Amazon.com is offering a free subscription to the digest edition of Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine is now exclusively available in the Kindle Store. Kindle customers who subscribe will get access to all of the magazine’s editorial content — editor’s recommendations, “Curiosities” (odd books of enduring interest), film reviews, book reviews, cartoons and humor, and “Coming Attractions” (highlights of each issue) — along with one short story, all at no cost.

The number of eBooks sold continues to grow after surpassing traditional book sales in early 2011. In addition to the online retail industry, dominated by Amazon, there is an exponentially growing appetite for free eBooks. While Google has been successful with “Google Books”, it seems that they aren’t the only player and certainly don’t have the last word in digital publishing despite the media attention they command.

Google Books surpassed the 2.5 million mark for eBook downloads, according to The Huffington Post on June 1st, 2011.

USA TODAY has expanded its coverage of books with its new online destination books.usatoday.com. The new site allows consumers to discover, discuss, share, preview and purchase books online. It is available on computers, smart phones and tablets.

Books.usatoday.com provides readers with an interactive experience to browse books across a variety of genres, including fiction, non-fiction and children’s books; read reviews; and, share personal recommendations in conversations that also allow for tweeting about books or responding to other readers’ comments.

Unique to the books.usatoday.com site is the opportunity for consumers to now preview a book from the USA TODAY Best-Selling Books list and purchase it from a vendor of their choice, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, the iBookstore or IndieBound, an association of independent booksellers.

USA TODAY’s respected Best-Selling Books list ranks the 150 top-selling titles each week, based on analysis of sales from such U.S.

By Shelley Hitz

Interested in self-publishing books? If you have a website, you can re-purpose your top articles into a book. Think about it. After you write heaps of quality articles and lots of traffic on your website, why not reuse it, all the same articles in a printed book, PDF eBook, audio books and Kindle book getting the most out of your time and work.

These are My 8 Painless Steps to Self Publishing Books:

1. Write down an layout for the book chapters with the top articles from your website.
2. Enter your book in a Microsoft Word template (or your preferred software) formatted for your preferred book size.
3. Save your book to PDF.
4. Select a book designer for your book cover or choos a DIY format.
5. Decide amongst all the publishers who you want to use to publish your book.
6. Sign up for an account with self-publishing and upload your documents, if relevant.
7. Now begin your book marketing by selling copies online at Amazon, via your own website and in person when you speak or at events.
8. Now it is the time to layout the book into a PDF ebook, audio book and Kindle book.

This is what I did with my website Teen-Beauty-Tips.Com.

By David Lambourne

I never intended to buy a Kindle; in fact I swore that I would never do so. I hated the idea of reading an entire book on a screen; I saw no justification for replacing an object I loved with something as bland and soulless as an ‘e-reader’.