TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

Archive for November 23rd, 2009

By Joe Wikert

I’m not convinced Amazon has a long-term commitment to the Kindle hardware business. In fact, I’ll go so out on a limb and predict that Amazon will completely exit the Kindle hardware space within the next 3 years. Here are a few reasons why:

Zero evolution in 2 years. Compare today’s Kindle 2 and DX models to the original Kindle. The current versions have pretty much the same functionality as the original. And don’t tell me native PDF support was a big change…that should have been there from the start! I had totally different expectations when I opened my Kindle v1 and saw the “experimental” features. Two years later, nothing is new there and the original experimental features never changed. Here’s a great example of how there’s been no feature evolution: We’re all waiting anxiously to see if Amazon will actually add folder functionality. Are you kidding me?! That’s another feature that should have been there all along.

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By David Rothman

Here are videos of ex-HarperCollins CEO Jane Friedman’s New York University appearance (via PublishersLunch).

She’s now with Open Road, which, I’m pleased to say, will devote major resources to the publishing of backlist titles, not just new ones.

Related: Ex-HarperCollins CEO Jane Friedman may back off from DRM: Way to increase profits on her Open Road e-books?

By David Rothman

News release follows. – D.R.

Smashwords, a global publisher and distributor of independently published ebooks, today announced it will supply ebooks to the Amazon.com Kindle Store. Kindle is Amazon’s wireless reading device that allows customers to downloads books, blogs, magazines and newspapers to a crisp, high-resolution electronic paper display that looks and reads like real paper.

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By David Rothman

The late Molly Ivins raised a Texas-sized amount of hell in her time over political and social issues even though she grew up among members of the Lone Star elite and knew the Bush family.

Now she is the topic of a new biography, Molly Ivins, A Rebel Life, by Bill Minutaglio and W. Michael Smith.

Later today, thanks to the wisdom of the publisher, I’ll be able to go on a walk with Molly, so to speak. PublicAffairs did not disable the book’s text to speech potential. So I’ll be able to play it on my Kindle and easily stay on the lookout for cars.

Big reason why I bought the book in the first place

Probably I would not have even bought the book except for the fact I could squeeze it into my exercise time with minimal fuss. Believe me, the Kindle’s speech synthesis is much, much better than many have given it credit for. I don’t need a resonant voice reading the Molly bio flawlessly, Jim Dale style—in this case I just want to follow the narrative.

At the same time, I would rather not splurge on an audio book, and beyond that, I want to enjoy A Rebel Life on a screen, too (ideally someday on the Kindle in the standard ePub format).

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By David Rothman

This is old news to e-bookers aware of the rise of the e-book-capable iPhone, the Kindle and the forthcoming avalanche of new models such as the Nook. But it’s new news in the sense that Gartner Research is so influential in executive suites.

Gartner predicts “an e-reader mania” in the 2010 holiday season. Smartly, the company’s Allen Weiner plays up the potential of multi-purpose readers.

Meanwhile the good news continues this year. September e-book sales stats from the IDPF showed a 171 percent increase, and quarterly numbers look great, too. So far, $23 million in Random House’s revenue from The Lost Symbol, by Dan Brown, has come from have e-books, according to Crain’s and the Bookseller—or five percent of the book’s total sales. Imagine what could happen without the format mess and DRM getting in the way.

(Via Softpedia and Personanondata.)

By David Rothman

Pirates find easy new pickings in open waters of e-book publishing is the headline of a Times piece in the U.K. As reported there:

–American publishers have lost “more than $600 million” to piracy, by one estimate.

–Readers downloaded illegal copies of Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol “more than 100,000 times” within days.

–In excess of 4,000 piracy cases have been reported to The Publishers Association in the U.K.

These numbers are still small compare to total p-book sales, but will increase as E catches on in popularity.

