TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

Archive for the ‘Sony Reader’ Category

By Jon Noring

AAP’s recent open letter strongly supporting the use of ePub by publishers was covered by David Rothman in a separate blog article.

Reading the letter, it was unclear to me whether AAP supported ePub as a consumer format. The letter focused mostly on using ePub as an intermediary format to be converted by wholesalers and retailers into various proprietary end-user formats currently in vogue.

The letter did imply support of ePub as a consumer format, by the use of the word “IF” in the second paragraph, but it was not explicit and some might have interpreted the letter differently. If so, they should read the clarification by Ed McCoyd, the Director of Digital Policy at AAP, who signed the AAP open letter. With his permission I am quoting part of his reply to the letter I wrote him:

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By Paul Biba

Best Buy has started selling the Windows XP version of the Eee PC and I’m afraid I fell for it. Unlike Ficbot I am not willing to fool around with Linux - I want something useful out of the box with no learning curve. An XP box is also useful as I have pretty much converted to a Mac shop but at times Windows is essential. For example, my bank and insurance company will only accept logins from Internet Explorer, not Firefox or Safari. I have been running Parallels on my MacBook and it works pretty well, but it’s nice to have an easily accessible Windows machine sitting nearby.

The machine comes with 512K RAM and 4GB of internal memory. I added an extra 8GB SD card to hold more programs. Much to my surprise it is pretty speedy, even with the underclocked processor and the limited RAM. I have it connected to a spare 19″ Samsung LCD monitor and the display is crisp and clean. For some further shots you can take a look at my posting at GPSPassion. Here’s the link. In that posting I discuss how I loaded up some GPS software on the machine and how you can use it for on-road navigation. You’ll also see a shot of it connected to the Samsung monitor. The touchpad has been the subject of criticism in a number of reviews for being difficult to use. I, however, seem to have no problems with it at all. I also added one of those mice with a retractable cord.

The keyboard is pretty tiny but I think you could end up typing fairly quickly if you had enough practice. The WiFi reception is incredible. I get better reception than my wife’s Toshiba or IBM and it is as good, if not a bit better, than my MacBook. The Windows connection proceedure, however, makes you want to scream and tear your hair out after you have gotten used to the simple, quick Mac procedure. As a matter of fact, dealing with Windows on the machine validates my decision to switch to the Mac platform. Boy is Windows clunky compared to OSX!

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By David Rothman

The IDPF’s ePub standard has won another convert—HarperCollins UK, which, starting in September, just like Penguin UK, will release ePub versions simultaneously with most paper titles. Exceptions will be works with formatting challenges, such as illustrations, although I’d hope that the number of those would lessen in time.

“Every publisher is really getting their act together,” the Bookseller quotes Victoria Barnsley, HarperCollins U.K.’s CEO. “We want to go when the actual hardware is available over here.” Hmm. The Sony Reader? With ePub capabilities for sure via Adobe Digital Editions? Remember the rumors—that Sony will launch in September?

ePub vs. Sony’s proprietary BBeB format

Could HarperCollins and other major Brit publishers be wisely trying to skip Sony’s BBeB proprietary format, at least as their main focus? I don’t know. It would be best to say no to Sony’s proprietary DRM, too,  however, so the books can be more easily available on other machines, including maybe even the hot new Readius, assuming that the FBReader folks or others in the ePub community can take an interest. Here’s to reader and publisher power, as opposed to Sony, Amazon or any other company lording it over the publishing industry!

Meanwhile, since ePub is a distribution format, not just a consumer one, there’s no reason why distributors can’t turn HarperCollins UK books into Mobipocket, PDF and other eBabelers. But best to work for a standard format at the consumer level—ePub, in other words!

2,500+ back list titles to be available

At least 2,500 HarperCollins back list titles will be available in E in the fall if rights clearances go well. Does the statistic include Harper in the States? I’m not sure, though I suspect not. And what’s with the front list in the U.S.?

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By David Rothman

Huang Ying was “interested in e-book readers for quite a while. But after trying” the Hanline V3, which has a six-inch screen, “I found it is almost useless to read normal PDF files on these machines. The font size is too small, while the page size is too wide.”

His solution? A PDF-to-image program that juggles around the characters so they can make better use of the screen. And now he’s wondering if the same idea might work on Sony Readers. What do you think gang? Check out Huang’s just-made MobileRead post and his downloadable source code. Of course, with reflowable formats like ePub, you don’t have these hassles.

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By David Rothman

The Sony Reader “will be available for sale at the end of April” at a Candian-oriented Sony Style Web site and at Sony Style stores in Canada, except for Quebec, according to a news release. Suggested price will be $299, and you can preorder now.

