TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

Archive for November, 2004

By David Rothman

PDF is toxic to e-books. It makes them an ugly afterthought. Adobe created PDF not to help the e-book business but rather for other purposes such as reproduction of business documents.

Tempted by the number of people with Adobe-loaded computers, some e-book publishers have succumbed to the idea of simply going with a popular format. In most cases, however, such as for recreational reading, PDF is pathetic compared to more modern, better-looking alternatives such as PDA-friendly Mobipocket.

Below, edited, is part of a thoughtful post that NetWorker wrote for the eBook Community list. – David Rothman

I remain convinced that the large number of electronic documents in PDF format is not a result of any inherent superiority of the format, but rather the fact that if you prepare a print document using Acrobat as a desktop publishing tool you essentially have a free electronic version in the PDF file. Seeing as how up until now there is little profit in selling an electronic version of a printed document, it also makes sense to satisfy the desire for an electronic version at the lowest cost possible.

Miserliness favored over readable format

I know that this was the explicit reasoning of at least two of the small companies I have worked for when deciding to issue product documentation in PDF format. And I have seen no evidence to suggest that the prevalence of PDF documents in the marketplace exists for those electronic documents which have no print counterpart.

Unfortunately, this decision leads to a great deal of consumer disatisfaction, to the general view that “e-books will never catch on,” and the feeling that “I can’t stand to read on my computer monitor.”

Vs. HTML and other alternatives

Despite the raw numbers of PDF documents, I have never heard any consumer say, “Boy, I sure wish this HTML (or eReader) file were available in PDF!”

Thus, for the sake of expedience, small print publishers have been poisoning public perception of the benefits of e-books…

PDF is a page layout format, as opposed to a document definition format. I have a 20″ Trinitron monitor at 1600×1200 resolution, a 13″ laptop at 1024×768 resolution and a 2.5″x3.25″ PocketPC at 240×320 resolution. Is it unreasonable to expect a single file that can be adequately displayed on all these devices? And is it reasonable to expect publishers to produce dozens of PDF files each optimized for the physical characteristics of every display device, together with the permutations of font sizes that different people need?

Inflexible page layout paradigm

I am an unabashed detractor of the PDF format, but not because I don’t believe that some people like and even prefer them, but because I don’t think that they satisfy the majority of consumers’ needs and desires. I haven’t seen a single PDF document that couldn’t be satisfactorily encoded in XHTML+CSS and avoiding the inflexibility of a page layout paradigm.

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Doubt there’s a war against fair use? Let me reproduce the following from Ivan Hoffman, an entertainment lawyer whose posts appear regularly on Studio B’s CBP list for computer book writers:

Fair use is troubling to those who are uncomfortable with lack of certainty since fair use requires a case by case analysis. If you are seeking a bright line rule, then it should be to never rely on fair use since to do so is legally very uncertain and there is virtually no way to tell, in advance, whether any particular use is going to be upheld as a fair use. Always seek a license. And this applies to all uses of protected materials, not merely sound recordings.

Is Hoffman reflecting reality, or is he making work for himself and fellow attorneys by discouraging writers from using a valuable tool? How durable will the fair use doctrine be if no one dares to use it? Any lawyers care to reply? What about the First Amendment implications?

“Fun with Fair Use” Department: Whoops. Guess I should have checked before quoting the above.

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The eBook Community list has been buzzing with talk about the hassles of converting PDF files to run on machines such as the much-welcomed eBookwise-1150.

I’ve joined the chorus, pointing this out as an example of the damage from the format wars–which actually may be winding down in time, given the brand names coming out quietly for OpenReader. An end of hostilities would be logical enough. After all, the OpenReader consumer standard will simply be built around an existing production one from the Open eBook Forum. The OpenReader Consortium is keen on realizing the excellent vision forsaken by the Forum itself because of the short-term interests of Adobe and other powerful software companies.

The sniper in the format jungle

Enter Lee Fyock, once a PalmReader guy and still a defender of costly proprietary formats. I’ve got to admire this guy’s tenacity. He’s a little like those Japanese soldiers from World War II, ready to hang out in the jungles for a few decades. Like most things on the Net, e-book formats will become standardized if past patterns apply. Peace will prevail in time. Today I drive a 1988 Honda.

