TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

Archive for the ‘blogs’ Category

By David Rothman

“Speaking of libraries,” Philip Gulley writes in a mostly lighthearted essay in Indianapolis Monthly on Kindles vs. traditional books, “what will become of them if the Kindle succeeds? Copyright laws, written by lobbyists and passed through a Congress beholden to big money, will prevent libraries from downloading books and sharing them for free with patrons, which will effectively make literature and information inaccessible to the poor. Books will become like healthcare in this country, available to some and not others. Congress might eventually remedy this, but it will take 50 years, and in the meantime three generations of poor children won’t know the pleasure of curling up with a good book, expanding their minds, and broadening their opportunities.”

The TeleRead take: Well, Philip, you’re off on the details, but I like the spirit of the above, which, alas, considering the copyright lobby’s influence in D.C., turns out to be less of a joke than you thought. TeleRead, anyone? And new business and access models for libraries, with fair compensation to creators?

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By David Rothman

The positives of Ezra Klein’s CJR article and related video: He’s a new Kindle user and hails the machine as “credible. As a product of Amazon, it’s intertwined with the world’s largest online bookstore, legitimized by the one company that can lay some claim to having already changed the way we use, or at least acquire, books. The real question, though, is what took so long?”

In general, the Klein article is upbeat on E and notes the possibilities of  adjustable font sizes, outbound links, interactivity and updated books (albeit, I’d assume, not the 1984ish variety). At the same time his CJR piece correctly recognizes that the Kindle and the like are not perfect replacements for paper books, given the screen-contrast problems of E Ink, among the other flaws.

The negatives—blindness to the eBabel and DRM issues: Um, Ezra, I mostly liked your piece, but as an e-book newbie, you unwittingly left out a few details. Unless we want the whole bleepin’ e-book world to revolve around Jeff Bezos, we deserve nonproprietary e-book standards in areas ranging from the basic format to guidelines for shared annotations and interbook linking.

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By David Rothman

The Gradgrind approach to reading—too much emphasis on drill-and-kill and the like—got a well-deserved knock in in a study questioning the effectiveness of Reading First, one of the Bush Administration’s favorite K-12 programs.

Ironically a new Pew study plays up the benefits of teen blogging, which some of the d-and-k zealots might dismiss as frivolous.

Meanwhile, down in Nelson, New Zealand, a teacher named Rachel Boyd has come up with a lively little video show that cogently sums up blogging’s benefits for elementary schoolers.

So what’s the e-book angle? What better medium for book reports than blogs, where student can share their ideas and prose with an audience—a big boost for young egos? On top of that, students can link to their source material on the Web. Let’s just hope that the IDPF can get book-related linking right—so that someday students can effortlessly link from their blogs to specific passages within books. If publishers really want books to survive as a medium, then they’d better stop bellyaching about competition from the Web and pester the IDPF to aggressively update the ePUB standard.

A few caveats from a nonteacher, me

Let me throw in a few caveats. When students blog, how often do they get diplomatic critiques from teachers, who could encourage them to develop their ideas? Some writing samples I saw from Boyd’s students tended to be a bit thin even for the early grades. I’d have encouraged them to expand their little paragraphs.

“Why,” I’d have asked, “did you write that? Why don’t you put in a few more sentences to back up your main points?” The old journalistic formula of who, what, where, when, why and how, might help. Simply put, I want blogging used to make education more demanding, not less, and I suspect that many students would actually prefer such an approach—and feel flattered that Teacher actually took an interest in their creative work. Of course, there’s a little problem: the crummy student-teacher ratio in so many schools in the States and elsewhere. May the tech expenditures not displace the human ones!

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By David Rothman

Drat those evil techies—interfering with the get-a-horse-style forecasts of hardworking Luddites!

While academic librarians focus on the current prices of e-readers, let’s remember that PVI will be churning out 120,000 six-inch displays per month in the second half of ‘08, and meanwhile better tech is on the way. We ran a somewhat similar item earlier, but here’s an accidental jog from MobileRead with a link to a few extra details. Remember, displays are the highest-priced part of e-readers. Hello, American Libraries? Are academic librarians—at least those who’ve never even used a Kindle—the ultimate e-book authorities?

