Slashdot Mirror
King's New eBook
NoProb writes "Yahoo has a story that describes Steven King's new book Riding the Bullet, which will be released in electronic format only. It also states that Barnes & Noble will be giving the book away for free today only. After that it'll cost you $2.50 to download it. " OK, sure the first major book in electronic format is cool, but part of the story that I thought is interesting is that Softlock, who's actually doing the selling part has buckled under the strain. The demand for electronic information continues to grow.
but why are monitors square? why can't they be round of trapezoidal or some shit?
This is not a book we're talking about. It's a short story and it's about a tenth of the volume of a normal size paperback. You'd think the lack of printing and distribution cost would make the book cheaper but as I said this is 1/10th of a normal book for 1/3rd of the price. So they get lots of publicity and heaps of money...you decide if it's a rip off or just good marketing.
See above
Sigh.
It amazes me how people try to xfer prices for solid objects into e-prices.
$2.00 for 66 pages. The avg king book is say 600 pages and about $20.00. For that price you get a good chunk of paper that cost you next to nothing to store. Cost is about 3 cents a page, the same cost they are trying to charge for this e-book.
So what? Well the production cost of serving these files has got to be a fraction of what the hard cover would cost to produce. But they charge the paper price even though most of the production is done on the users hardware.
I can see these guys with big $$$$ in there eyes, slash the cost of production but leave the price the same.
HEY it worked for the CD music industry right??????
I would say "do they think we're stupid?" but the CD industry has already proved that point....
Keep on keeping on
If anyone likes to (has the nerve) they can access my pitch at Fatbrain.com's eMatter. http://www1.fatbrain.com/asp/bookinfo/bookinfo.asp ?theisbn=EB00002427
What a hope...
I don't like the tense of your post. That series is not done yet, there is at least 2 more books that are needed to wrap that sucker up. Roland and his half height negro et al have a lot of shit to do still. I'm not sure I liked how the last one ended with the oz tie-in.. everything else was phenominal.
Amazon is giving away also the book. You have to download a reader that runs only on Microsoft OS. Veeeeery stupid.
Why?
Can I trust this software to NOT scan my drive and send back copies of my financial records to somebody?
$2.50 says I get a spam from barnes and noble before I get the actual book. Ahhh. I'll just have it sent to my hotmail account. I never check that thing anyway.
Maybe Slashdot does the same thing whenever it's acting really slow, sorta like today. You gotta love conspiracy!
http://www1.fatbrain.com/asp/bookinfo/bookinfo.
unauthorized copies do exist of ebooks.
visit
http://members.xoom.com/cr_two
for more info
that King, who was almost killed by a car, which runs on electricity, would release an ebook, meaning a book that is distributed electronically. Isn't it ironic that King would utilize the very technology that almost killed him.
Equally stupifying is why King, with his vast riches, would not fix those two snaggle, bucked teeth.
Also, he needs a hotter babe. He needs a Hot Girl.
Looks like theyre using a name to sell the thing. Also their servers seem a little clogged up.
I just love sitting in front of my computer sceen to read, lots better than those darn portable books.
Toooo bad I was hoping for a decent reader but PDF SUCKS, it is slow, a resource hog and just plain crappy...anyone have any other options ??
Nothing at all. Hmmm. No copyright has expired since the creation of Mickey Mouse. Is something wrong with modern copyright law?
Do you know if it's possible to load a .pdf onto a PalmPilot? That would be almost as good as having an actual paper book.
Yes I do think they are that hard up for cash...Amazon would screw your grandmother for $2.50, they do it to their customers every day :) What makes you think B&N is anything but a profit making machine (ie corporation)...ANYTHING FOR THE MIGHTY BUCK
Wal-Mart doesn't take money out of _all_ local economies. They've dropped a _tremendous_ amount in mine. Of course, I only live 25 miles from Bentonville.
Blackbuster and WalMart both practice censorship of their materials. Many movies come out in "Blockbuster versions". Remember "Supersexy Swingin Sounds of White Zombie" or something like that? They had to airbrush the cover because it was "too indecent". Not illegally indecent, just not quite nice enough for Sam Wal. The Libertarian in you should agree with me that censorship by big business is almost always NOT a good thing.
clearly states that this post should be moderated down to a -1.
I used to work for the consulting company that created their entire application (I'm not proud of it), and it's all NT. ASP web pages, Visual Basic COM components, SQL Server (6.5 no less).
Also, when you download the document, you are first downloading a (at the time I worked there, a windows-only) Acrobat Reader plug-in that would fingerprint your machine. The file is then encrypted on the fly against your machine's fingerprint (another reason for server-buckle) so that only you can read it. If you tried opening it on another machine with or without the reader plug-in, the document couldn't be decrypted.
If you try server2, instead of server1 like the download link is, you could probably download tyhe thing. If you use winblows
hahahah this is so funny!!! Your right.. It IS !!
For more books like this, and tons and tons of tech ones, try #bookwarez on EFNet!