Arrival date as listed on the Web site is to be May 6—not exactly “the end of April,” but presumably shipping time is built in. Meanwhile, yes, it’s great to see the Sony Reader crew finally reaching beyond the States.

U.K. next—and when?

So exactly when is the Reader going show up in the United Kingdom? The launch there was rumored at one point to be be set for the London Book Fair, happening now. But there’s also been talk of perhaps late spring, which I’d guess would be more likely.

The Sony store angle: Sony says the eBook Store is up to almost 40,000 titles. That’s fewer than half the number that Amazon offers for the Kindle, shown to the right; but then Amazon lumps magazine, newspaper and blog subscriptions in with books in its 110,000 count. Anyone know what the true Kindle book count is at Amazon? Almost surely higher than the Sony store’s. But by how much?

And the continuing question about Sony: Just when will Sony release updated firmware with Adobe Digital Editions included, so that the Reader can read ePUB and both encrypted and nonencrypted PDF? Once there was talk of a February release. I’d rather that Adobe and Sony take their time and do things right. But how about an update, folks? Sony PR didn’t provide an ETA when I tried a few weeks back.

Clarification: In the last graph, I meant to say, “Both encrypted and nonencrypted POD.” The Reader can only read the nonencrypted kind right now. Fixed.  Thanks, Tamas.

(Canadian angle via MobileRead.)

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By David Rothman

Cybook Gen3s can now read public library books, at least with the right tweak, and MobileRead provides the nuts and bolts here. The newest Cybooks may even come with a firmware fix for this particular problem.

Will the just-published tweak solve the problem at all libraries? I don’t know. When I get a chance, I’ll try the fix and see how it works with the offerings of the Fairfax County, VA, library. Meanwhile here’s a list of some libraries offering e-books, including those in the Mobipocket format that the Cybook uses. Let us know if the fix works with an e-library you use.

At a cosmic level, the real issue is why this problem should have arisen in the first place. It’s another example of the hassles of eBabel and DRM.

And speaking of E Ink readers and public libraries: If you own a Sony Reader and want to enjoy public library books, you’re out of luck. Sony has yet to include software that can cope with DRMed PDF books of the kind that libraries carry. Supposedly Adobe Digital Editions will soon be usable on the Sony Reader PRS-505 and address this issue—and also enable the Reader to read Adobe DRMed .epub, the IDPF’s standard. Libraries would do well to lean on vendors to use .epub rather than proprietary formats, regardless of the company-specific DRM. Ideally that problem can be solved in time.

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By David Rothman

Several hundred Sony Readers will soon reach Random House staffers, according to Publishers Weekly—this on top of other Reader-related adoptions at companies such as Hachette, S&S and St. Martin’s.

Manuscripts will get to Random’s out-of-town sales reps faster and without any paper for them to lug around. And that’s not all for publishers using the Reader. “We looked at how much we were spending on paper, postage, ink,” Phil Madens at Hachette is quoted. “A 400-page manuscript would cost $7 to print. In the first couple of seasons, the Reader will pay for itself.” Hachette is using readers in editorial and sales alike—also in the plans of S&S and St. Martin’s, which hasn’t done a full rollout but is optimistic. “We started this around last Thanksgiving,” Hachette’s Madens says. “I’ve been here 17 years, and I’ve never seen anything accepted so quickly.”

So if publishers are so gung ho on e-book readers for internal use, just when will they go all the way on E? How about experimenting with no DRM or with social DRM, so E is less Rube Goldbergish for consumers—and then ordinary mortals can get their books faster, including those outside the States? And if the publishers can lean on the IDPF to develop the promising but flawed .epub standard to the max and in a timely way, then so much the better.

In other e-gizmo news, Bookeen says a firmware upgrade for the Cybook Gen3 is due in the first week of April (via MobileRead).

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By David Rothman

“For about $150 anyone can access the United States’ multi-billion dollar GPS program. GPS Outdoors: A Practical Guide for Outdoor Enthusiasts shows readers how to plug in and enhance most any outdoor experience.” - Wowio, an ad-supported company that offer the Guide for free.

More details: The Guide is for outdoor people ranging from hikers to “a climber pre-scouting the routes up Mount Shasta.” GPS just might save your life. Amazon reviews of the book are here. Paul Biba, a TeleBlog regular, is a GPS expert, and I’d welcome his thought on the guide. Alas, people outside the States can’t download Wowio books. But the company says that’ll change soon.

Other freebie spottings:

–David Drake’s fantasy novel Lord of the Isles, in PDF, HTML and Mobi from TOR’s weekly freebie program. Not sure if this is available to newcomers to the program, but sign up and give it a try.