Even after the format war dies, however, old Lee may well be busy sniping away. Yesterday, in his super-literal mode, Lee wrote: “The hassle of converting PDF to other formats is the hassle of converting any end-format into something it wasn’t designed for.” Um, Lee, is that really the true issue here? Isn’t “designed for” a rather irrelevant phrase when we’re looking at this from the perspective of the typical reader of e-books? People don’t give a squat about the intent of Adobe and other proprietary format zealots; they just want to be able to read their books conveniently on different devices, especially just-purchased machines or future ones. When it comes to buying the same book, “Once is enough.”

Grasping for a comparison

Poor Lee, however, won’t stop defending the indefensible. He says: “David’s statement is something like saying that trying to convert a jet engine for use in a Honda Civic is the fault of the transportation industry not standardizing on engine types. Or something like that–someone lend me a good simile.”

As a Honda owner, I’m delighted to oblige. To use a more helpful comparison–a metaphor far more meaningful to e-book readers than “What’s it designed for?”–I don’t have to buy Honda-compatible gasoline or drive on Honda-blessed roads. A 1988 Civic DX can still run well on freshly paved superhighways and on many brands of gasoline refined in 2004. Why should e-books be any different?

My hardware-software combo should be the car, and the e-books should be the gasoline or, if you prefer, the highway. Thank goodness that Adobe, Microsoft and eReader don’t control Detroit, Tokyo or the U.S. highway system. Otherwise Route 95 might be usable only for recent-model Chevrolets gulping up Exxon gasoline, and as a 1988 Honda owner favoring no-name brands of gas, I’d be SOL. Just where would be automobile industry be with this arrangement?

Publishers paying the price

No wonder the e-book industry is so pathetic with annual global revenues of less than $40 million a year–a smidgen of the billions once predicted. While hardly a panacea, OpenReader will help reduce the pain of format-dazed consumers and lower the costs of publishers.

In our efforts to wind down format wars, we’re far past “30 seconds over Tokyo,” but we’ll welcome still more names to join the familiar logos already on our side–a list that we’ll be releasing in the near future. It’s easy to help out the OpenReader Consortium, whether you’re a small guy or an industry giant. Just e-mail Jon Noring with a cc to me. No financial commitment. You’re just saying you’re sick and tired of so much money being unduly siphoned from the publishing world to Microsoft, Adobe and the rest. Oh, and if you’re a shareholder in any of those companies, don’t shed a tear. They’ll do fine. Remember, there’s no law saying that Microsoft or Adobe can’t push their pet e-book readers using the OpenReader format. Only, now they’ll have to compete over such trifles as usability, rather than locking us into their formats.

Detail: My white Civic is a 1988 model rather than a ‘91. Otherwise it’s more or less like the one pictured above.

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This is terrible. An underworked temp at the U.S. Department of Labor has been sneaking in Gutenberg-style classics on the job. From the Washington Post:

So far, he has taught himself the Internet’s HTML coding, started a blog and taken up several pen pals, including one who speaks Spanish. Why? Because our friend here is also teaching himself the language.

But mostly, he likes to read. In the past few months, he has read “The Wealth of Nations” by Adam Smith, Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” and Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War.” How can he sit and read a book at work? Welcome to looking busy while you stare at the computer screen: www.online-literature.com.

Time for a congressional investigation. Imagine underworked employees striving to upgrade their skills and gain insights from literature!

More seriously, I don’t approve of this mooching off Uncle, but it’s great to know that e-books are reaching the point where they’re time-spenders for slackers. Of course, you’ll notice they’re not commercial books locked up in proprietary formats. I suppose Lee would just say: “We need DRM and complete identification to protect the taxpayers.”

Related: No-Guilt Downloads: Free Books, Music, and Movies: Where to find public-domain and other free works on the Web, from PC World.

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Stuck in a 1995 time warp, Project Gutenberg’s site layout screamed disdain for modern Web aesthetics.

Now, however, after just-made changes, the site is at least in the 21st century. You can even choose the appearance from one of six skins.

Flaws still remain such as in the default color scheme and the choice and arrangement of home page links in various skins. Not all the options work in the aging and somewhat quirky Internet Explorer, just in more modern browsers such as Firefox.

