TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

Archive for the ‘books’ Category

By David Rothman

The TeleBlog’s overzealous anti-spam Dobermans are at it again. We’ve just recovered much-appreciated comments on paying writers, e-book prices and other topics—from  Bill Waldron (the shareware pay issue), Bob Russell of MobileRead (long, thoughtful essay on book prices), Dan Carey (self-publishing vs. the traditional kind) and Blaine Higgy (general-purpose computers vs. dedicated e-book devices). Click on their names to see the comments.

Always write us if your comments don’t appear in a day—normally they’ll show up instantly after you’ve established a track record as a commenter. We’re getting thousands and thousands of comment spams, and sometimes the good stuff gets lot in the dreck. We’re at the mercy of Akismet, our anti-spam service, but usually we can rescue lost comments. If you’d like, just to be sure, send along copies when you write us.

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By David Rothman

Ficbot—proud owner of an Asus, an eBookwise and other gimzos with clashing e-book formats in use—isn’t the only one with opinions on the eBabel mess.

The Association of American Publishers took a helpful step with an open letter to the IDPF—supporting ePub as a distribution format.

“Many publishers already want to begin a transition process toward the use of the EPUB file format and hope that such a transition can be completed by October 2008,” said the letter signed by Ed McCoyd the association’s director of digital policy.

ePub’s current champ among the majors: Hachette, which is already using ePub for distribution. May this follow at the consumer level! Meanwhile, over in the U.K.,  HarperCollins (relevant link) and Penguin (link) will soon start using ePub as a consumer format in September.

What’s missing: from the AAP note: A focus on ePub as a consumer format. But I suspect that’ll come in time. Meanwhile, yes, while it’s nice to suggest that the IDPF work out quality standards for conversion into proprietary formats from ePub, that’s hardly the way to make e-books as easy to use as audio CDs.

Another caveat: AAP say that “for books that do not have reflowable text, publishers may still send another proprietary file format, most likely a PDF, in order to preserve pagination and layout.”

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By Ficbot

Moderator’s note: The IDPF is holding the Digital Book 2008 conference today. May companies there heed Ficbot’s advice! - D.R.

I enjoyed the recent TeleBlog debate on resizing text on the fly. Is this a feature people really use on a regular basis? And do we need an e-book standard like ePub, which allows easy resizing and could work for everything from a cell phone to a book-optimized tablet?

One’s not enough

In a word, yes, because many e-book fans read on more than one device. They can pack their p-books in their bags and take them anywhere, so why shouldn’t they be able to carry around their e-books just as easily, no matter which device they are toting (an aside: that’s not my bag in the photo)?

They also need to be able to resize fonts easy to allow for different reading conditions, such as when their eyes are tired; and that’s not the only issue. On some devices, such as a cell phone or PDA, the fonts in formats like PDF may display differently compared to a tablet or desktop with a much-larger screen.

Potential boon to publishers and e-retailers, Amazon included

And why might readers be carrying different devices? Because some of their devices may be tools they use for other purposes. Letting them carry books between them would be a boon to publishers because it lets people do more reading and be more inclined to buy books. If the only device I have with me on a given day is my Eee PC and I can’t read a certain format on it, even though the book is important to me, then eBabel has once again reduced my productivity.

I hope Amazon is reading this. Remember, you can’t display an e-book from the Kindle Store on anything but a Kindle, not even your desktop machine. This eBabel is no small reason, among others, why I don’t own a Kindle even though, yes, it would let me change fonts within a certain range. Even Amazon’s Mobipocket is no solution since it can’t run on many computers, including my Linux Asus. We need a true nonproprietary standard.

A not-so-secret diary which Jeff Bezos should read

For Amazon and for those who wonder just what an avid e-reader means by “multiple devices” and why the reader might need them, here’s a glimpse inside the last week or so of my techie e-reading life:

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By David Rothman

Matt Sumell, a short story writer, is the first “Featured Contemporary Author” on the home page of the BookGlutton site. BG is a Web community through which you can annotate others’ works—publicly or privately—or publish your own. You can even do ePub conversions from HTML.

“We’ll be highlighting contemporary authors that have uploaded original work or excerpts of published material in a section on the homepage,” says Travis Alber, BookGlutton co-founder. “Although we continue to bring in public domain and Creative Commons work, we have now begun to expand our catalog to new copyrighted material; we’re excited to provide a space for new and contemporary authors to showcase their writing. We’ll be rotating the featured authors frequently.
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By Rob Preece, founder of BooksForABuck.com

Moderator: See earlier item on e-book pricing. Unrelated: Rob’s test of BookGlutton’s ePub conversion. Try it yourself. - D.R.

Sometimes you can’t win for losing. E-books get dinged for being “too expensive.” But offer great books at super-affordable prices instead—and you might get attacked for that.