Fuck the stupid book.
In five to ten years time your eBook is going to be worthless; just gone or in other words for stuff of some value eBooks are not yet the way to go.
Now whether Stephen King is writing stuff worth to keep is a different story, other aspects like would you take an expensive piece of electronics with you when going down to the beach ... sand ... lotion ... ice cream all over the place ?
Anyway, for the time being eBook seems to be just an expression for a book available to the public in the same form it had been available to the publisher for many years now.
Makes for a nice marketing gag though.
Try "xpdf"
Try #bookwarez on EFNet...we're way ahead of ya :>
Beg to differ. I thought it rather a pretentious piece of shite (but then my tastes in poetry run to the simple and direct, and I don't think there's a better showcase for WG's considerable talents than prose fiction).
...We will email you when it's your turn to buy and receive your instant download...
It could have been diesel, which wouldn't need electricity (technically) once it was running. Starting? Push down a [very long] hill and use compression.
This is just a newer example of bait and switch. Look at the airlines' $99 anywhere fares for a similar example
I also work at one of the 'other' companies that are distributing this book, and my recollection was that the big players don't actually get the books for free. They still have to pay, but they are eating the cost for all the books that are downloaded on the first day.
DARK TOWER are the best series I have ever read. I would say they are King's greatest work ever. If you've read a lot of his stuff you would notice he ties them into many other stories, like they are all linked inside of one universe.
Don't forget to have them send a copy to palmer.robinson@metrokc.gov!
Maybe they should offer some sort of online discounts with online ebook sales.. Like $2.00 off your next book purchase or something. Making it even more incentive to buy electronic versions over hand bound..
On a side note, I will always prefer reading books on paper. Computers are nice and all, but very ugly to look at unless you're using BeOS.
nuff said :)
Another Goddamn Windows-only feature.
PLEASE come up with a way for Anonymous users to
block Hemos' stories... ack.
But I digress, if geeks are supposed to be libertarians, you should be able to see this all pretty clearly w/o me.
I belive you've misspelled Dumbass
...and Mr. Wal doesn't have to care...
Walton, actualy.
Bzzt. Wrong. You can convert pdf to a palm .doc file, see this post. You just need windows. :(
Nope, they run on both electricity and gas. Electricity for the spark, and gas to burn.
Agrippa... is that the one that destroyed itself after you read it?
"like they are all linked inside of one universe." Maine?
Why do you bother reading them if you think they are boring?
Who is this jesus character anyways? Jefus's hompage.
So does this mean that book pirating is going to be the next big thing?
Anybody got an 8x SCSI book binder?
it doesn't run on electricity. a car generates electricity, and then subsequently uses that electricity to function. it runs on the gas.
One solution would be to install the GlassBook client dodad on computers in the library. Patrons wouldn't be able to take the book home with them, but they could at least access the information. And since many libraries already have public terminals for things like internet access, installing a free client on them isn't impossible. Of course, the libraries that I'm familiar with also have half hour time limits to keep one patron from monopolizing the computer all day... It's a little hard to read a novel in 30 minutes...
Somebody else mentioned that some libraries have Rocket eBooks available. As the prices of workstations continue to fall, I think it would be better for libraries to buy general purpose machines, but it's also another option.
Hell: "What format would you like? We have three billion formats for you to choose from..." I can read it on my PC, I can't read it on my PC, blah blah blah. On version of the book is 57K, another is over 400K. Please shoot me now
It's Stephen King, not Steven King!
And yes, I think his books are boring. Just about all are 90% crap with setting up relations, and then 10% action and gore. (I usually give up (go asleep) before action begins).
(Moderate this up & Informative)
I don't know how to use a keyboard. Where does the key go?
Not first! Praise me instead.
I sent this in a few days ago and is was declined as a story!!!!
First! Praise Jesus!
That's right, praise me! Come on, bitch!
I am the Lord.
I am the Lord.
God Hates Moderators.
I am the Lord.
I am the Lord.
God Hates Moderators.
I just got email from B&N that I can dowload it for free it at some url [edited].
If you recall, they promised a PDF format initally.
However, they did about face and now they offer it in glassbook reader format only!!!
No PDF format, and the Glassbook reader of course
does not run under Linux.
I personally think it is a breach of contract.
I encourage people to email tell them what you think about releasing products which does not run
under linux. Their emails are :
service@barnesandnoble.com
support@glassbook.com
I got the same thing, that URL for getting it as a glassbook. Unfortunately I haven't been able to get glassbook running, it bombs out with a a vague "unhandled error" message that glassbook support hasn't been able to fix. Glassbook currently looks like a piece o' crap both in design and implementation. When are these companies going to give up on the notion of pay-per-view for all IP?
B&N said they were going to send out PDFs. If anyone got a PDF please mirror it with the warning that only those who did try to get it on the free day should download it. I'd like to read this allegedly free book but I've already paid for it several times over with my free testing of that crappy glassbook product.
