I looked at the Sony PRS 500 and it looks promising. I see it can read pdfs will it read mobipocket books?
E-Books/Do People Read Them?
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http://www.teleread.org/blog/
is worth a look for anyone interested in ebooks.
I think the issue of DRM and format standardisation is bigger than the issue of screen quality. E.g. I'm happy to read ebooks on my Palm T5, but I'm not happy to buy DRM'd books that I might not be able to use on a future device--unless the ebook is priced as a throwaway item, which they generally are not.
is worth a look for anyone interested in ebooks.
I think the issue of DRM and format standardisation is bigger than the issue of screen quality. E.g. I'm happy to read ebooks on my Palm T5, but I'm not happy to buy DRM'd books that I might not be able to use on a future device--unless the ebook is priced as a throwaway item, which they generally are not.
In my honest opinion I think E-books are the wave of the future. Stephen King was one of the first to try this market--not sure if it was very lucrative for him, but he tried. But I remember when E-books got their start some five or six years ago (could be longer)
However, there isn't anything better than having a hardbound book on your shelf..Still though, if you are out of room what better way than to still be able to read them?
I do think though more Erotica, Romantica are available in E-books only. There are others, but you see more of the prior than anything else.
However, there isn't anything better than having a hardbound book on your shelf..Still though, if you are out of room what better way than to still be able to read them?
I do think though more Erotica, Romantica are available in E-books only. There are others, but you see more of the prior than anything else.
Thanks for the link huw. Good stuff. Aspiring, I agree that ebooks may well be one of the big things of the future. I for one, don't keep novels around. I can't I have so many reference books, I don't have room for them. I give them away. Ebooks would suite me fine ( I think) with the right reader.
(edited for spelling, inspite of spell check)
(edited for spelling, inspite of spell check)
BTW, from what I've read, Stephen King didn't do well with his first ebook, but perhaps he was just ahead of his time. I see many of the same books I see in print available as ebooks. There must be profit in it.
The additional effort to make electronic versions (once you have ebook rights plus all the files needed for a paper version) is trivial, so yes there must be a profit in it.the1dsquared said:
However, the market is fragmented in terms of readers, formats and distributors (particularly now with the Amazon/Lightning Source ebook-divorce). The more it fragments, the less rewarding it is for publishers and readers to deal with, and the slower the commercial ebook market will grow. In the meantime, ebook piracy (based on scans of paper books) will continue to thrive.
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It's not just marketing, it's the price. I refuse to pay 100s of dollars for a "book" that I can't take in the bathtub, or leave in the sand on the beach or throw in my bag. On top of that, I would bet that, much like other electronics they will use a proprietary format and eventually become obsolete, requiring me to purchase a new reader that may or may not read the same book files as my old one. If there is bug or the reader is fried, there is a potential that my entire library could be lost. And what about sharing? If my husband and I want to read at the same time, we would need to buy two readers, and presumably his and hers copies of ebook files. No thanks.the1dsquared said:
My paper books I can take and read anywhere, they don't require batteries, and I can loan them out, and, if I drop it in the water, I'm out $6, not $300 plus all the books stored on the reader.
(That having been said, I have read some ebooks on my laptop. I think they are great for reference and non-fiction, because you can easily do searches. For fiction, not so great, because it's hard to get comfortable.)
A house can catch on fire, thereby permanently destroying all your books. Paper degrades as well, while electronic files last much longer. Personally, I'd much rather be able to fit all my books on a flash card than have them take up all of my shelves, sitting there collecting dust. It might make me look smart to visitors, but it still is annoying.
Then again, I've never been the type of person who reads near water, so for me this is no concern.
And then there's the environmental aspect, which I know doesn't fit into many people's opinions. But to me, if there's a way to eliminate paper that's just as easy to read, any other minor inconvenience incurred by this is worth it. Especially for magazines. Those are such a waste.
The other neat thing about these newer devices is that you can make notes in the book with the stylus and not have to worry about ruining the book. I haven't yet felt a need to do this, but it's still kinda neat.