The best way to fight piracy? Get e-book shoppers accustomed to buying from legitimate sources before it’s too late. That means easy downloading, fair prices and the ability to move content easily from machine to machine within a household. Use of the standard ePub format and the end of traditional DRM could go a long way in that regard. Social DRM, anyone?

Elsewhere on the piracy front: Digital divide over filesharing plans: Digital economy bill proposals receive welcome from music and film, but anger from ISPs and privacy campaigner, in the Guardian.

Related: TechCrunch piece on DRM and Chris Meadows’ different perspective. Also see Why social DRM makes sense: Wise words from book maven Mike Shatzkin.

By David Rothman

Not all public domain books in the Amazon Kindle store are free or even available, period. You can broaden your choices by downloading books from other sites directly to your Kindle, and in this post from Saturday, we show how—and tell where you can look. Even old Kindle hands may not be aware of FreeKindleBooks.org.

By Paul Biba

The FEP, which represents publishers from 26 European countries, is very concerned about the Settlement, even after the revisions. They feel that there is a lack of information about European works which may still be included in the deal because the works are registered with the US Copyright Office.

Additionally, Amazon has filed an objection to the revised Settlement and asked the court to rescind its approval, saying that the ruling was made without the benefit of opposing views from class members. Further, Google said the revised settlement is “doomed” because it allows Google to be released from future copyright infringement, instead of being limited to Google’s actions in the past.

Further information here and here.

By Chris Meadows

As long-time readers of this blog are probably aware, the Associated Press has caused a bit of controversy lately involving people ostensibly violating its copyright by copying and pasting too much text out of its stories. It has also been involved in the separate kerfuffle over Google and other news aggregators “stealing” news services’ stories.

Well, here comes a bit of delicious irony. A story popped up over the weekend that apparently the Associated Press scanned all of Sarah Palin’s book Going Rogue, sans permission, so that multiple AP staffers could read relevant sections of the single copy of the book they purchased (when a store accidentally sold a copy 5 days ahead of its street date). But it’s all right, because the scanned copy wasn’t for public consumption!

So, we can all breathe easy, because it’s not a copyright violation after all when a big company scans an author’s book without permission even if they do not actually intend to display all of it to the public. Is anyone in the AP even paying attention to what they’re doing?

It does not matter whether the scan was for private or public consumption. Copyright law is clear. If it is going to insist that bloggers not use its words without permission, the Associated Press really should try to make the effort to stay within the law itself.

By David Rothman

Ugh, it’s time to broach the topic again. Why the devil doesn’t the International Digital Publishing Forum have an ePub logo so its format standard can compete better against the Kindle’s proprietary approach?

The IDPF said it would unveil a contest for the best logo design, but I haven’t seen a follow-up. I’ve emailed Director Michael Smith for an explanation. How about it, Mike? You’re a nice guy, and I know you’re busy, but this has been going on for months and months. I could move on to Board President Steve Potash of OverDrive, but I’m still counting on you to provide us with an updated answer to the routine questions of “Why?” and “When?”

With dozens of reader gizmos using ePub now or in the near future, a logo is not a minor detail. As I currently see it, there should be (1) a logo for nonDRMed ePub and (2) a  requirement that brand names be used with "protected" kinds—for example, “Adobe-DRMed ePub.”

Proprietary DRM in effect turns ePub into a proprietary format. People need to know—right up front—which proprietary format is in use. Hardware able to read both DRMed and nonDRMed ePub could carry a logo with the words, “Open and Adobe-DRMed ePub.”

The above logo: It’s an unofficial version from Travis Alber of BookGlutton. By the way, my own preferred usage would be “ePub.” I’ll continuing the good fight to make that official. The aesthetics are so much better than a bunch of caps.

Also of interest: Paul Biba’s Nook-related post, telereaD editor goes into sTaTE of RebeLLiOn. I, too, hate "nook" without the first letter capitalized. Let’s keep the focus on the performance of the machine, as opposed to marketers’ silly distractions.