Both gv and xpdf will display PDF files, however they both sometimes do a poor job with fonts (jaggies galore).
>Uh, bzzzzzt... this books is available *ONLY* in electronic form. You :)
>can't go buy a paper copy unless someone prints it out. Maybe you
>should read a little more carefully before you try to get that "first
>post" out there.
Big fucking deal. Ever hear of fanfiction? There *ARE* hoards of fanfiction authors who are better than King. Take a look at UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES (http://www.eyrie-productions.com/) for instance. Another one is Magnesite's anime & fanfiction page (http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Temple/1810/) These people have been doing this kind of stuff for *YEARS* now.
Uh, bzzzzzt... this books is available *ONLY* in electronic form. You can't go buy a paper copy unless someone prints it out. Maybe you should read a little more carefully before you try to get that "first post" out there. :)
Note that there's also a "GbDetected" field; apparently their reader works the same way.
This "protection" still doesn't prevent someone handy with notepad from simply reading it and retyping it someplace else, thus making it non-protected. This is what I plan to do once I can actually *download* the stupid thing, so I can simply keep a copy and not have to deal with this stupid protection crap.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
My bed or couch seems much more comfortable than reading in front of the screen. But I will give it a second try when a Crusoe powered electronic book/webboard is available.
My huge problem with e-books in general is that these books are the same or MORE expensive in downloadable format than the hardback version. Take a look at B&N and check out King's "Hearts In Atlantis"...it's under $20 for the hardback $23 for the downloadable version. I sure would like to be able to pull this into my pilot, but if I'm going to drop $20 bucks on a book, I'll take the hardback.
It reminds me of CD's and DVD's: new media that dramatically cuts production/distribution costs over what they replaced, but the price to the consumer actually goes up....beauty deal!
"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.
Other books Stephen King has released (not for free) in electronic form:
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
Hearts in Atlantis
Bag of Bones
mahlen
Napoleon: What shall we do with this soldier, Giuseppe? Everything he says is wrong.
Giuseppe: Make him a general, Excellency, and then everything he says will be right.
--George Bernard Shaw
Douglas Clegg released a new chapter of his unpublished novel 'Naomi' every month between May and September 1999 for free. It is now being released on paper.
Naomi
I really wanted a Palm when they first came out and were beyond my means. I kind of forgot about them for a while, then I realized I had been wanting one all along when thinking about 'e-books.'
Unless a store can find a niche, or offer something superior to the big stores, it's not going to last. My dad had a used bookstore for a few years, but he never made any money off books.
What I like about small/specialty shops is that they *know* the subject matter at hand, and can recommend a book for my particular situation. Also, I'd rather buy a used book and save some money if I don't know exactly which one I want to buy.
If there's a specific book I want, I'll look in used bookstores. If I can't find it, then I'll probably order it thru Amazon. (They've successfully found 2 out of print books for me.)
Paranoid is a nice shade of periwinkle.
Saying that simply because it's only $2.50, these companies don't want/need the money is rather silly. For a company valued at many, many billions of dollars, Microsoft sure does seem rather picky about whether or not I've pirated a $50 game, eh?
Occam's Razor...looks good on paper, doesn't seem to work out all that often in practical application. Life is amazing that way...all too often, the most simple answer is BLATANTLY wrong. Oh well...
-Jer-Jer
Not to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but does anyone else think that perhaps Softlock purposely made sure that they couldn't support the amount of traffic they expected, so that less people would get the free book, and more would buy it?
I mean, can you think of better marketing? Offer something free of charge for 1 day only, restrict the ability to access the free item so that maybe only 20% of those interested can get it, and allow them to sign up to buy the book when the site "frees up". Not that I begrudge them their $3, just thought it was rather brilliant if that's what they did.
-Jer
"If Windows is the answer, it must have been a stupid question."
-Jer
Well, even so there's Bruce Sterling's Hacker Crackdown that was published online...
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
Has any explanation been made as to why those players are able to give it away? Is King being paid for those copies out of B&N's pockets? This sounds fishy.
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.
BTW... Hail to you, Page One! I live about a mile away from your store. Funny, though, I shop at your Page One Too place (your old shop across the street) more often. I have a feeling I'm not ever going to see an "ebook" there...
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
....I can't believe that no one posted that softlock is running apache on linux. ;-)
bookstar, if it's the one you are talking about, is a national chain. in fact, i believe it may be owned by barnes and noble. i cannot locate a reference to support this, however.
i think this because i worked at a barnes and noble in college, and when i started i was fed a bunch of garbage about the company's history. this included the list of chains that barnes and noble owns (such as b. dalton, etc). i could swear it included bookstar.
- pal
xpdf, which is GPL'd, comes with pdftotext, a simple utility to (you guessed it) convert pdf files to text.
Well first off, I don't think the Amazon boycott has anything to do with bookstores. It has to do with what we believe are unfair patents. They have two patents which really are unrelated to bookselling (Affiliate Program and One click purchasing). The fact that they sell books is secondary. Patents are the only reason that *I* personally am boycotting them, and I do feel that I'm doing the right thing by going to BN or Borders, or whatever...