Besides that, there's way more content to choose from. The quality is still there, despite what the big publishers want you to believe, and there are a lot of great ebooks out there that you would never see in a bookstore for whatever reason.
I can't get my head around the widespread resistance to ebooks, especially now that the technology exists to read them properly. Especially in the SF genre. I mean come on, half of SF stories have in them some paper-replacing gadget thingy! You'd think those authors would be the first to adopt this, but they're just as stuck in the old ways as everyone else.
Then again, I've never been the type of person who reads near water, so for me this is no concern.
And then there's the environmental aspect, which I know doesn't fit into many people's opinions. But to me, if there's a way to eliminate paper that's just as easy to read, any other minor inconvenience incurred by this is worth it. Especially for magazines. Those are such a waste.
The other neat thing about these newer devices is that you can make notes in the book with the stylus and not have to worry about ruining the book. I haven't yet felt a need to do this, but it's still kinda neat.
Besides that, there's way more content to choose from. The quality is still there, despite what the big publishers want you to believe, and there are a lot of great ebooks out there that you would never see in a bookstore for whatever reason.
I can't get my head around the widespread resistance to ebooks, especially now that the technology exists to read them properly. Especially in the SF genre. I mean come on, half of SF stories have in them some paper-replacing gadget thingy! You'd think those authors would be the first to adopt this, but they're just as stuck in the old ways as everyone else.
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From personal experience I know that the probability of me damaging or losing a small electronic device is many many orders of magnitudes higher than my house burning down. YMMVRG570 said:
In the end, it comes down to $$$. If the reader was $20 I'd give it a whirl. I'm not going to invest hundreds of dollars (plus the cost of books) for something I may or may not like to use.RG570 said:
That last point is the important one for me. I would love to be able to digitise (and index) all the titles that I seldom use, but don't want to lose. As for longevity and fire-resilience--as long as you have offsite backups, I guess.RG570 said:
Gadgets usually end up in landfills after a few years; books are far more likely to be passed to another user. As to which is more polluting to manufacture...my money is on the mining, refining and transport of the plastics and minerals that go into gadgets and their batteries.
The incumbent paper standard has a 3D real-reality-based interface that's been refined over hundreds of years. Every aspect of the design being in the public domain, it costs peanuts and requires no proprietary hardware or software. The batteries last forever and the display provides top notch results in a wide variety of lighting conditions. Data remains accessible following most hardware failures (combustion being the most notable exception) and the device is user-repairable. The materials are biodegradable, and can be readily grown and recycled.
A gadget capable of displacing such an incumbent would need to be as essential and ubiquitous as cellphones are today, to the point where people don't even think of them as ebook readers--they also need to be a cellphone, PDA, GPS, web browser, movie player, passport, personal transponder...who knows?). The point being that you need to have a compelling reason to carry the device, otherwise it's usually easier just to take a paperback. So for the moment, I don't agree that the technology exists to do ebooks properly.
In the last year I've bought 4 e-books, all self-help-style books, and have found, surprisingly really, that 3 of the 4 of them were quite good, quite new, and quite helpful.
So much so, that I am in the process of writing one.
So much so, that I am in the process of writing one.
This is a very interesting thread. I was recently approached to write a series of short e-books, and I'm hesitating. I have a couple on my hard drive and often forget they're there. I can only read them sitting at my computer as my PDA's screen is just too hard for me to see clearly for very long. I've already been disappointed by POD, so I'm leery of yet another high-tech solution to the problem of book storage.
As I said, I have two e-books--both non-fiction and both for writers--that I never think to access. I have a couple hundred print books that I pick up for reference or when I just want a diversion. I have probably 50 books on tape, which I loved when I was driving a lot, but which I never listen to at home because it's too confining to have to be within earshot. If I carry a player strapped to my hip, I invariably knock it off on my rounds of housework or horsework. If I sit still, I fall asleep. What's a reader to do?
What to do . . . what to do . . .
It takes as long to write an e-book as it does to do the print version, and I have my doubts that this will be a lucrative endeavor. I'll be watching this thread for more comments from those of you who are in the e-book market on either side.
