About KNW
Kolb Net Works has expanded into electronic publishing, producing literary works for eBook readers. The company will offer eBooks in a variety of formats, including the Amazon Kindle, the Sony Reader, MobiPocket and Adobe.
Kolb Net Works has been designing and supporting business Internet web sites, as well as online marketing support for many area companies, since 1996. According to KNW President Kathy Kolb, expanding into digital publishing is a logical move for the communications company.
"I believe that Amazon.com's Digital Text Platform may well do for books what YouTube.com did for personal videos. It has the ability to open online bookshelf space to many more authors than ever before," Kolb said. "We bought a Kindle earlier this year and immediately realized what a game changer eBooks and eReaders will be during the next 10 years or so."
Working with author Robin Van Auken and other editorial experts, Kolb said the company can offer solid publishing services to authors who want to have their works available for purchase on electronic devices like the Kindle. Book-selling web sites such as Amazon now allow publishers to upload books for sale directly to their product database, providing authors with a massive audience and valuable user/editorial reviews.
Recent financial projections by Barron's report that 3 million readers will be using Kindle by 2011. Five major U.S. universities – Princeton University, Arizona State University, Case Western Reserve University, Reed College, and Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia – are partnering with Amazon to try out the Kindle DX, Amazon’s latest digital reading device, to replace traditional textbooks in the classroom.
Kindle delivered e-books would provide students with a significant cost savings and provide them with an additional flexible learning tool. In addition to cutting textbook costs and reducing the weight in students’ backpacks, digital textbooks are available for download wirelessly and reduce the amount of paper used to print and distribute textbooks.
Feedback by students has been overwhelmingly positive because electronic texts provide the capabilities they have come to expect – they’re searchable, flexible, easy to annotate, and less expensive than traditional texts.
Kolb has served on the Williamsport / Lycoming Chamber of Commerce board and the Williamsport Planning Commission.
Related References:
Amazon Kindle:
http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Amazons-Wireless-Reading-Generation/dp/B001...
Wikipedia article about the Kindle:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Kindle
Prediction of a one Billion dollar market by 2010: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10014387-93.html
3 million Kindles to be sold by the end of 2010?
http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2009/08/10/amazon-cowen-sees-3m...
A proposal to provide a Kindle (or similar reader) to all US kids:
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2009/07/15/a-plan-to-put-an-ama...
Overview of devices that support the ePub format of digital text: http://www.adobe.com/products/digitaleditions/devices/