The patent issue is much larger than the allegation that BN is pushing small stores out of the scene, because it affects more than just booksellers. It has an effect on everyone who does business online.
We need to let Amazon know that what they are trying to do will not be tolerated in the online community. This is a chance to show that in the online world, the real power is with the community, and not with business and money.
For those Unix folks, probably one of the most technical savvy ppl on the net, ie. likely customers - the glassbook reader supports :
Windows blah blah, ie 4.0 blah....
You would think that they would a least provide a UNIX reader (or can someone point me to one...)
tom.
-- Tom
I agree that the traditional argument that "the market will take care of it" is much too simplistic for real-world analysis. I don't think the examples you picked are very good though. Well, DeCSS might be, since the real fear of the MPAA is in defeating of the region code trap.
In any case, big corporations are beholden to their shareholders. In the real world, this means that they try to maximize profits. This precludes any view but the zero-sum game, where competition must be destroyed or co-opted. This is where it gets fuzzy, because they bring in lobbyists and lawyers to create, twist, and subvert legislation (and legislators) to their advantage. This inherently prevents a free market from performing any corrections, since it's not technically free any longer.
Bringing this back on topic, eBooks will only succeed when and if the big corporate publishers feel that they have adequate protection against these books being copied. Obviously, they feel that they're at this point -- although I'm curious about the PDF formatted ones. Do they have some security built in? What's to keep me from copying 'em? Do you have to be network connected to read them?
Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachtani?
www.fogbound.net
www.elecbook.com/ebfree.htm
My book (http://delmoi.dhs.org/re) May be published online only, if I ever get it done (first two chapters done). Not that this really has anything to do with the discussion, but I thought I'd post anyway :P
This isn't to say that I wouldn't publish offline, but...
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
The make process is on unix, Therir infistructure is NT. There code is almost certanly ether MFC, or some crossplatform widgetset. Ether way, there isn't really any porting going on at all...
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Vader@sith.imp gets me past the automarketing machine. Of course they can't send me it in PDF if I miss out. Oh well.
The party's over
I believe ghostscript was derived from reverse egnineering of the ps and pdf formats. http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/ pdf2ps -->ps2ascii-->manipulate?
john
-- john
King has published loads of novellas. Off the top of my head, Shawshank Redemption, The Body, The Mist, The Langoliers, Apt Pupil, The Long Walk, The Sun Dog, and The Breathing Method. In compilations, admittedly, but you can't say that the book wouldn't have been sold.
OK, I take your point about the batteries, but why does an eBook have to flexible and disposable? I don't think I've ever thrown a book away (unless it got really manky, in which case having it in digital form is a plus) and I don't sit there bending a book either.
Yep. Bill Gates "The Road Ahead" book was on the CD-Rom that came with the printed book. And you can read Brave New World, or any of the books by these Authors online too. Plus 1984 is somewhere on the net, but I can't remember the link.
Close but no cigar. The Hacker Crackdown was printed and then put online. You have to pay for the printed version but you can download the online version for free. This isn't the same thing. This was written and published entirely online. You can't get it in printed format at this time. The only thing that I can think that comes close is Gibson's poem Agrippa that he had distrubited on disk.
Yes it did. But the protection was broken rather quickly and now you can find it online. Good poem too.
Did somebody actually look at how Glassbook is doing it? It downloads a short description file in XML, then based on that tries to download a certificate for the Glassbook reader, and then downloads the file itself.
From a cryptographic point of view, if you don't need a network connection each time you read the book, then the encrypted content and the key must be on the same machine, not unlike DVD's CSS. Does anybody have ideas about how to write a little utility to decrypt the encrypted PDFs? Just for research purposes, of course.
It's almost impossible to have a baseless snobbish opinion of the General Theory of Relativity.
You Make a Living by Getting but Get a Life by Giving
READ BLACK INNOCENCE
There is. Its called a e-BOOK
You Make a Living by Getting but Get a Life by Giving
READ BLACK INNOCENCE
eMatter is definitely on the up and up.
See my e-site:
WILDE PUBLISHING
You Make a Living by Getting but Get a Life by Giving
READ BLACK INNOCENCE
In fact when they began their "digital" universe (last October I believe) they openly supported the ebook revolution. See: http://www.fatbrain.com/ematter/home.html
You Make a Living by Getting but Get a Life by Giving
READ BLACK INNOCENCE
Actually my own eMatter is doing rather well... http://www1.fatbrain.com/asp/bookinfo/bookinfo.asp ?theisbn=EB00002427 Stephen King, eat my sh.....!
You Make a Living by Getting but Get a Life by Giving
READ BLACK INNOCENCE
Wilde Publishing
You Make a Living by Getting but Get a Life by Giving
READ BLACK INNOCENCE
distribution, with each bookstore participating in Simon & Schusters promotion having an equal opportunity
to sell the book. However, the moneyed players(Amazon, Barnes & Noble, et. al.) have been allowed to
give the book away, effectively shutting us little guys out of the promotion."