I do want to ask RG570 if the waste-paper issue isn't kind of offset by the problem of disposing of the heavy metal elements used in electronic devices. Granted, you only need to buy one (or two or three, depending on how hard you are on your stuff and how addicted you are to techie novelty), but recycling them is a lot harder than recycling paper books. I have a storage room full of old computers that are waiting for me to find a legitimate recycler. I don't have space for a whole lot more. My used books, however, I donate to the library or give away to friends without having to worry that I'm polluting the aquifer or contaminating the soil.
Do any of you posit a future in which such devices might be banned? That would render e-books totally useless.
Yes, I AM paranoid! What of it?
As I said, I have two e-books--both non-fiction and both for writers--that I never think to access. I have a couple hundred print books that I pick up for reference or when I just want a diversion. I have probably 50 books on tape, which I loved when I was driving a lot, but which I never listen to at home because it's too confining to have to be within earshot. If I carry a player strapped to my hip, I invariably knock it off on my rounds of housework or horsework. If I sit still, I fall asleep. What's a reader to do?
What to do . . . what to do . . .
It takes as long to write an e-book as it does to do the print version, and I have my doubts that this will be a lucrative endeavor. I'll be watching this thread for more comments from those of you who are in the e-book market on either side.
I do want to ask RG570 if the waste-paper issue isn't kind of offset by the problem of disposing of the heavy metal elements used in electronic devices. Granted, you only need to buy one (or two or three, depending on how hard you are on your stuff and how addicted you are to techie novelty), but recycling them is a lot harder than recycling paper books. I have a storage room full of old computers that are waiting for me to find a legitimate recycler. I don't have space for a whole lot more. My used books, however, I donate to the library or give away to friends without having to worry that I'm polluting the aquifer or contaminating the soil.
Do any of you posit a future in which such devices might be banned? That would render e-books totally useless.
Yes, I AM paranoid! What of it?
A couple of thoughts:Schoolmarm said:
- might there be a market for a print version too? Will you retain print and other non-ebook rights?
- you say you've been approached to write these ebooks, and I presume this would be on a royalty-basis rather than an outright-purchase basis. Is the company approaching you established? Can they demonstrate a track record of selling ebooks in a similar subject/market area?
More likely a future in which the devices become less polluting, I would say. At least, that's my hope
huw said:A couple of thoughts:
- might there be a market for a print version too? Will you retain print and other non-ebook rights?
- you say you've been approached to write these ebooks, and I presume this would be on a royalty-basis rather than an outright-purchase basis. Is the company approaching you established? Can they demonstrate a track record of selling ebooks in a similar subject/market area?
More likely a future in which the devices become less polluting, I would say. At least, that's my hope
Excellent points!
I knew I'd find someone here who would give me something to think about. I'll ask those questions. No, this publisher has never done e-books before, so he has no track record. This is a huge upstart lifestyle e-zine, and the books would be part of his larger marketing plan. I've been contracted as a long-term freelancer. The e-books would be preceded by, accompanied by, and marketed via webinars I'll also be doing beginning next month and the articles he's already contracted with me for (all rights to which return to me after one year). The company seems to be bent on creating entities around individual experts, if you know what I mean.
There's much to be clarified. Thanks, HUW. You've been very helpful!
e-books: a great idea for 2017
I'm a big fan of The Diffusion of Innovation. My impulse is to be a first-tier "gosh wow" adopter; many of my friends were tweaking their PDA software before anyone else even knew the term, while I've only lately (two years ago) gotten a digital camera.
I looked into the possibilities of e-books in 1999, because I think that -- & here I'm going to give away a very lucrative market -- having reference books on handheld readers greatly extends utility & sales of certain technical & reference works.
You're out at the far end of the factory, trying to get a critical piece of machinery back together. It'd be nice to check the torque specs on the various bolts while you're actually at the machine, & not trying to hold a big thick book (smearing grime on it every time you touch it), & really wishing that you had a pocket-size backlit device (on a lanyard, to avoid dropping, wrapped in a Ziploc to avoid gunk) where, with a couple taps of your pen, you'd have the data you needed, & could get all the cross-reference data you need by tapping on the key terms.
