Amazon.com's Best Books of the Year So Far

The Best Books of the Year So Far are hand-picked by Amazon.com Books editors and represent their favorite titles in an overall Top 10, plus 10 picks each in twelve popular categories. Here’s the Top 10 books of the year so far:

• “Bossypants” by Tina Fey: Like the author herself, Fey’s autobiography is short, messy and impossibly funny.

John Locke becomes the first indie-author to sell a million ebook!

John Locke is the newest member of the “Kindle Million Club,” and the first independently published author to receive this distinction.  As of June 19th, John Locke has sold 1,010,370 Kindle books using Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP).

Starbucks Digital Network Debuts New Content

Starbucks has introduced new additions to its Starbucks Digital Network, in partnership with Yahoo! The new additions are The Economist, ESPN Insider Rumor Central, Marvel Digital Comics and Mediabistro. Launched on Oct. 2010, the network continues to serve up a collection of hand-picked premium news, entertainment and lifestyle content along with local insights and events. Powered by free Wi-Fi, it’s accessible via laptops, tablets and smartphones in nearly 6800 U.S. company-operated Starbucks stores. Today’s line-up gives free access to premium content covering global news, sports, comics and careers.

Nora Roberts Joins the Kindle Million Club

As per Amazon, Nora Roberts (a bestseller at Amazon for 15 years) has become the third author to sell over 1 million Kindle books, becoming the third member of the “Kindle Million Club.” As of Jan 12, 2011, Nora Roberts has sold 1,170,539 Kindle books under her name and her pseudonym J.D. Robb.

The Kindle Million Club recognizes authors whose books have sold over 1 million paid copies in the Kindle Store. Stieg Larsson, author of the Millennium Trilogy, was the first author to hit the 1 million mark. James Patterson, author of more than 65 books that span the genres of suspense, fantasy, romance, historical fiction and children’s, was the second author to join the Kindle Million Club.

Amazon Announces Its New Kindle Book Lending Program

Dear Publisher,

We are excited to announce Kindle book lending (amazon.com/kindle-lending). The Kindle Book Lending feature allows users to lend digital books they have purchased through the Kindle Store to their friends and family. Each book may be lent once for a duration of 14 days and will not be readable by the lender during the loan period.

Kobo enjoyes its highest eBook download rate ever

Kobo, the only pure-play global eReading service built on an open platform, revealed its Holiday 2010 sales figures. This Christmas, readers around the world received new eReaders and iPads and other eReading devices under their tree.

Over a million people connected to Kobo, and hundreds of thousands of devices were activated each day since Christmas Eve, fuelling the highest eBook download rate in the company’s history.

Readers chose Kobo this Christmas, with the popular easy-to-use Kobo Wireless eReader, dozens of compatible eReaders, top-rated applications for iPad, iPhone, Blackberry, Android, and one of the largest catalogues in the world with over 2.2 million eBooks, newspapers and magazines.

The Story of Pierre Omidyar (eBay Founder) Hits the Comics Scene

In my Arabic blog (blog.shabayek.com), I write a lot about entrepreneurs and their success stories. Lately, a blog reader and friend asked me to write for little ones as well. I thought about for too long, and found that the best way to approach youngsters is through comics and graphics novels.