I read with interest this little swipe at the "BIG BOYS."
This particular "little guy" just wrote to me to tell me I am not a worthy "author" for even reading at his bookstore...
Whats a independent author/publisher to do these days to get attention in any shape or form? I guess I'll just have to let my little "lack of diversity" speak for itself....
Wilde Publishing
You Make a Living by Getting but Get a Life by Giving
READ BLACK INNOCENCE
Here's another "uglier" horror link:
Wilde Publishing
You Make a Living by Getting but Get a Life by Giving
READ BLACK INNOCENCE
Didn't they say the same thing about the Bible?
Read Fatbrain eMatter at: http://www1.fatbrain.com/asp/bookinfo/bookinfo.as
You Make a Living by Getting but Get a Life by Giving
READ BLACK INNOCENCE
From this article:
In a statement released by his secretary, the best-selling author of more than 30 books said he was "very excited at the possibility of a new market opening up.'' He added, "and as a dedicated and long-term Mac user, I am surprised and a little unhappy at how hard it is for Mac users to access the story but thank God for the Palm Pilot which is making it accessible.'' Eisemann said Macintosh users were not able to access the story Tuesday but "They're going to fix that as soon as they can.''
It's too bad we don't have a 'CEO' or 'President' to make official Linux statements about situations like this. I say we have a SlashDot election, and make one person the 'SpokesPerson'...
"Don't try to confuse the issue with half truths and gorilla dust."
Bill McNeal (Phil Hartman)
I am still waiting for it to be emailed to me. Barnes & Noble just sent me this (3 hours later)
"Re: Free Stephen King story
Thanks! Your email address has been received.
Because of the phenomenal response to this offer, we are experiencing a
delay in delivering RIDING THE BULLET to you.
We are working closely with our partners to resolve issues of capacity,
and we ensure that you will receive a free download of the King story as
promised.
We'll send you an email with more info as soon as possible."
I can wait...
AdFuel
adobe acrobat has a method to get plain text out of pdf files.... its called accessibility options theres a plugin you can get from them that will do it, and i saw a mention of some automated proccess they would do on their servers (but i didn't pay a terrible lot of attention)
Need a Catering Connection
There are a whole whack of books online at Project Gutenberg. They translate books whose copyrights have expired into electronic form. Quite a good project.
So, is the story worth reading?
If you like other stuff by King, yes. He does a good job of taking an old, traditional ghost story and making it more... solid, I suppose. I've never found him scary (with the exception of Pet Semetary), but I've always enjoyed his work, and this is no exception. Easily worth the $2.50.
______________________
No, Glassbook is a seperate format from what the Peanut Reader can open. Peanut's books are encrypted (with the exception of your free ones you found), and the passcode is the credit card number you bought the book with.
______________________
There is... it's called a Palm Pilot. ;)
Seriously though, I just bought this story from Peanut Press last night, and I've bought several other books from them before. It's great, because their books work with either PalmOS or WinCE portables, meaning my Handspring Visor is now a portable library. And the selection is pretty good... it could stand some more stuff, but they're growing rather quickly for such a small establishment.
Now, I just have to wait on Peanut to release their Springboard book collections, which, according to an email I got yesterday, are due out 'in two weeks'.
______________________
There's also the Peanut Press .pdb format, which is very good for PalmOS or WinCE machines.
For me I would think that the pdf format would be the best since I can transort it to just about any platform. But I am wondering how they enable the copying protection that they mention. I have never heard of any type of copying protection like this available through a pdf file.
The new Acrobat Reader 4.05 includes 'WebBuy', which allows you to sell encrypted PDFs which unlock when the proper code is entered. And of course, you get the code when you buy it online.
______________________
try solar power....
2. Waterproof (at least not rendered unusable by water damage)
ha, ya right, ever tried to read a paper book thats been in a flood??? Pages 'melted' together....
3. Flexible/foldable
Inconsequential, ever tried to fold an encyclopedia??
4. Unharmed by throwing, dropping, smashing, etc..
again- ha, ever tried to read a book blown around by a tornado??
5. Cheap enough to be disposable
Try Project Gutenberg Everything is disposible.
This is most certainly NOT true. In fact, I submitted a story two weeks ago about Baen Books and their 'webscription' service. EVERY title Baen has published since Jan 2000 hits their website a month before it hits the bookstores. 'Ashes of Victory' by David Weber (currently at #20 on the NYT hardcover fiction list) would have to qualify as 'the first major book to be released in electronic format.'
You know, I admit I was kind of annoyed when my Baen submission was rejected, but since when is Stephen King news for nerds, and one of the largest sci-fi only publishers left not?
Anyway, if anyone's interested, go to Baen Books Online and take a look. Four books for ten bucks, every month, formatted in HTML or plain text, and available to read on the web, or via downloaded zip.