(Better still, wouldn't it be neat to go to your vendor's catalog while you're standing right their, weigh costs of new parts against wear-rate, set up the order, & send it to Purchasing... while you're still at the machine?)
Sadly, we ain't got there yet. The e-reader is still a toy. For the first couple of years, Pocket Books charged $5.95 for an e version of a $5.95 paperback -- clear price-gouging, & then Pocket could say, "oh, it's cute, but we tried it & customers didn't go for it." For pirates (like Pocket & just about every startup & individual who's looked at the profit margin with an avaricious gleam), pocketing a dime from hardcopy & pocketing $2 from e-book seems perfectly reasonable.
In short, lousy marketing. Many of the vanity-type companies that trumpet e-books talk on&on about "environmentally conscious" this & "better for the Author" that, then turn around & start dangling how "YOU can pocket $10 of that $15.98! do it now!" Heck, most e-book sales points don't even tell you how many page-equivalents the file contains, or how many words -- if you're lucky, they might mention the file size.
And platforms are still not so great. Anyone else here still use Adobe Reader 4? Too bad -- the current version takes four times as long to load, & has more bells&whistles than you'll ever need. The best way to have an e-reader would be a dedicated firmware platform, no operating system. I
Until more people start offering quality content at a profit margin that's truly reasonable for everyone, e-books are little more than a toy.
I'm a big fan of The Diffusion of Innovation. My impulse is to be a first-tier "gosh wow" adopter; many of my friends were tweaking their PDA software before anyone else even knew the term, while I've only lately (two years ago) gotten a digital camera.
I looked into the possibilities of e-books in 1999, because I think that -- & here I'm going to give away a very lucrative market -- having reference books on handheld readers greatly extends utility & sales of certain technical & reference works.
You're out at the far end of the factory, trying to get a critical piece of machinery back together. It'd be nice to check the torque specs on the various bolts while you're actually at the machine, & not trying to hold a big thick book (smearing grime on it every time you touch it), & really wishing that you had a pocket-size backlit device (on a lanyard, to avoid dropping, wrapped in a Ziploc to avoid gunk) where, with a couple taps of your pen, you'd have the data you needed, & could get all the cross-reference data you need by tapping on the key terms.
(Better still, wouldn't it be neat to go to your vendor's catalog while you're standing right their, weigh costs of new parts against wear-rate, set up the order, & send it to Purchasing... while you're still at the machine?)
Sadly, we ain't got there yet. The e-reader is still a toy. For the first couple of years, Pocket Books charged $5.95 for an e version of a $5.95 paperback -- clear price-gouging, & then Pocket could say, "oh, it's cute, but we tried it & customers didn't go for it." For pirates (like Pocket & just about every startup & individual who's looked at the profit margin with an avaricious gleam), pocketing a dime from hardcopy & pocketing $2 from e-book seems perfectly reasonable.
In short, lousy marketing. Many of the vanity-type companies that trumpet e-books talk on&on about "environmentally conscious" this & "better for the Author" that, then turn around & start dangling how "YOU can pocket $10 of that $15.98! do it now!" Heck, most e-book sales points don't even tell you how many page-equivalents the file contains, or how many words -- if you're lucky, they might mention the file size.
And platforms are still not so great. Anyone else here still use Adobe Reader 4? Too bad -- the current version takes four times as long to load, & has more bells&whistles than you'll ever need. The best way to have an e-reader would be a dedicated firmware platform, no operating system. I
Until more people start offering quality content at a profit margin that's truly reasonable for everyone, e-books are little more than a toy.
Umm . . . I think something is being overlooked.
1. I give my students the option of e-books and/or codex printed books whenever possible.
2. E-books are a huge market for education, especially in higher ed. Their qualty varies enormously.
3. I've personally bought hundreds of mainstream trade books to read on my Palm and laptop, mostly when travelling.
4. You can buy pre-loaded Palms and Clios with medical and legal databases, Airplane and airport data for pilots, and other "niche" e-book content. The databases are flat file databases with an e-book front end.
