Read and E-Book week 2010 will be held from March 7 to 13.  This initiative started in 2004 by Rita Toews and friends is now in its sixth edition.  While E-Books were still a novelty in 2004, they are rapidly becoming  mainstream.  When Fortune magazine makes E-reading the cover of its current issue, you know that E-Books have become a major publishing form.

Sharing-Books was conceived as an E-Book publisher from day one.  We believed that readers would separate the concept of book from "paper".  Books are a collection of thoughts expressed with words.  Whether these words are printed on paper or displayed electronically does not change the story or ideas the writer is sharing. 

As a baby boomer I remember fondly the smell of a new paper book.  By contrast today's kids will remember discovering the features of their new electronic devices.  When we wrote our original business plan in 2007, we envisioned delivering children E-Books to gaming devices like the Nintendo DS.  A little over 2 years later the humble Nintendo becomes an E-Reader. 

We are entering a new and exciting phase in the deployment of the e-reading industry.  The devices are becoming much better.  The industry is grouping around a few distribution models, closed store/device systems like the Kindle that mimic the very successful ITunes/Ipod combination, open e-readers that accept a variety of format and allow sourcing of books from any vendor, and in our opinion the biggest market will be multipurpose devices like the IPhone acquiring e-reading capabilities.  I started reading E-Books on my first smart phone, a Palm Treo, in 2002, so I am partial to the phone/PDA/e-reader combination.

What is more interesting to us is how the E-Book publishing business will look like in years to come.  There is a consolidation play by giant channels like Amazon and Google.  There is price point resistance from large  books publishers like MacMillan and the Murdoch empire who want more money for their content.  Small publishers like us welcome their initiative as it protects the value of the E-Books we publish.  So we are optimistic that we will be able to realize more value for our book creators.

E-Books offer greater value-add possibilities than paper books.  It is much easier to vary the format of an E-Books than a paper book.  New free software like Blio will make it easier to move E-Books across software and hardware platforms and to transform E-Books into audio-books or other forms friendly to the visually challenged.  Children E-Books will become especially fun as book creators master how to insert in their books hyperlinks to sites that add to the e-reading experience.  Book creators will also learn to add short videos and sound effects that will make E-Books a richer learning experience and become an interesting alternative to the video-games children have in their hand held electronic devices.

So let's celebrate E-Book Week as we can all benefit from the emergence of this new way to share stories and ideas.

Labels: children books, children's ebooks, digital publishing industry, e-books, e-readers

In the famous Peanuts cartoon by Charles M. Schulz, the character Schroeder is seen playing his piano, often recreating a tune of Ludvig van Beethoven's. Many times, the same song comes out, but somehow, he hits the right series of notes to emphasize his progress or frustration.

As we begin the New Year, we too at Sharing-Books continue to play our music. Our IT department regularly meets to find ways of enhancing the site. Our Classics department scours the globe in search of material that will somehow strike a chord in the minds and hearts of our readers. And of course, our Executive Team meet with those interested in supporting literacy and raising up the next generation of readers.

Our creators have brought you lively illustrations, such as those created by Catherine York and James Stroud, as well as topical written material that addresses the human condition. And that is to only name a few of our creators! Together, we create a global publishing company that has released over 150 e-books and posters in 2009.

So just as a pianist takes a fraction of a moment before beginning the next song, we encourage all of you to consider how truly splendid that feat is! It started with a single note, followed by a second hand on the keyboard, only to be joined by yet more players and more instruments. It seems only fitting of course, to encourage you to listen to this piece by Beethoven, as we ring in the New Year. Please join us in humming, singing and conducting this rendition of Ode To Joy.

Labels: Beethoven, Catherine York, children's ebooks, children's illustrators, children's writers, ebooks, James Stroud, Ode To Joy, Peanuts

Some of you have asked what it is like to be a book fox. Recently, we had an opportunity to go in search of books along Portobello Road in London UK. A posh part of London, Notting Hill regained familiarity with the release of Notting Hill starring Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts.

From Notting Hill Tube station, it is a 20 minute walk, crossing cobbled streets, and sniffing floral holiday wreaths now available for sale at local market stalls. At 2 pm on a Friday afternoon, the market is a press as mothers push strollers, their toddlers all bundled up in bright fleece toques. There are cafes and pubs with funny names, like The Fat Badger - a remarkably fitting site to stage a scene from the classic Wind in the Willows. And of course there was the obligatory sausage shop featuring all kinds of yummy edibles for our tummies.