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
I prefer electronic texts for certain uses:
But books are easier to read in a wider variety of physical settings. If I spill my drink on a paperback over lunch, I may lose several dollars worth of paperback, but I don't lose valuable hardware.
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
Here's what an eBook would have to be capable of doing to replace a plain-old paperback-
1. Batteries that last forever
2. Waterproof (at least not rendered unusable by water damage)
3. Flexible/foldable
4. Unharmed by throwing, dropping, smashing, etc..
5. Cheap enough to be disposable
How many things on that list do we have the technology to do? Not many. The 'disposability' is what really kills it. It may be possible to manufacture a device that can do all those things, but it won't be cheap. In fact, if a company was to put one on the market now, with all those capabilities, it would cost thousands and thousands of dollars.
eBooks, like so many other technologies-that- sound-like-a-good-idea, really aren't
"There are no shortcuts to any place worth going."
"Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work." -Flaubert
You can NOT download it from chapters.ca. It's just a link to the same server at glassbook.com. Jeez, moderators, better back that one back down.
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314-15-9265
If you measure value only by the dollar amount, then you might have a point. But while Wal-Mart may be able to offer things at a lower dollar amount, hardly anyone goes to Wal-Mart to buy things that have any real value. And while this is abhorant, and causes many people to dislike Wal-Mart, I agree in part with you that it's not cause for a crusade.
Rallying the townsfolk to march on the local Wal-Mart with torches and pitchforks isn't going to do all that much. It's like saying a racoon is bad for scattering your garbage across your yard. They're not really bad, that's just what they do to survive. And selling cheap crap is what Wal-Mart does to survive.
But do we have to let them get away with it? We discourage racoons from getting into our garbage by chaining the cans and building a fence. So if you're fed up with Wal-Mart, you should build the economic equivalent of a fence. That is, don't shop there. Even though Wal-Mart may be able to undercut everyone else's prices, there's no rule that says you have to always buy at the lowest price (unless you're a cheapskate). The law of the free market only says that a merchant will sell an item at the highest price that people will pay. (Idealistically; but with taxes and regulation and other wierd crap it doesn't quite work out that way.) Most people, if they stop blindly leaping towards the lowest dollar amount, will probably find they can easily pay a bit more. Once you allow for that, then you can make buying decisions based on more than just price; in other words, value.
And that's when you start buying from local, independant retailers. You buy value from them. The value may not always be tangible, it may only be the self-satisfaction of not supporting a heartless megastore like Wal-Mart. This is similar to when some people choose a computer platform. I gain a personal value from not using Microsoft products, even if it means giving up the advantages that Word may have over its competition.
So Wal-Mart (or MS or B&N or whoever) can go on selling the cheap crap they do and I won't have a problem with it. When I tell people how much I dislike Wal-Mart (or MS or B&N or whoever) it's not so much because I want to force them to change their business practices, it's more so I can appear like some kind of inteligencia elite to whoever I'm talking to. But aside from that, it's the complacent, simple-minded, price-is-everything attitude of the populace that allows mega-companies to flourish. The evil isn't the business practice of selling cheap crap at low prices, it's the consumer practice of buying cheap crap just because it's a low price.
Of course, the ultimate result of getting people to change their buying habits will be Wal-Mart having to adjust to the new attitudes. So in a manner of speaking, I am trying to get Wal-Mart to change. But like a good little libertarian, I want the change to occur through the market naturally.
Quasi-related: did anyone notice that Amazon's sales for February dropped below 1 million for the first time since last August? It can only be assumed that the boycott had a considerable part in this. Making a value-based buying decision can and does have an effect.
Any sufficiently advanced civilization is indistinguishable from Gods.
Yeah, I don't go to B&N anymore. Not because they're evil. Simply because they almost never have what I'm looking for and their staff are horrible at customer relations. The independent bookstores in St. Louis are doing OK thank you...even some of the ones that have been bought by chains!
"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." -- Ken Olson, 1977
Well I could just use Adobe Acrobat reader. But the real question is do I purchase the book?
:)
Do I purchase a book for each terminal? Does each person who intends to read it have to download it.
Or could I just "get" 5 free ones on the first day it was available?
I sent them my email address but still waiting for them to send me the e-book. I don't even like Stephen King
Well, the version they allow you to download directly is in a format that requires the Glassbook reader. Surprise! It's a Windows only reader. Even if the servers weren't bogged down, it wouldn't do me any good.
However, if you give them your email address, Barnes and Noble will mail you a copy in Acrobat Reader format. Now, that sounds like the way to go :)
anything beyond EIDE/16 has been useless dickwaving - jkujawa
Culture is more than commerce
I havn't recieved my PDF format Ebook that I signed up for on the first day. Has anyone else recieved theres?
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Of course, it's not feasible for a lot of libraries, where they can only wish that they had a $300 budget. But for some, it is not out of reach.
An ebook doesn't take particular advantage of an OS. Basically it's like selling a book only to be distributed by BN or Amazon. It does not enhance the earnings of the writer nor protect the interests of the buyer.