5. Fictionwise, eReader.com and Baen are doing very very good business with e-books, particularly genre fiction.
1. I give my students the option of e-books and/or codex printed books whenever possible.
2. E-books are a huge market for education, especially in higher ed. Their qualty varies enormously.
3. I've personally bought hundreds of mainstream trade books to read on my Palm and laptop, mostly when travelling.
4. You can buy pre-loaded Palms and Clios with medical and legal databases, Airplane and airport data for pilots, and other "niche" e-book content. The databases are flat file databases with an e-book front end.
5. Fictionwise, eReader.com and Baen are doing very very good business with e-books, particularly genre fiction.
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Anthony, that was a brilliant assessment! You put my thoughts into words far more elegantly than I've been able to do.
You're out in the barn. One of the horses has come in from the pasture with a noticeable limp. You whip out your trusy PDA, power up, find out the battery hasn't been charging because one of the horses knocked out the GFI circuit breaker with his head. You find a working outlet, plug in, power up, click, and there is your e-book on horse care. You can't see it because the sun is shining and your back-lit screen renders the text pretty much invisible, but you know it's there. The horse is standing patiently chewing on the fence where he's been tied for ten minutes while you dug out your polarized sun glasses. You balance the PDA on the fence post so you can run the flexion test recommended by the text. Somehow Zips Fuzzbutt has knocked it into the mud. How wonderful to have an entire veterinary manual at your fingertips!
That's the scenario I'm envisioning. The target market for the ebooks in question is horse and horse farm owners. I'm thinking this is akin to a series aimed at manual laborers of any other description. We horse folk don't generally spend a lot of time indoors or clean. My own barn is littered with paperback books and the big-print spiral-bound how-to's that people on the run whose hands are full of feed, manure, or horse are so fond of propping up in brightly-lit corners to be viewed in passing. I can't imagine what good an ebook would be to me, so writing them for other horse people seems a questionable endeavor.
Add the issue you've raised--that the reader is essentially still a toy--and I'm more convinced than ever that the path this publisher is suggesting leads to a long alley which might terminate in a dead end. I'll re-enter negotiations with a clearer perspective.
Medievalist, you also make very valid points. Until a month ago, I was a high school teacher. I was aware of the array of e-books available for use in schools, and the department owned a mobile computer lab with a class set of laptops pre-loaded with databases and equipped to download e-books. Sadly at the public school level, one set of computers for the entire English department (I'm special ed, but worked in English) wasn't nearly enough to allow the use of e-books on any regular basis. Eighteen laptops, a thousand students, forty-four-minute class periods . . . we bought a lot of paperbacks and hard-bound texts.
I think I see where e-books are headed. The data management and delivery you describe is an ideal niche for that format. Office workers would definitely benefit and be a huge market for electronic text formats of all types.
So, it's not the e-book format per se or the shortage of exciting hardware for its distrubution that is the issue. It's whether or not the targeted niche will support the format strongly enough to result in profitability.
I'm thinking not.
Anyone else care to chime in here? This is fascinating!
You're out in the barn. One of the horses has come in from the pasture with a noticeable limp. You whip out your trusy PDA, power up, find out the battery hasn't been charging because one of the horses knocked out the GFI circuit breaker with his head. You find a working outlet, plug in, power up, click, and there is your e-book on horse care. You can't see it because the sun is shining and your back-lit screen renders the text pretty much invisible, but you know it's there. The horse is standing patiently chewing on the fence where he's been tied for ten minutes while you dug out your polarized sun glasses. You balance the PDA on the fence post so you can run the flexion test recommended by the text. Somehow Zips Fuzzbutt has knocked it into the mud. How wonderful to have an entire veterinary manual at your fingertips!
That's the scenario I'm envisioning. The target market for the ebooks in question is horse and horse farm owners. I'm thinking this is akin to a series aimed at manual laborers of any other description. We horse folk don't generally spend a lot of time indoors or clean. My own barn is littered with paperback books and the big-print spiral-bound how-to's that people on the run whose hands are full of feed, manure, or horse are so fond of propping up in brightly-lit corners to be viewed in passing. I can't imagine what good an ebook would be to me, so writing them for other horse people seems a questionable endeavor.
