Earlier this year online retailer Amazon launched its Amazon Prime service that put it up against the likes of Netflix. Now there are rumors that Amazon may extend this service to give users the access to a library of books. According to TNW Insider this will be available for a fixed monthly fee, and will be the eBook equivalent to Netflix.

It is reported that Amazon will offer publishers a big fee for taking part in the service, and in the current climate could prove highly tempting. There are already services similar to this already available such as bookswim and booksfree.com. These have been around for some time but differ as they are mainly for offline hardbacks and paperbacks.

Also there is 24symbols that has the same type of service that Amazon could be offering; the difference is at present it only offers titles that are public domain over premium bestsellers. The Kindle platform and Amazon’s strong relationships with publishers provides a unique opportunity that only Apple could match.

The service would likely prove to be hugely successful for the retail giant, and the Apple the iBook service hasn’t exactly set the world on fire. Especially considering the company’s other digital content successes.

Any such service will probably begin life in the US and hopefully start rolling out around the world. Many consumers may like the idea of paying a monthly subscription to get access to any books they want to read. Compared to buying titles if the book they choose to read turns out to be no good they can just move onto the next one.

Would you prefer to rent eBooks compared to purchasing them?

Nicholas Kolakowski from eWeek.com is reporting that since the 1st of April Kindle eBooks have sold 105 editions for every 100 print books, which includes both paperback and hardback editions. CEO of Amazon Jeff Bezos said the company had great expectations of this happening but “never imagined it would happen this quickly”.

He also said the Amazon Kindle was the biggest selling e-Reader in the world, but the company has never revealed sales figures for the device. The sale figures for the Kindle eBooks did not include free editions, and the Kindle eBooks are now selling at three times the rate of the same period last year.

The news comes shortly after it was announced that the ad-supported Kindle was now the best selling version of the device. The Kindle is beginning to face stiffer competition from other devices, as well as the applications now available for the iPad and Google Android.

Many consumers obviously want the convenience an eReader gives with having lots of books stored on an easy to carry device. It won’t be good news for the many book stores out there in the years to come though.

Do you have an eReader?

An article over at T3.com is reporting that the sales of eBooks during February accounted for sales of $90.3m. According to a report from the Association of American Publishers paperbacks saw sales of $81.2m. The jump in sales of eBooks was 202.3 percent higher compared to the same time last year.

Deputy Editor of the Bookseller – Philip Jones – thinks the UK will also catch up with the US but are currently a year behind but “are catching up quite fast”. With more tablets coming to the market this year with many of them having a built in eReaders, sales of eBooks will continue to grow at a fast rate.

But it’s the dedicated eBook readers that have developed their own successful market. This market has become pretty competitive, with devices from the likes of Amazon and Sony selling huge amounts of units. The Amazon Kindle has more than a million free books and is a cheaper alternative to tablet PCs.

Do you have an eReader?

There are a couple of things that Google’s store currently has that the Kindle one doesn’t but Kindle are expected to change that today by updating their store. One of the things is Google’s ability to read books from within the browser from any machine using their cloud system and picking up from where you last read. Now I am not much of a book reader but I am a computer guy, this sort of feature really appeals to me and the whole generation of computer minded people. You can even preview books on Google’s store for free.

No more need to be carrying books around with you whether you go with Kindle or Google, which is a great move forward. If you haven’t yet heard anything about Google’s eBook store then don’t worry, you can read about it here going head to head with Amazon and watch a video at the bottom of the article.

If you wish to read a bit more about the Kindle update then head over to digitaltrends.com where Jeffrey Van Camp has written an article by clicking here.

What do you think of Google’s ideas for moving forward? A disadvantage that I see straight away is that there is no offline download. I think they have been pretty innovative in their design but could this flaw be the thorn in their side? Let us know in the comments below.

Released by Inkstone Software the app has been designed to use book catalogs such as Baen Free Books, Feedbooks, Project Gutenberg, Smashwords, and the Internet Archive. These give users access to the classics as well as up and coming indie authors and publishers.

The books are downloaded via Wi-Fi, so can be enjoyed at anytime or anywhere without the need to have an internet connection. Users have the ability to pick one of 19 predefined color schemes, or make one of their own from thousands of available colors.

There are 23 different fonts with hundreds of font’s sizes, and a variety of margin widths, line spacing, and text justification. Portrait or landscape modes can be saved depending on user preference. A built-in speed reading test is used to work out and display how long the user takes to finish each chapter.

Books can be searched by author, from within the app by browsing categories such as action and adventure, romance, mystery, and many more. To start off the app has 22 books preloaded from authors such as Jane Austen and Agatha Christie.

MegaReader 1.0 is available worldwide on the App Store for only $1.99.iOS 3.0 or later required.

As reported from CNN, the study has come from Jakob Nielsen, who is a member of the product development consultancy Nielsen Norman Group. According to the study, reading speeds were 10.7 percent slower on the Kindle and 6.2 percent slower on the iPad than normal reading speeds.

Tests were conducted by 24 participants, who were given the same sample to read using print, an iPad and a Kindle. It took roughly 17 minutes and 20 seconds to complete the passage of text, with participants voting that the printed book of the text was the most enjoyable compared to using the iPad or Kindle.

For regular users of ebooks on both devices, what are your thoughts on this? How do you compare using an ebook to a real book?