Overdue but welcome

Even so, this is a welcome and long overdue improvement. Furthermore, through the miracles of style sheets, it should be easier than before to do major site tweaks.

Way to go, Gutenberg.

Details: On top of everything else, the Gutenberg site is a model of accessibility for the disabled.

Those faint red lines: Just noticed ‘em in the screen shot. They’re from my spell checker, not PG.

Also from the Glitch Department: Yep, that should have been “disdain” in the first sentence and I’ve fixed it. Thanks to Neologize for the catch.

By David Rothman

In the United States, copyright exists mainly for the benefit of the public, while European countries fixate on authors’ rights. In both cases, the law really doesn’t benefit the public to the extent it should. From Branko Collin’s blog in the Netherlands:

The interesting thing about copyright law, is that it more or less presumes the interests of the author to be unchangeable. Not only that, but it tries to protect these interests as if they are at their strongest.

Of course, the public loses out big time in this scenario. When an author has lost all interest in a work, the public is still not allowed to mix, rip and burn it.

Well, at least here in the States, the mixing and the rest can take place when the terms expire, but thanks to Hollywood-bought legislation, that will be a long time.

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“The overall effect of ‘distributed navigation’ brought upon by content aggregators is that we’re witnessing the control of content shift from designers to users. Users are finding new, highly effective aggregators much to their liking, and in doing so are bypassing much of what we’ve built for them. In one sense it’s scary, because we won’t be able to control the user experience as much. In another sense it’s rather exciting. We’re becoming caretakers of content, creating quality Web pages to be judged on their own merit in an ever-aggregating world.” – Home Alone? How Content Aggregators Change Navigation and Control of Content, in Digital Web Magazine.

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Isn’t this a little bit of an oxymoron if considered in the future tense? Some 15 supposedly “independent bloggers” will be paid $800 a month and sales-lead-based commissions to mention Marqui’s hosted communications management services. I want to find out more about this rent-a-blogger effort–and I don’t mean for the purposes of selling out to Marqui.

Advertising in blogs is fine. And I myself plead guilty to mentions of, say, Open Reader or, gasp, TeleRead–this is, after all, the TeleRead blog, and if you’re going to preach in favor of well-stocked national digital libraries, you might as well contaminate yourself with open-standards advocacy at the same time. But paid mentions, systematically planted? That’s the last thing the Blogosphere needs when ignorant journalists and librarians are eagerly badmouthing blogs.

Interestingly, PR man Steve Rubel, author of the Micro Persuasion blog, believes that the paid-mention approach is tainted. Let’s hope that enough others in PR and elsewhere feel the same. An advisor hired for the paid-plug experiment is Marc Canter who cofounded Macromedia and is now working on the laudable OurMedia project. Let’s hope that he has second thoughts. “This is a stupid idea,” says a skeptic who apparently moves around in the same circles as Canter. “Remind me to smack Marc next time I see him.”

Related: Bloggers & Affiliate Marketing – They’re Calling it “Product Placement,” found at Threadwatch.

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Kudos to David Moynihan and his Blackmask site for making e-books–both for-sale titles and free public domain classics–available in the .imp format used by the eBookWise-1150 from Fictionwise. You can already buy a DVD with Blackmask’s PD titles in the new format, not just download them.

We 1150 owners–I have one on order myself–will enjoy other help. A new flavor of the GEB eBook Librarian will let us convert book from ASCII, HTML, Word and other popular formats. I’m all in favor of action in the here and now to address format concerns. Of course, the true solution remains OpenReader, so readers, writers and publishers can focus more on books and less on the technology. We still need to tear down the Tower of eBabel that makes so many people dislike e-books in their present form.

Related: You can download Fictionwise’s a QuickStart guide in PDF for the 1150. Also of interest is Blackmask’s DVD upgrade.

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For blog-hating librarians too worshipful of the “mainstream” media, I’d recommend the movie Shattered Glass or a study of the Jayson Blair affair. The problem isn’t too much blogging for the good of society. It’s too little.