Add the issue you've raised--that the reader is essentially still a toy--and I'm more convinced than ever that the path this publisher is suggesting leads to a long alley which might terminate in a dead end. I'll re-enter negotiations with a clearer perspective.
Medievalist, you also make very valid points. Until a month ago, I was a high school teacher. I was aware of the array of e-books available for use in schools, and the department owned a mobile computer lab with a class set of laptops pre-loaded with databases and equipped to download e-books. Sadly at the public school level, one set of computers for the entire English department (I'm special ed, but worked in English) wasn't nearly enough to allow the use of e-books on any regular basis. Eighteen laptops, a thousand students, forty-four-minute class periods . . . we bought a lot of paperbacks and hard-bound texts.
I think I see where e-books are headed. The data management and delivery you describe is an ideal niche for that format. Office workers would definitely benefit and be a huge market for electronic text formats of all types.
So, it's not the e-book format per se or the shortage of exciting hardware for its distrubution that is the issue. It's whether or not the targeted niche will support the format strongly enough to result in profitability.
I'm thinking not.
Anyone else care to chime in here? This is fascinating!
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LOL Schoolmarm. I bought a PDA and broke it the next week in the pig barn. I was pissed off all week for throwing away $100 like that. Copymachines and plastic folders do work better for me.
I travel a lot and am able to download ebooks from the library. I want to make ebooks work! It would be great to carry a couple of novels with me on a trip. I tried using my Palm IIIC, but the screen is just too small for these old eyes. I bought an eBookman 900 for a song the other day and downloaded a novel. First impression-- I have to be in a well lit area indoors to use it, but the screen looks pretty good. I'll give you updates...
Oh, believe me, I'm fiercely ambiguous about e-books.
My home town is the tiny city of Crookston, which happens to have a cutting-edge campus of the University of Minnesota. They call themselves "the original Laptop U" because anyone who signs up as a full-time residential student gets a laptop, & the campus was the first in the nation to be one big hotspot. Depending on the course, they can review lectures anywhere & anytime they want, participate in topical chats, or ping their professor or TA.
I've spoken to a few undergrads who feel connectivity is a lifesaver. Yeah, I remember trudging across campus (Minneapolis) for two miles, in wet nasty snow, going to the library just to photocopy one critical page. Heck, if I'd had the option to go to Amazon & get the Cliff's Notes e-book for $10, I'd have paid! And with so many Project Gutenberg books available, rummaging around in the stacks for a mis-shelved old tome is less necessary than ever, & you don't have to worry about hours.
(Oh, FWIW: there are companies that make "workproof" PDAs to withstand common workplace & feedlot situations. Not "one size fits all," but helpful to some. Still, I know exactly what you mean about trying to read a Palm screen that's telling you how to do a two-handed job while dangling from a phone-pole...)
My home town is the tiny city of Crookston, which happens to have a cutting-edge campus of the University of Minnesota. They call themselves "the original Laptop U" because anyone who signs up as a full-time residential student gets a laptop, & the campus was the first in the nation to be one big hotspot. Depending on the course, they can review lectures anywhere & anytime they want, participate in topical chats, or ping their professor or TA.
I've spoken to a few undergrads who feel connectivity is a lifesaver. Yeah, I remember trudging across campus (Minneapolis) for two miles, in wet nasty snow, going to the library just to photocopy one critical page. Heck, if I'd had the option to go to Amazon & get the Cliff's Notes e-book for $10, I'd have paid! And with so many Project Gutenberg books available, rummaging around in the stacks for a mis-shelved old tome is less necessary than ever, & you don't have to worry about hours.
(Oh, FWIW: there are companies that make "workproof" PDAs to withstand common workplace & feedlot situations. Not "one size fits all," but helpful to some. Still, I know exactly what you mean about trying to read a Palm screen that's telling you how to do a two-handed job while dangling from a phone-pole...)