Pricing is one of the most controversial aspects of e-books. When I started BooksForABuck.com, my market research indicated that many e-book publishers had set price points above those charged by traditional publishers for paper books. I love e-books and can understand charging more for the portability, adjustable font, and convenience. The problem is, you have to try e-books before you discover the advantages. My market research indicated that high prices kept many from bothering.

Logical savings for the reader

There is a logic that if a publisher doesn’t need to pay for paper, for shipping, invest in printing thousands of books that might not sell and might get returned at some future point, there should be a savings for the reader. That made sense to me. Certainly for small publishers, the cost of printing is non-trivial, and the risks of offset printing a quantity (as opposed to the extremely high price for POD printing) are substantial.

I came up with the “Books For A Buck” concept and sampled everyone I could reach; a high percentage indicated that they’d be intrigued by affordable books, and that a buck was a heck of a price. Many of them indicated that they’d be willing to experiment with a new author if they could buy a book at a price low enough that they wouldn’t feel too disappointed if they ultimately didn’t enjoy it.

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By David Rothman

The Espresso machine is a print-on-demand gizmo, a forerunner of what you may see someday at the corner FedEx Kinko’s. So is the demand out there for it? Todd Anderson, director of the University of Alberta Bookstore, is a believer, judging from PW’s write-up of his comments to a Book Industry Study Group seminar.

Cost of machine: $144,000.

Date of installation: November 1.

Number of books printed through early February: 2,364 books, totaling 537,754 pages, 1,500 more titles printed since then.

No, I haven’t analyzed the economics. I’d welcome thoughts on this. I still think the real action will be in e-books, but the POD alternative is great to have around for the holdouts. Meanwhile how about the eco angle of E vs. POD? Your other comparisons? Of course, for physical bookstores, on-site POD comes with an inherent appeal—less competition.

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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

“You can tell that no progress has really been made in changing cultural expectations when the same arguments that were trotted out a decade ago continue to be pursued. A Slashdot thread reprises the same debates about e-books that we’ve been having forever…’prefer real books,’ ‘turning pages is nice,’ ‘price of e-books is too high,’ ‘nothing compares to paper,’ ‘but free e-books are cool,’ ‘I read on my palm V etc etc.’” - Sherman Young, author of The Book Is Dead.

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By David Rothman

Yes, the actual book—the paper and cardboard—accounts for just part of what you pay at the store.

But new hikes in paper and fuel costs may make e-books more competitive with P than before. And of course we know which approach is greener.

Related: P-books as global warmers: Another argument for E. Paper books are a speck of paper consumption, but e-book readers can also display newspapers, far more villainous as polluters in P format.

And speaking of the p-to-e transition: Reluctantly, a daily stops its presses, living online, the New York Times’ write-up on the Capital Times in Madison,Wisconsin. Also see Wikipedia item.

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By David Rothman

Chief of Random House to step down—are pirate booksites to blame? reads a Bookyards headline. Actually, as I see it, it was a mix of factors, not just just slow growth but also CEO Peter Olson’s declining health. I doubt that Internet bootlegging counted in the grand scheme of things.

That said, Random House does need to consider new business models—for example, use of innovation to grow library sales. Even Random can’t do this alone. Librarians and publishers should spend less time fighting over copyright-related matters and more time lobbying for new funding mechanisms. Remember, library e-books are the best of both worlds—free to patrons (reducing the piracy risk) but a revenue stream for creators. No, I’m not saying library sales are a panacea; here’s to retail growth, too! But I think library revenue could be much bigger than now, thanks to the possibilities of e-books.

Olson’s rumored successor: Gail Rebuck of Random House UK (photo).

The Bookseller on her ‘tude toward E: Rebuck warns that publishers should take e-books seriously but be vigilant on copyright matters to protect themselves and writers. “However, she said that ultimately it did not matter if, in 2050, a writer is read in a traditional paperback or a hand-held device. ‘As a publisher, I am happy to supply either to customers, and the essence of what I am selling will be the same, whatever the technology transmitting it. I think there is an irreducible quality to reading that means the book will never die.’” Let’s just hope she’ll be open to backing off from traditional DRM as well as to ePUB—both would make it easier for legitimate customers to enjoy e-books.

Related: PW item and Google news round-up on Olson’s expected departure from Random.

(Thanks, Tamas.)

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

Literary Video’s tagline is “Creating Multimedia Content that Sells Books.”  I discovered this service last month and exchanged a couple of e-mails with David Woodard, founder and creative director.

With the ever increasing importance of video in the publishing world, I jumped on the opportunity to do a blog interview with David.  Here’s what he had to say about Literary Video and what it’s up to:

JW: You had been working for a publisher in Nashville for awhile and decided to launch this new business venture, Literary Video.  What’s your vision for the business and what drove you to create this start-up?

DW: Working in book marketing for eight years taught me many things, but one of the most impressive things I learned was that the best salesman for a book is almost always the author. There are exceptions to this, but by in large it is true.

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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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