Alaskan Librarian slams bloggers as ignorant, a post in nbruce’s blog in LISNews, is Exhibit A of the need for open-mindedness. Fairbanks librarian Greg Hill, alas, belongs to the “In editors we trust” school. In a newspaper column, Hill also takes a crack at the Wikipedia. Netfolks are firing back even though some wired librarians are surprisingly easy on the guy.

Laughably, Hill questions the accuracy of material on the Net while himself misspelling the name of journalist Dan Gillmor, author of We the Media. Oh, and adding to the fun, Hill refers to “Gillmour’s” book as “Making the News”–a title Gillmor used in a draft online but not in the final book.

Far North hypocrisy

The horror! To think that Hill relied on a Net-distributed draft of the book rather than the sacred words published on paper. I wonder if the Fairbanks News-Miner will issue a correction.

If Hill had been contributing to a Wiki and if others regularly monitored his output, the issue of a correction wouldn’t be so iffy.

The “infallibility” syndrome

No perfection claimed at this end. In this blog, I myself have sinned with another variation of “Gilmour’s” name and commited other atrocities, some involving book titles. Still, I doubt that the “mainstream” news organizations are infallible. The difference is often that the better bloggers will admit their inevitable mistakes. By contrast, many old media people either won’t do this or will take forever–a syndrome to which some librarians are hardly immune, given their worship of editors.

Granted, traditional copy desks are essential for major and minor news organizations alike, and if anything I’d like to see book publishers do more fact-checking, not less. Still, in the Net’s own ways, debates between crosslinked blogs can often spot major errors much faster than the usual media suspects can. Blogs and Wikis, while hardly a panacea, are the built-in copy desks of the Net. Dan Rather and his people have might well have gotten away with their mistakes if bloggers hadn’t been on patrol.

Why bloggers are gaining and CBS is losing

Any surprise that the better blogs are gaining credibility while CBS and the like are losing theirs? No ideology here. I’m a lifelong liberal Democrat who voted against George Bush. But facts are facts. Dan Rather actually hurt the Democrats by not being able to verify his anti-Bush assertions and taking too long to fess up. Perhaps at times accuracy can best flourish when someone’s job is not on the line, and when the honest can make corrections in a flash by way of easy updates.

Mind you, I’m not saying that the average blog will contain fewer misspellings or other factual errors than the New York Times. But over time, the better blogs can not only work toward accuracy but also toward the finding and dissemination of truth–perennial challenges for the media. During the McCarthy years, wire services all too often quoted smears without shooting them down. Although old, this is still the classic illustration of the shortcomings of traditional journalism, especially as practiced on deadline.

The Atlantic’s truth problem

Even off deadline, the mainstreamers can spread falsehoods and fail to give the public the full story. Just how truthful, for example, is a 9,000-word Atlantic article that writes up massive Hollywood contributions and alludes to the good intentions of Tinsel Town liberals–while leaving out mention of Bono, the DMCA and other industry-bought laws? Misspellings can often be detected instantly, but truths may take far longer to sort out, a task at which bloggers excel.

Simply put, journalists and librarians alike would be fools to swallow Hill’s bilge. Instead they should welcome blogs and Wikis not as a replacement for newspapers and libraries, but instead as a way for members of the two professions to do their jobs better. Accuracy-minded information pros, in fact, should not just read blogs; they should also start them and join the dialog. How about it, Mr. Hill? I hope to see you online soon. Meanwhile, you could do worse than to read Gillmor’s clueful book carefully–on paper, if you prefer–so that you yourself can be a clueful part of “We the Media.”

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“…the University of Phoenix, a for-profit system with a national presence, converted to electronic books several years ago, in part to reduce costs and therefore compete better for students.” – Chapter and purse in Atlanta Journal-Constitution (reg. required).

The TeleRead take: “Previously,” the Consitution reports, “the university’s students–mostly working adults–used standard college textbooks, according to Shane Clem, who directs the school’s operations in Georgia. The cost ranged from about $70 to $200 per book, he said. The customized online textbooks and materials that students now use run about $60 per course for undergraduates.” So when are these economies going to reach other educational institutions on a mass-scale–especially cash-strapped K-12 schools. The basic situation described in Copyright and K-12: Who pays in the network era?, written in the late ’90s, still exists.

