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What many of the posters here don't seem to know is that dedicated readers (such as the Rocket eBook) are alive and well, with tons of content already available. I wouldn't consider reading a book online, from a laptop, or even from my Handspring. I do, however, find the large font, backlit, ergonomic nature of the Rocket eBook to be more pleasurable to read from than a normal paper book, and it adds value, like telling me words I don't know, allowing me to add margin notes and bookmarks and holding lots of books!

The publishing business seems to be going through quite a transition right now. Small online publishers like Hardshell Word Factory and Treeless Press are nipping at the heels of traditional paper publishers. They are churning out low cost eBooks online, much faster and cheaper than the hardback -> paperback publishing route.

One of the best resources for eBook info is Knowbetter.com. They keep an ongoing list of epublishers, hints&tips, and general news on the ebook industry. Check 'em out - I think you will find what you are looking for.

Good luck with your book.

Dedicated readers are available now! I use the Rocket eBook but there are others. These are reading appliances that are designed specifically for the purpose. They have very high contrast, long battery life (30 hours) and back light for night reading. You read content purchased over the web from Barnes and Noble, The Gutenburg Project, or just plain old content sucked off the web.

eBooks do not mean laptops! They ultimately look like that cool little thing that Capt. Picard carries around.

Think appliances, people!

Anyone can publish for the Rocket eBook on the Rocket-Library.com site. Already more than 3000 titles there published by site visitors. First you download "eRocket" (a virtual Rocket eBook for your PC) from http://www.rocket-ebook.com/eRocket. Install the RocketLibrarian software. Drag your HTML file over RocketLibrarian window, and poof, you just ePublished. For more info about ebooks: http://www.ebooknet.com

"And here's a chilling thought for you: If this idea takes off, then why should authors ever need to deal with book stores (or publishers) at all? He could just sell directly to his end customers. With electronic media, the only infrastructure and retail store you need, is The Internet and a server."

Indeed. Facilitating this seems to be the mandate of fatbrain's eMatter service, where authors post material, write the copy, and set the price. All Fatbrain does is provide the encryption and transaction processing and the central place to buy them.

Of course, this isn't really the end of publishing as we know it. After all, there's the concept of brand (I make different assumptions about an O'Reilly title vs. a "Bla bla bla Unleashed" book), both for publisher and author. The information you have about a book purchase is incomplete, after all, and in such cases, reputation matters. Reputations can be bought via advertising, and are earned through reviews.

It's a giant trust network. I trust most of the reviews i see in the New York Times, and one of their reviewers trusted publisher X enough to read a book by author Y, who publisher X trusts by reputation, sales, or actually having read the text. Thus i feel like a review in the NYT tells me enough to know whether or not i'd like the book. This is where Amazon's reviews fall down; there's such a variety of reviewers (the public at large), that i can't really trust the positive reviews (although they seem to be addressing that with pages of reviews by the same person now).

As for this story, I'll be reading it on my Rocket eBook, a portable reader. Very nice.

As someone who's owned a Rocket eBook since last December, i can say that I certainly thought that moving bits, not atoms, would be cheaper. As have a lot of other people. However, there have been some long discussions among people in the current publishing industry and the eBook world (see eBookNet, for example), and the conclusion seems to be that books are priced like CPU's; that is, you pay based on how much you want it, not on how much it cost to make (which for books, is not that much, maybe a buck). If you want that Pentium III 600MHz chip RIGHT NOW then you will pay a much higher price for it than if you wait six months. Likewise, buying a hardback book when it first comes out will cost you more than waiting until the paperback or cheap used editions become available. So, the fact that most eBooks are the same price as the current print edition makes some twisted sense, in that light.

The publishers are the ones setting prices. The only explanation i can see for the fact that some eBooks cost more than hardbacks is that publishers figure that they can screw the early adapters.

The other thing keeping eBook prices high is the small size of the market. The non-zero conversion costs must be amortized over a very small number of people, and with not many titles available, there's not much competitive price pressure yet.