Other links of interest:

–”Waterstone’s is believed to have signed a deal to stock Sony’s e-book reader when it is introduced into the UK later this year,” reports the Bookseller. “It is understood that the retailer will be the exclusive vendor of the device in the UK.”

–OCLC introduces high-priced digital archiving service is the headline over Barbara Quint’s clueful article in Information Today. Maybe those costs are what the academic librarians should be ranting about. Quote from Barbara on annual fees: “Charges for the new service fall into 100-gigabyte chunks with each chunk priced at $750—one hundred and one gigabytes and the price jumps to $1,500.” Too bad that OCLC can’t contract this out privately and use the power of permanent links to help libraries build a true Web of enduring content. That would be better than just letting libraries entrust local content to Amazon or Google without librarians calling the shots. But libraries and coherent information strategies are too often like oil and water. Somehow they don’t always mix. The same—for the most part—with libraries and e-book standards. May that change! Libraries need to tell book-related vendors, “Go ePUB or else…”

–Guess who’s now writing a Publishers Weekly blog that democratically appears in the same location as the others. None other than Sara Nelson, the editor-in-chief. But, Sara, isn’t that risky, even if you’re linked in now to the power people at Reed Business Information? We know how ephemeral blogs can be. Care to restore the Web visibility of E-Book Report—my PW blog that mysteriously disappeared to the dismay of unsuspecting folks who were linking to EBR, in the Web sense? All those tens of thousands of words vanished in a flash, not the best move for PW’s credibility online or off. Reversing PW’s decision would a helpful precedent—and insurance for time when new owners take over PW and perhaps make a few personnel changes. Along with my blog archive, PW zapped those of the former publisher and the woman who hired me. Care to get PW back on the right track on these matters, Sara? Or were your bosses the real ones who ordered the massive link kill? Just who controls PW’s link-preservation policies? Whatever the case, PW, so savvy on many other matters, looked like Idiots Central when it so eagerly murdered the links. No need for a linkocide law, but disappointing just the same. I’m rooting for PW to survive, and I’m afraid, Sara, that Web-hostile linking policies won’t cut it. Smartening up about e-book standards would help, too, just as it would for libraries; does PW really want Amazon and the like to run the book business, Standard Oil fashion?

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By David Rothman

Is the publishing industry catching on to the usefulness of the e-books as trail-blazers for p-books? I’ll be surprised if HarperCollin’s new “studio” imprint doesn’t try that. But more immediately:

–Bertelsmann is publishing a condensed paper edition of Wikipedia, in German. Check out the New York Times, Ars Technica and a Google roundup. Could this be the start of a truly sustainable business model for Wikipedia?

–A self-published book is shortlisted for the prestigious Pen/Ackerley award in the U.K. The book came out as an e-book, although I’m not certain if E appeared before or after the P. Author is psychotherapist Jane Haynes, and the title is Who is it that can tell me who I am? The journal of a psychotherapist.

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By David Rothman

So when will Amazon switch over to ePub for the Kindle and Mobipocket software, and also abandon DRM lock-ins? Fat chance—at least without pressure from the rest of the book industry.

But then do mere publishers count anyway? Remember, Amazon wants vertical integration in the Standard Oil tradition, even at the expense of its suppliers: publishing houses.

An alarum from O’Reilly Media

Check out Publishers beware, Amazon has you in their sights, a post from Tim O’Reilly (photo), who says, “Amazon has, so far, created huge value for the publishing ecosystem. Now, as they become more powerful, they need to be especially watchful that they don’t irreparably damage an industry on which they too depend.”  Publishers aren’t the only ones taking notices. So is the library world as shown by items in LISNews and Jessamyn West’s blog.

Suspicious inconsistency

I just hope people will connect the dots. There is a reason, as I see it, why Jeff Bezos favors nonDRMed music (as part of his war with Apple) but not unshackled books (given Amazon’s investment in the Kindle and Mobipocket). DRM is a politer electronic version of the lawyers and thugs that the old Rockefeller interests used against competitors. Meanwhile, in the POD area, aren’t Jeff’s humans bullying clients on the phone?

And one way you can help

If you have things to say, whether e-book- or POD-related, why not catch up with the Washington State Attorney Genera’s officel?

