One shortcoming of Stanza iPhone is that there is currently no good way to get books off of the device once they are on there. This is especially a problem when something goes wrong with the Apple update process when installing a new version of Stanza; if the update process goes awry, a user's entire library can get wiped out. This has been known to happen with especially large libraries.

The 6 books available for free in the Random House Catalog on Stanza iPhone/iPod Touch include:

• Full Moon Rising by Keri Arthur
• Changelings by Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough
• Perdido Street Station by China Mieville
• Templar Legacy by Steve Berry
• Starfist: First to Fight by David Sherman and Dan Cragg
• Demon Awakens by R. A. Salvatore

Random House and Lexcycle hope you enjoy these books and authors. These books are only available for a limited time so get them while you can.

There are handful of languages out there where the text is written right-to-left (RTL) where the writing starts on the right side of the page and finishes on the left. Stanza iPhone / iPod Touch doesn't officially support RTL as we haven't done enough testing on it but we are starting to get reports of Stanza working quite well with RTL languages e.g., Hebrew and Arabic.

I wanted to communicate some of the common book settings used by our RTL language readers:
Layout - Alignment = Right
Controls - Left Screen Tap = Next Page
Controls - Right Screen Tap = Previous Page

Stanza has been selected by O'Reilly Media as a Best iPhone App, and is featured in O'Reilly’s upcoming book, Best iPhone Apps: A Guide for Discriminating Downloaders, due to release in July, 2009.

We are very excited to announce that Lexcycle has been acquired by Amazon.com!

It has been an amazing experience to see Stanza grow out of our brainstormed ideas into one of the most downloaded iPhone applications. Throughout this period we have attempted to listen to and innovate for our customers to provide a great ebook reading experience.

Following her Orange Prize shortlisting, Bloomsbury Publishing is making Kamila Shamsie’s Burnt Shadows available as a FREE download (UK only) for 24 hours from 12 noon, Wednesday 22nd April via Stanza iPhone and iPod Touch users. UK iPhone and iPod Touch users can download Stanza at the iTunes App Store or from http://getstanza.lexcycle.com/.

To download Burnt Shadows simply open the Online Catalog from Stanza and tap the first item in the catalog. Hurry as this free giveaway ends at noon on April 23rd.

Lexcycle will be at the London Book Fair in Stand Y612 in the Digital Zone. Stop by and say hello or attend one of the 3 sessions where COO Neelan Choksi will be speaking:

• 19 April - 13:00 - 18:00 - Earls Court One, Level 1, Cromwell Room -
  Digital Conference: Strategies for Digital Publishing
• 20 April - 17:00 - 18:00 - Thames Room -
  Digital Publishing and the EPUB Standard
• 21 April - 12:15 - 12:45 - Digital Zone Theater -
  

We recently announced a relationship with Circle of Seven Productions where we are making Book Trailers available via Stanza. We are very excited about making Book Trailers available via Stanza because it highlights the advantages of the iPhone as a platform for discovery of new books and as a great environment for reading books. Can you imagine watching a Book Trailer on a monochrome screen?

Thank you to all who supported Read an E-Book Week (March 8 - 14). Over 33,000 different Stanza users visited the Read an E-Book Week catalog nearly 45,000 times. Those who visited the catalog had access to 32 new e-books for free for the week in addition to the more than 50,000 free e-books that are always available on Stanza.