Why should I endorse a middle man that limits my right to choose? Why should I pay $$ for an OS if I only want to read an ebook? What if my granma has an iMac? That's why I consider it stupid to limit the distribution of a Windows-only client.
If I'm not wrong I've seen others who distribute a PDF version of King's new ebook, which is portable under many OS, and this is a smarter solution, IMHO.
Ironclad Security only exists when you have Chuck Norris on the shift. Do we really have to discuss this? (Plutonite)
There was a Bookstar in a shopping center near my home. A month or two ago, the bookstar closed, and a sign was put in the window about how they now were this big Barnes and Noble that had just opened in the same shopping center. Then they tore down the Bookstar, which is now a lot.
So, I think I can confirm that it is the same company. Mind you, I buy new books online, through http://www.evenbetter.com, which always gets me the best deal, which usually isn't B&N or Amazon...
I buy used books more, for the atmosphere, the price, the individual service(at my local used bookstore, they know me, and my preferences, and stock things because they know I'm interested in them), and the out of print books you can't buy at Barnes & Noble.
Really, one of my biggest fears about Barnes & Nobles getting so big is that each bookstore has their own books they carry, skewed in the bookstores own direction. If one bookstore becomes the only place you can get new books around, you won't see books you may otherwise have wanted, because they don't carry it, whereas your neighborhood "Books, Inc." or "A Clean, Well Lighted Bookstore" might have, if they were still in business...
--Arcum
While not an ebook per se, I'd recommend getting a Palm III (or V, or VII, depending on your price range). There are utilities that can convert plaintext, html, and probably others into the Palm format and back. But what I really like about the Palm is all the other software that you can get for it. Why get a device than can only display text when you can get a calendar, organizer, and solitare in the same package?
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed are not necessarily my own, as I've not yet had my medication today.
I personally prefer HTML. With plain ascii, you lose things like italics, font sizes, and foreign characters, and line breaks can sometimes be troublesome. HTML has all (or nearly all) the advantages of ascii (lightweight, universal, easily editable, etc.) with few or none of the disadvantages.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed are not necessarily my own, as I've not yet had my medication today.
sideshow
Hollow words will burn and hollow men will burn.
About a month ago, Palm and Adobe agreed to create an app for reading pdfs on Palms. Personally, I think pdfs are just bloated web pages that can't be manipulated. Given the premium that memory holds on the Palm, it will be interesting to see how this is accomplished.
As far as this King story goes, a Palm version is available at peanutpress.com for the PeanutReader.
Check out this palm doc to pdf converter. It's free but it is a plugin for a $30 shareware InstallBuddyForWindows pacakge. I don't have windows, but if someone else who has a Windows box could download InstallBuddy + this plugin as well as the pdf file, convert it and post the link to the doc file, I would be happy.
2 years and no mod points. Join reddit. Because openness is good.
Heya. =)
;) If you want it contact me...
I only have The Return of the King electronically - that's the only one I could gather. I don't know if it's legal. I hope it is.
They moderated me down! These moderators sure are loony... why did I get a 'flamebait'?
I think that they're so used to seeing crappy first posts that they are automatically biased towards any first post.
Have fun all!
Well, while this is the first free "book" from King to be downloaded online, its not the first eNovella that he's put out.
The software F13 (King-centric and authorized) contains a ~110 page eNovella (I forget what it's called) that, while not his best work by far, was not bad. And it was surprisingly easy to read onscreen, as well, thanks to a nice large font, wide spacing, and a rather beige background that all in all was much easier on my eyes than reading slashdot for a comparable length of time!!
Also, don't forget that King purposely released "The Green Mile" in six novella-length fragments on purpose - I think that he is recently fascinated with working withing the singular constraints of this length. The fact that they were awarded a huge market share and much critical acclaim shouldn't really apply to the rest of this burgeoning eNovella tradition, tho - ANYTHING that King writes is gonna make a million for somebody automatically. I think that he knows this and probably is not trying to be lauded "cutting-edge" perse for his own sake, but is maybe using his huge marketing power to lend momentum to the e-/computer-craze, which from his literature I think that he just personally enjoys.
I put my root down!! - bboys
No offense but this is old news. I heard about this over dinner a few nights ago from my grandmother. Forgive my ignorance, but is Slashdot suppossed to be for current news or is it for people with no family to eat dinner with?
But is the idea going to take off? Are there any open document formats available for use on handheld's like PalmPilots? What is the user experience like? Are the fonts readable? Can one page throught it with one hand? I would imagine that its cool, given that it would be easy to curl up in bed with such a thing. How many people will it reach? Does this mean that those who can't afford a gizmo like that will eventually lose out?
I picked up the whole set, except for Silmarillion, off some site mentioned in Slashdot post about three months ago. I think it should be legal, as long as you have paperback copy, although considering how insane the US copyright laws are, I bet it isn't.. :-P
-- pending
Ahhh, yes you are correct. Heh, I read the first 3 when I was in 6th grade (about 8 yrs ago) and I don't think any more were out then. I read the fourth one when it came out, but when the next two arrive, I think I will have to start over! Of course, I have no objection to that (though my schedule might). In fact, I feel like reading The Gunslinger again right now! That's a damn fine book.
