog†tab. Press the “plus sign†at the bottom right hand corner of the screen and type in the name “All Romance eBooks†and then add this url beneath it…http://allromanceebooks.com/epub-feed.xml
Now press the “save button†on the top right hand corner of the screen. You should now see a “All Romance eBooks†tab under “Online Catalogâ€. Press the “All Romance eBooks†tab. You can browse categories, download and read excerpts, and click on the ADD TO CART link to purchase. After you go through the payment sequence you’ll be directed to your on-line library. There you select the ePub version. Voila! Instant eBook on your iPhone or iPod Touch.
Jane, you mention that you’d recommend that the ADD to CART link be a bit bigger. We just worked on maximizing the positioning and sizing. Thanks for the suggestion. Please check it out when you have a chance. One of the nice things about the Stanza product is the ability to customize the layout. You may already be aware of this, but if you tap the center of the screen some menus appear top and bottom. Touch the gear widget that is bottom center. That takes you to the settings menu. You can change the text color, background color, link color, font type, font size, and a bunch of other stuff. You can adjust the font size to a level that’s comfortable for you.
I encourage folks to try the application and interface, especially over the next few weeks. We’re getting comments and suggestions and fine-tuning. We really want input from users during this stage. IMHO, Stanza is a super product. I’ve been waiting for one like it for a very long time. I’m just thrilled to see all these romance novels right there for reading and purchase. Comments can be sent to lori.james @ allromanceebooks.com
Lori James
COO
All Romance eBooks