–Wikipedia in Tome Raider format (found via MobileRead) and Scott Sigler’s novel Infected (MobileRead).

–Dictionary program for Sony E Ink machines (MobileRead).

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By David Rothman

Richard Herley, the author of The Penal Colony and other novels, including The Stone Arrow, which won the Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize, will contribute to the TeleBlog from time to time. Welcome, Richard!

For the benefit of latecomers, let it be known Richard is generously making his books available as shareware under a Creative Commons license. Pay him if you enjoy the reads!

Sony Reader owner

Meanwhile Sony Reader owners will be pleased to learn that Richard is among them–he reads off a PRS-500 that a friend got him in the States.

Richard’s bio follows: "I am English, born in 1950, educated at the local grammar school and Sussex University, where I trained as a scientist but realized I wanted to be a professional writer. My first published novel appeared in 1978; the film rights to my fourth, a thriller released in 1987, sold to Gale Anne Hurd (The Terminator, Aliens) and the movie actually got made (No Escape, 1994). I lost heart from the late eighties and had no further will to expose myself to the industry. However, in 2000 I completed another thriller, which I am now revising for publication online. To her puzzlement my agent was unable to place it, but publishing was changing, the caravan had moved on, and I was left behind.

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By David Rothman

Forget the ballyhoo in the ads.  Why can’t you go into the middle of the Sahara, spend days away from an AC wall connection and have your E Ink machine still running?

How come the batteries for the Sony Reader, the Cybook Gen3, the Kindle and the iLiad may not really last for days and days?

The page-forward drain

Well, here’s one possible reason why you might not want to trust your E Ink machine for, say, maps—at least if you’re also doing recreational reading. Paging forward will always drain juice, even if you’re just skipping the boring parts of a novel. See comments by Michael Harris and Bill Monks. I’m also curious if the use of certain storage cards may cut back on battery life. Thoughts? Here’s the take from participants in an iLiad forum. Meanwhile Kindle owners should do the obvious and save battery life by switching off their wireless connections when RSS updates and the like aren’t needed.

What kind of battery life are you getting from your E Ink machine, and what special things might you be doing to stretch it out?

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By David Rothman

S&S isn’t the only big house using Sony Readers these days. Hundreds are in the hands of editors and others at the Hachette Book Group, the home of best-sellers such as 7th Heaven.

Some thirty manuscripts lurk within the Reader that a Hachette publisher named Jonathan Karp is toting. "People are evangelical about it," New York Magazine quotes him. “If you’re traveling, this is so much easier than lugging around manuscripts. It’s good for reading in bed, too.” Not to mention the ease of backing up E, compared to Xeroxing and the like.

Only e-manuscripts from agents, please

Rather understandably, then, agents must now send e-manuscripts, rather than paper, to Grand Central and other Hachette imprints. Last I knew, the E-only requirement wasn’t in place at S&S

Does the above mean that writers can e-mail manuscripts to Hachette and other big houses directly? In most cases not. Still, maybe this will telegraph a little message to the more old-fashioned of the literary agents—that they should start accepting full manuscripts in E rather than messing with "partials" on paper. Can you always tell the nature of books by their first 50 pages? I know. Agents are in a hurry, and most of what they get is the slush, from start to end; but it would be  nice for full manuscripts to be there in case they did want to keep on reading.

Hachette also an .epub leader

Meanwhile congratulations to Hachette, which is saving a pile of money in Xeroxing, just as it also is trimming costs through the use of the IDPF’s .epub standard as its sole distribution format. May the same commonsense reach retailers and Sony itself. Sony’s proprietary BBeB format and the other eBabelers are no small contributors to the e-book industry’s costs!

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

Moderator’s note: For another perspective on the Kindle and rivals, check out Benjamin Higginbotham’s Tech Evangelist video shown here. - D.R.

Microsoft Senior Program Manager and Wiley author Scott Hanselman is a former Sony Reader user who is now a Kindle convert. In this blog post Scott covers everything he loves about his new Kindle. He’s so right about the one reason the Kindle exists: “To extract money from my wallet.”

I find it interesting that Scott has grown tired of his iPod and leans more towards XM Radio, particularly since I’m heading in the opposite direction. I’ve had XM for a couple of years now and find that the old cable line is true: There are 500 channels and nothing is on! (Or in the case of XM, only about 170 channels.) I recently bought an 80-gig Zune and am rapidly drifting away from XM Radio. I’d rather use randomize and the fast forward button to listen to what I want to, not what some satellite DJ wants to play.

Be sure to read Scott’s entire review of the Kindle; he covers the pros and cons quite effectively.

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