That said, i love my Rocket eBook. It's a sweet chunk of hardware, and it's wonderful for reading long web pages or Project Gutenberg texts away from the computer. I'm reading "Open Sources" on it right now.

See the Rocket Library for gobs of free text. They can even be read on an onscreen Windows simulator of the eBook, called the eRocket.

mahlen

During these last decades the interest in professional fasting has markedly diminished.
--Franz Kafka, "A Hunger Artist"

In steps Rocket eBook which encrypts and protects each document by keying it to every individual e-reader. Even if you send a friend your file, their e-reader can display it because their e-reader has a different key...

That's why many publishers are starting to back the Rocket eBook and why they have over 1200 titles available already.

And, you can check out a virtual Rocket eBook by downloading eRocket and visiting RocketLibrary.com which has nearly 1000 free titles.

And while you're playing with your eRocket, try applying the built-in "skins" and get some new skins here.

You can even create a skin and upload it to the NuvoMedia site!

In steps Rocket eBook which encrypts and protects each document by keying it to every individual e-reader. Even if you send a friend your file, their e-reader can display it because their e-reader has a different key...

That's why many publishers are starting to back the Rocket eBook and why they have over 1200 titles available already.

And, you can check out a virtual Rocket eBook by downloading eRocket and visiting RocketLibrary.com which has nearly 1000 free titles.

And while you're playing with your eRocket, try applying the built-in "skins" and get some new skins here.

You can even create a skin and upload it to the NuvoMedia site!

In steps Rocket eBook which encrypts and protects each document by keying it to every individual e-reader. Even if you send a friend your file, their e-reader can display it because their e-reader has a different key...

That's why many publishers are starting to back the Rocket eBook and why they have over 1200 titles available already.

And, you can check out a virtual Rocket eBook by downloading eRocket and visiting RocketLibrary.com which has nearly 1000 free titles.

And while you're playing with your eRocket, try applying the built-in "skins" and get some new skins here.

You can even create a skin and upload it to the NuvoMedia site!

Yep, and you can get content for Rocket eBooks at RocketLibrary.com. And if you don't have a Rocket yet, you can try out a virtual one on the Rocket-ebook.com site. They've got loads of "skins" that you can apply to the eRocket, and you can even creat one and upload it to the site. Funn stuf.

RocketLibrarian (for reading and is available for Macs. You can get the pre-release version here: http://www.rocket-ebo ok.com/Readers/Software/librarianPR.html And if that page changes, here's the direct link to the file: http://www.ro cket-ebook.com/Readers/Software/rl_install_1.2b5.s ea.hqx

RocketLibrarian (for reading and is available for Macs. You can get the pre-release version here: http://www.rocket-ebo ok.com/Readers/Software/librarianPR.html And if that page changes, here's the direct link to the file: http://www.ro cket-ebook.com/Readers/Software/rl_install_1.2b5.s ea.hqx

I'll admit right off the bat that I work for NuvoMedia. We make the Rocket eBook which I think works better than either a pilot or a SoftBook for reading electronic texts. We offer strong encryption: face it, after mp3 that is the only way that publishers will feel comfortable putting their titles into electronic form. Our form factor is about the size of a large paperback, very comfortable to hold; and our screen is BEAUTIFUL. And for non-encrypted titles we have a 'virtual' e-book for the PC (winbloze only, but that may change). Check it out at the Rocket eoBook site

I'll admit right off the bat that I work for NuvoMedia. We make the Rocket eBook which I think works better than either a pilot or a SoftBook for reading electronic texts. We offer strong encryption: face it, after mp3 that is the only way that publishers will feel comfortable putting their titles into electronic form. Our form factor is about the size of a large paperback, very comfortable to hold; and our screen is BEAUTIFUL. And for non-encrypted titles we have a 'virtual' e-book for the PC (winbloze only, but that may change). Check it out at the Rocket eoBook site