Also about Phoenix: Higher learning gets mobile with digital textbooks, via the Blackbird Free Press Web site. What’s interesting is that the actual collection of library e-books associated with the University of Phoenix is so small, just 500 e-books compared to more than 27 million other items in the library.

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Oh, yes, video games and DVDs and other distractions abound and drain off money that might otherwise go for general trade books–both paper and electronic. Other factors also could help explain the disappointments in consumer book sales overall and the underperformance of e-books despite the growth there. Here’s something else to consider. Could ordinary people simply have less to spend than before, after shelling out money for the essentials? Again, we’re talking about a mix of factors. In e-books’ case, Draconian DRM and the Tower of eBabel don’t help. (Item on consumer spending found via Idiotprogrammer.)

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“A lawsuit brought by a group of Internet archivists against recent congressional actions expanding copyright protections has been dismissed by a federal judge.” – CNET.

The TeleRead take: Brewster Kahle of the Internet Archive plans to appeal the ruling. I myself wish there’d be more efforts on the political front to educate the Bush Administration. The Republican South, lowest in library rankings, is the very region that could benefit most from full-strength digital archives of literature. Gov. Terminator notwithstanding, Hollywood generally hates the GOP.

Related: U.S. vows to “fight” the Push for WIPO Reform, from Intellectual Property Watch. Expected but still a setback for the white hats. In other IP-related matters, see Larry Lessig’s Byte and Bullets op-ed in the Washington Post, as well as Viewing The Customer With Spite by Post columnist Marc Fisher, who makes some clueful comments on the jihads that the movie and recording industries are waging against downloaders. Karl Rove ideally will understand the potential of wooing the download vote and worrying less about the egos and dollars of the entertainment moguls who have tainted us Dems. Also see A Kinder, Gentler Copyright Bill? in Wired News.

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“A $130,000 grant, the second largest awarded by the Illinois State Library, has been awarded to a cooperative project involving 42 libraries, including the Lanark, Forreston Public and Bertolet District Library-Leaf River libraries.” – Prairie Advocate in Savanna, Illinois.

The TeleRead take: Libwise, a branch of Fictionwise, is apparently the vendor if you go by the look of one library’s “ebranch.” More details:

The project involves “eBranch service,” providing a print alternative by offering ebooks to library patrons 24-7 via their personal PDA’s or desktop computers.

Each library will receive the eBranch setup and 100 titles and funding to buy about 200 more titles. Each library will also receive a PDA to be used as a demonstration tool, reference books and training.

The project was initiated and written by Fondulac District Library Director Nancy Gillfillan and Byron Public Library District Director Penny O’Rourke. It involves 42 Illinois libraries with eBranch service.

If nothing else, it’s good to see libraries receiving PDAs so librarians can replicate the experiences of patrons and better understand their needs. Wouldn’t it be great if the libraries also had machines to lend to them? PDAs and other portable devices are far better than desktops in most cases for recreational reading. Software used will be Mobipocket–the best of currently available choices.

By David Rothman

GEB eBook Librarian now works with the eBookwise-1150, not just older devices from the Gemstar family. Developer Steve Breen is in talks with Fictionwise/eBookwise about an OEM arrangement, in fact. From Steve:

I have received the new eBookwise.com/fictionwise 1150 device and now have a version of the GEB eBook Librarian that works with both the older devices and the newer devices (ETI2) alike with no user input or configuration changes. This will be released on my website this week after a thorough regression testing period with the new eBook Technologies USB driver that I received today.

That did the trick. I’ve plunked down $100 for my own 1150.

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“Buried inside the massive $388 billion spending bill Congress approved last weekend is a program that creates a federal copyright enforcement czar.” – Lawmakers OK antipiracy czar, via CNET.

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Found via Branko Collin through the TEI mailing list:

The 9th ELPUB conference will keep the tradition of the eight previous international conferences on electronic publishing [...], which is to bring together researchers, lecturers, developers, businessmen, entrepreneurs, managers, users and all those interested on issues regarding electronic publishing in widely differing contexts. These include the human, cultural, economic, social, technological, legal, commercial and any other relevant aspects that such an exciting theme encompasses…

ELPUB 2005 will focus on challenges for the digital content chain.

The call for papers is now open.