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By David Rothman

Earth Day is April 22. And now a question for The Visionary in the photo.  Could eBabel, all those clashing e-book formats, actually be polluting our Planet Earth, not just the e-book market? Might Amazon be eco-hostile with its fixation on the proprietary Kindle format, which adds to the e-waste crisis?

Exactly how is Amazon a waste offender? Remember, Jeff Bezos want you to buy a Kindle to augment your PDA, cell phone and whatever other gadgets you have.

ePub as an earth-saver

With a standard format like the IDPF’s ePub standard, by contrast, you could read the same files in the future on different kinds of gizmos, not just a K machine.

In other words, you wouldn’t need to buy a $400 gadget just to read e-books, especially after typical cellphones started including e-book capabilities, which, in the long run, they’ll most likely do.

Bottom line: Fewer batteries, fewer circuit boards to recycle than with Amazon’s eBabel approach

Ecologically, the bottom line is that there would be fewer batteries, fewer circuit boards, to recycle. Instead of buying mini-armadas of devices, consumers could undertake some gadget consolidation and not have to lug around as many little boxes. But so far, Amazon has stubbornly resisted calls to render ePub natively on the Kindle—-a green move that would help the movement to raze the Tower of eBabel.

Needless to say, while Amazon is a leading eBabel polluter, the eco-friendly corporate name notwithstanding, it has plenty of company. I hope that the Sony Reader people and others will get behind ePub all the way and work for stores to make ePub the main format, not just include the ePub-capable Adobe Digital Editions in its Reader.

Granted, eBabel is hardly a competitor with SUVs in the Earth Threats Department. But remember, e-book boosters have talked up their favorite medium as a way to green publishing and help reduce paper consumption. In the name of consistency, then, and if nothing else for symbolic reasons, publishers and others should step up efforts to bring Jeff and other offenders into the ePub fold for real.

In a related vein: New York Times article and a Green Gadgets Conference

The above thoughts on the Kindle format’s eco-hostility are inspired by a New York Times Magazine article mentioning last February’s Green Gadgets Conference. Today’s Magazine is a green issue.

Could standardized batteries reduce waste, as some conference attendees hope—when, say, you switched to a new cellphone? Alas, questions arise because of the different requirements of hardware. Not so with e-book formats, though. We know that standardize formats are desirable for many reasons beyond the eco angles. Like DRM, eBabel is toxic to both e-book sales (by torturing consumers with added technological complexities) and literature (by imperiling your ability to read already-purchased books in the future—a hassle especially bad for literary works that can best withstand the test of time).

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By David Rothman

At least for now, the Encyclopedia Britannica is free to qualifying bloggers—go here. Plus, you can embed widgets on topics ranging from philosophy to American literature.

So, people are asking, how long will it take for the Britannica to go wiki—with, of course, close supervision of posters, which is what Citizendium does? Below, behold a sample widget! Of course, I hope that the Britannica will ultimately cut out the frills and use a direct, open approach like Wikipedia. Much better way to weave yourself into the fabric of the Web, folks!

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By David Rothman

The New York Times is out with a classic blog-basher of a story, In Web world of 24/7 stress, writers blog till they drop.

Could we rewrite the headline, please? How about “Newspaper Until You Drop”? Or an account of the miserly piecemeal system that so many newspapers use in paying stringers?

Moreover, how about the refusal of many and perhaps most U.S. dailies to pay for op-ed contributions? Or the fact that some newspapers themselves are expecting bloggers to work for free or for very little?

Old story—in more than one way

What’s more, despite the current ado, this is really an old story. I actually agree with the Times about health risks and the financial and sustainability issues, but they’re hardly limited to the blog world or to this century. Independent writers as a group most always get screwed. Trust me. Trust George Gissing. And publishers are hardly the only villains. The public is willing to spend just a fraction of what it should be spending on actual content, journalistic or otherwise. While the tens of billions spent each year on books would seem high, it’s just a fraction of America’s $13.8 trillion gross domestic product, a situation that TeleRead would help remedy in a way that narrowed rather than widened the digital, knowledge and educational divides.

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By David Rothman

“…at their very core, e-book readers are not nearly as useful and worthwhile as some may think for one major reason — they cost too much money.” - CNET columnist Don Reisinger, following a somewhat more upbeat AP story, Kindle helps tiny e-book market.