We returned to the street to begin our quest. We weeded through one stack, only to begin another. Just where will we find this one book with that particular illustrator? Will this one book matter to one child or thousands? Moving to the next stall, one vendor was kind enough to show us his collection of Grimm's Fairy Tales that was illustrated by a spooky 20th century artist. Another offered to help us search for additional classics via estate sales. Meeting these people and unearthing chapter books and picture books in varying conditions is, for us, akin to an archeological dig at the base of the Egyptian pyramids! Despite the dirty pages and the cold November air, the process is oh so thrilling!

In the end, we found some beautifully illustrated books, courtesy of a renowned jeweller. It turns out their family had been collecting them for years. We would like to take the time to thank the jewelers Cox & Power and invite you to shop at their Marleybone High Street location. Tony, Vicci and Rachel will be more than happy to help you.

Labels: children's ebooks, Cox and Power, e-books, entrepreneurs, jewelry, Portobello market, sausages

We are delighted to note that we have delivered over 20,000 e-books to children around the world. By our own (very unscientific) estimate, each book averages 5 readers when we include the classrooms where they are used. So we believe that over 100,000 young readers around the world have enjoyed the work of our book creators.

We are thankful for our book creators who believe in what we want to accomplish and who join us with their creative work. The joy we have each time we read new books submitted by our creators make all the effort to put this project together worthwhile.

Labels: children books, children's ebooks, e-books

A.A. Milne, Creator of Winnie the Pooh, published in 1927 a series of poems in Now We are Six.
While Christopher Robin is older than Sharing-Books, we are delighted to be one year old. This year has introduced a host of authors and illustrators from around the globe to you, the reader. In fact, we have received such attention that Sharing-Books is likely the largest publisher of new children's books in Canada.


There has been plenty to celebrate and we did so, bringing together those in the local area. Sharon Davis of Room to Read, Vancouver Chapter joined us and Pierre Lapointe, CEO turned our minds to the coming year. Of course, as any child will tell you, the most important part of the evening was the cake! Lit with sparklers and iced with lots of gooey icing, it was a grand way to celebrate our first year live, giving us plenty of sugar to fuel our plans for the future. So do join us in singing Happy Birthday and stay tuned for upcoming features to enhance your child's reading experience!

Labels: children's ebooks, e-books, e-readers, ebooks, Sharing-Books

October through February is often known as flu season. Exposed to a host of germs in classrooms around the world, posters in libraries and doctors' offices alert parents and caregivers to ensure their children wash their hands and cover their mouths when they cough. Sometimes, those children who need to be tucked up in bed are back in school, still infected, because their parents have to rush back to work. Those, at home, find themselves covered in blankets, noses running and glands swollen, and feeling all crotchety. As a young boy, the famous author Robert Louis Stevenson often found himself ill at home, under the careful eye of Nurse Cunningham. Like your children, he watched the world outside his window go by.

Thankfully for us, Stevenson captured some wonderful insights into his world of Victorian England, and created such memorable poems as "The Land of Counterpane" and "Picture-Books in Winter." Published in our 1907 edition of A Child's Garden of Verses, it has been a popular read for many years. So today, give your tyke a crisp copy to read under the covers with a flashlight. He will keep warm, and before long he will be imagining himself as 'the captain of a tidy little ship', as he slumbers off to "The Land of Nod."

Labels: A Child's Garden of Verses, children's books, children's ebooks, flu season, picture books, Robert Louis Stevenson, The Land of Nod

"Of course, a book is more than the sum of its materials. It is an artifact of the human mind and hand."
Written in the recent book People of the Book, Geraldine Brooks' words echo not only throughout her book, but also in the library of the Classics Collection that is Sharing-Books. Tom Brown's School Days is an example of a book, whose story is found, not only between its covers, but in the travels of one woman.
Originally a prize for attendance, the second hand book followed its current owner from the Australian sheep farm of her birth, safely escaped the destruction of World War I, through the heights of the Roaring Twenties in English upper class society, and on through the epic battle of World War II. It stayed with her during the British Raj in India where she witnessed two births: one of a blonde boy and the other, the birth of the nation that is now India. It escaped under the protection of a Gurkha lieutenant colonel and now resides in a pastoral community in Lincolnshire where the book has enthralled two succeeding generations of her family.
The next stop for Tom Brown's School Days is as a download in your home. As you read through the pages, you will notice smudges, folded pages, and traces of bits. We have chosen to capture the weathered, golden pages of all our classics that come under our protection. We thought you too would treasure reading each story, just as they have come to us.

Labels: Arthur Hughes, bullying, children's ebooks, classics, ebooks, Gurkhas, Rugby, Sydney Prior Hall, Tom Brown's School Days