Kindle 3 is without a doubt the best “dedicated” e-book reader on the market. It has a brilliant screen and its battery can last you through an ice age. If you are lucky enough to get your Kindle 3 in the next few weeks, you want to make sure you pick up a decent case for it to keep it protected against daily accidents. These 10 Kindle 3 cases should give you a good starting place:

Cole Haan Hand-Stained Kindle cover: one of the most stylish Kindle 3 cases money can buy. Has a goatsuede interior that keeps your device safe and sound when you are on the move.

Diane von Furstenberg Kayley Canvas Clutch: designed for those of you into fashion (and reading too). It has a stain resistant finish. It can hold your business cards too.

Cole Haan Hand-Woven Patent Leather Kindle Cover: another super Cole Haan case for Kindle 3. It makes your device look more expensive than it is.

Timbuk2 Nylon Kindle Envelope Sleeve: makes your device scratch proof and can even handle some impact too. It’s TSA approved too.

TrendyDigital Folio Case for Kindle 3: an affordable case for those of you who intend to take more than just your Kindle with you on the road. It has space for your notes and cards too.

Credit: NY Times

A couple of years ago, everybody expected color-screen e-readers to be the future. That has not changed yet but companies such as Amazon and B&N are still in the process of figuring out a way to introduce such e-readers without having to jack up their prices dramatically. Color E-ink technology still needs some work and is not as cheap as it should be for Amazon to fully adopt it. For those who can’t read on a grayscale screen, there are always LCD-based devices such as The Literati. It’s a budget color e-book reader (by Sharper Image) that offers a color-screen and costs only $150. Is it worth buying? That’s another story.

At this point, The Literati is priced higher than Kindle 3 WiFi, which is curious to say the least. The color-screen feature is nice to have but not a decisive factor for most e-book fans, considering that most LCD-based e-reader fans tend to go with Apple iPad.

Here are the known specifications for this device:

In a perfect world, we all would be able to order any new product without having to worry about waiting in line. Unfortunately, things don’t work that way. Amazon had warned its customers that those Kindle units would run out. Kindle 3 is officially sold out for the month of August (soon will be for September too). Those of you who order your device today will be lucky to get it sometime in September (no exact delivery date displayed).

It is still baffling to see Amazon mishandle the demand forecast for Kindle 3. The company has done a wonderful job making Kindle the best e-book reader around. Being a bit more optimistic with its demand forecast and not making people wait for weeks is something Amazon should try.

E-books are the present and the future. Paper books may be still in demand today, but that is about to change with heavyweight authors taking their work digital. We can now count Seth Godin among those who won’t be spending all their efforts to publish their books the good old way. He recently announced that “Linchpin” will be the last book he publishes the traditional way. Seth Godin is a very smart man. We he says things people listen. Besides, there is a very good reason he is moving on:

Traditional book publishers use techniques perfected a hundred years ago to help authors reach unknown readers, using a stable technology (books) and an antique and expensive distribution system. The thing is–now I know who my readers are. Adding layers or faux scarcity doesn’t help me or you. As the medium changes, publishers are on the defensive…. I honestly can’t think of a single traditional book publisher who has led the development of a successful marketplace/marketing innovation in the last decade.

The traditional way of doing things is not the best way to move forward. Not in the age of social media, and certainly not when everybody seems to be connected to everyone else in the world.

My audience does things like buy five or ten copies at a time and distribute them to friends and co-workers. They (you) forward blog posts and PDFs. They join online discussion forums. None of these things are supported by the core of the current corporate publishing model,

Trying to get any information out of Amazon or Apple on the number of e-books they are selling can be difficult at times. There is always a lot of guesswork involved (one would not want to go with Steve Job’s or Jeff Bezos’ guesstimates). But could it be that iBooks is not as successful as some have portrayed it to be? According to J. A. Konrath, that could very well be the case:

Publishers might be looking at enriched or enhanced ebooks as their new big-ticket items to replace hardcovers. But the major ebook retailer, Amazon, isn’t set up for video. Kindle isn’t even able to do color yet. That leaves Apple, and according to my numbers Apple is a very small part of the ebook market. I sell 200 ebooks a day on Kindle. On iPad, I sell 100 a month

With all the talk about e-book readers and how great they are, it is easy to forget what has been happening in the e-book reader market in the past few months. Some of the most promising e-reader devices have died without even making it to the market (e.g. Plastic Logic Que Reader). In fact, only a small number of devices from of our e-reader list from 2009 have made it to 2010. With Amazon dropping Kindle’s price to as low as $139, things are going to get even more difficult for those small players.

It is not all doom and gloom as Ars Technica puts it, but there is no question the e-reader market is maturing:

Sprint and Hearst cancelled the Skiff e-reader, then the Plastic Logic QUE was delayed yet gain. Last month, long-time Dutch e-reader maker IREX went bankrupt—the Iliad e-reader just didn’t sell well enough in the US, and the company ran out of cash.

Ars Technica has a point about Kindle and iPad putting almost too much pressure on other e-readers. The price gap between Apple iPad and Kindle should give other companies the chance to come up with more sophisticated e-readers and compete without going head to head against Apple iPad and Amazon Kindle. There is going to be a market for multi-touch and even color e-paper readers. Players interested in those ideas need to find a way to keep their prices low enough to avoid crossing any major market segment boundaries.

In 2008, we predicted that in-book ads were inevitable for companies such as Amazon. At the time, there were discussions about Amazon charging for the wireless service it offered for free on Kindle. Things have changed since then, but we still keep hearing about e-book advertising platforms that are supposedly in the works. With what Google has accomplished with its advertising platforms, it is no wonder other companies are interested in getting their piece of the pie. The e-book industry is exploding. Apple is getting ready to release a 7 inch iPad. iPad 2 is not that much behind. B&N may have not been as successful as it was hoping with Nook, but it is going to release Nook 2 in a couple of months regardless. Kindle 3 is going to start shipping very soon. This all means that a ton of people will be holding e-book readers in their hands or consuming e-books using their computers.

The inclusion of ads in e-books is going to be a tricky proposition. e-book fans are not big fans of intrusive ads. Google has done a decent job of making its ads relevant for its visitors. e-book publishers should aim for relevance with their ads too. I agree with WSJ that sample e-books will most likely get those ads first. Will you pay $9.99 for an e-book that is full of ads (product placements and other types)?