The TeleRead take: Beyond lower-priced hardware, a little more enthusiasm for E from the book business would help, in terms of, say, boosting the number of titles available. You already know that Publishers Weekly dropped the E-Book Report blog and mysteriously deleted the archives even though the readership numbers were fine. Meanwhile AP writes of Pat Schroeder, head of the Association of American Publishers: “In a recent AP interview, Schroeder spoke favorably of e-books, but said she still had not read one.”

Related: Hyperion president goes to HarperCollins and New HarperCollins unit to try to cut writer’s advances, in the New York Times, along with a WSJ article mostly behind a paywall. I wouldn’t be surprised if E were a factor, since, if you move toward e-books and the Long Tail model for P, you can’t pay advances as high as for typical p-books.

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By Joe Wikert, a VP in the Professional/Trade division of John Wiley & Sons

The New York Times recently ran this article about the latest book-to-blog success story, Stuff White People Like.  The blog was launched in January, quickly ran up the Technorati Top 100 list and is currently in the 40’s-50’s, depending on when you look it up.

Converting a blog to a book isn’t exactly new, but paying the author a $300K advance is pretty bold, especially when you’re talking about a $14 book.  The article notes that Random House would have to sell about 75K copies to earn back that advance.  That’s a pretty healthy sales number but I question whether even 75K copies will earn back the $300K author advance.

Let’s start with the $14 cover price.  The typical discount to retailers is 50 percent, but I could see this one going into more mass outlets than usual and probably being part of some other deeper discount promotions.  Let’s assume the average discount is about 55%, which is still probably conservative.  That leaves the publisher with 45 percent of the cover price, or $6.30 per copy.

Not-so-promising numbers

The author’s royalty rate is unknown and there are other factors that could come into play on this part of the calculation.  So, rather than speculate on this variable, let’s just look at the author advance divided by the publisher’s net revenue against the 75K units cited in the article.  Using the $6.30/unit from above, sales of 75K copies would produce $472,500 in publisher revenue.  Divide the $300K author advance by the $473K publisher receipts and you get 63 percent.  In other words, Random House would have to pay the author a royalty rate of 63 percent (against net) in order for the author to earn out that $300K advance after selling 75K copies.

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By David Rothman

The nurses and the social worker agreed. “Hearing,” they all more or less said, “is the last thing to go.” At 5:30 p.m. today my mother, always a good listener when my sister and I needed her, died at 94 of congestive heart failure in a rest home in Springfield, Virginia.

I don’t know what the final words she heard were, just that we encouraged her to let go when there was no more fighting to do. Dorothy and I, in fact, tried not speaking to her, despite our wishes to the contrary, so she wouldn’t linger on in pain—congestive heart failure isn’t as gentle a death as the medical gobbledygook might suggest to the ignorant—and within an hour my mother was dead. The intervals between the heaves of her chest grew longer, until at last the moaning stopped and she was still.

Yes, my mother had us late in life and would have been 95 in November. The Titanic had sunk only a year or so before her birth, and on Publishers Weekly’s bestseller list in 1913, Pollyanna was number eight in fiction—safe within even today’s abbreviated public domain.

Lessons from my favorite Luddite

However keen I am on e-books for the elderly, I could not win Mom over, but she enjoyed share of her paper books—from the best-sellers of Herman Wouk, years ago, to, more recently, Nicholas Sparks—along with tunes from Broadway musicals and trips to Nags Head and Fourth of July celebrations at the neighborhood swimming pool and German chocolate icebox, the recipe of which I’ll try to reproduce here in time. Is it really true that chocolate, gooey ladyfingers and whipped cream will prolong life, especially with cherries atop this phenomenon of a dessert? Well, it worked for Mom.

To tell you the truth, except for TV and a fondness for the telephone, almost a flesh-and-blood appendage for her, my mother was a bit of a Luddite. I think she prided herself on avoidance of gadgets and tech as much as—until her old age, when she had no choice—she did on her avoidance of doctors. The phone, moreover, was hardly a replacement for all bridge games and garden club meetings and coffees klatches with temple friends.  She believed strongly in community and continuity in the old-fashioned senses and was also a regular at community potluck suppers in her younger days; what’s more, she and her food were always available to comfort the sick or those in mourning. Now her friends can return the favors.

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