"You point your finger at the moon, the fool stares at your finger."
I can see where you are coming from, but I really liked the Dark Tower series, especially The Gunslinger. I think those had more action (and gore!) than some of his other work. Kudos to him though, for this little stunt.
Also, please do steer clear of Amazon (still boycotted) and Barnes & Noble to show the little guys in the biz that this can be a viable model for them as well.
"You point your finger at the moon, the fool stares at your finger."
With XML, you get all the formatting options of HTML, with the addition of a CSS or XSL stylesheet, but since you are keeping the data separate from the presentation, you open the door for many different types of presentation. XSL already gives you the power to easily transform XML documents on either the server or client into HTML (and other formats as well). And the XML is machine readable, so converting the text to a another format for something like the palm pilot is much easier for an XML document vs. an HTML document. And it also allows you to easily incorporate the content of the document into other more complicated applications without having to worry about stripping out all that formatting HTML.
Here is an example of how this might be useful. Imagine a research tool that allows you to do full text searches of e-texts. Since the XML stores the e-text in a structured way, the search could be limited easily to only searching specific chapters, or only searching captions of figures, etc. This just scratches the surface of the potential a set of standard DTDs or Schemas for XML e-text could do for e-publishing.
I've not investgated this much, but I'm sure that there probably are already standardized DTDs and Schemas for specific types of e-texts. DocBook comes to mind. DocBook allows you to use SGML or XML to markup technical documentation for later transformation to formats like HTML, InfoText, PS, etc.. People like the Linux Document Project and even Sun Microsystems have seen the value in this type of system. It seems to translate very well into the realm of e-books. I can't think of any reason not to embrace it.
?
BN Giving this book away is not so great..
Available only in Rocket eBook format.
What does that mean? That you gotta shell out 250 bucks for some reader!!
Its a piece of hardware and it loosk neat but cripes I can get half of a good system for that much!!
I spent all this time to download it and then they say it is only available in a proprietary format for free?
Promoting the stupid eBook this is another money making scheme as usual with anything in life. Whats the damn point?Im seriously wondering now a days.
Anyone else feel like yer trapped in a rat-race? bah
Because Orwell's Animal Farm is available completely free. You can get it here.
xxx straight edge xxx
Everyone here is acting like this is the first time a big name author has had an electronic book out. Well, I suppose this depends on your definition of "big author." Obviously, Stephen King is bigger than, say, David Weber (whose latest novel, Ashes of Victory will be #12 on Friday's New York Times bestseller list). Or David Drake. Or Dean Ing. I suppose King might even be bigger that Poul Anderson, in his way . . .
Baen Books has been putting their entire monthly release out out as electronic text for months. And they sell a collection of 4 or 5 novels for $10. Those are 4 or 5 real novels, not short stories.
I believe that if it were left to artists to choose their own labels, most would choose none. -- Ben Shahn
Our you could use "Printscreen" and dump it some
were else, just a tought....
Alfred M. Szmidt
It's also available from Chapters.ca at http://www.chapters.ca/digital/books /default.asp...
BlackNova Traders
I work at a locally owned printing & graphics company. Like Barnes & Noble, Kinkos is our large national competition. By being small and local the owner of our store can move quickly and attract the local market. Instead of spending your time complaining about how superior the competition is perhaps inproving your local business would be the way to go. Instead of low prices offer the community something they want. AOL has huge message forums yet all of us are on /. why? Perhaps they addressed our needs and that is what keeps us coming back. Be creative and the larger national chains cannot put you out of business. Lay down and complain and well you might want to shut your doors now.
PostScript and PDF are fully documented at Adobe's site.
The "Open" EBook spec is also publicly-available, but it uses some tricky PKI stuff so that knowing the file format won't help you, because any reader software has to have a certificate issued by a central authority. (Or at least that's how I remember it...)
I'm not so sure...
Stephen King actually has a fairly decent history of looking out for his readers. The last book in the Dark Tower series was released in Paperback first, so as to reduce reader costs. I really appreciated that, because I didn't want to have to wait, and I was in college at that time, and $25-30 for a hardcover book is a lot when you're in college (especially when that money could be going towards an O'Reilly book). I wouldn't doubt Stephen King's ability to put a full novel out over the Internet.
-------- "All I want in life's a little bit of love to take the pain away" --Spiritualized
Beg to differ, Ashes of Victory by David Weber is the first book on the best seller list to be e-sold that I'm aware of, and I'm almost positve another of his books also got to the best seller list (it DID sell out in two 1/2 days) and was also e-sold ... In October of 1999.
the BEST thing is that Baen Books doesn't screw around and make you use some lame software control thingie, it comes as HTML, viewable on line or down loadable.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
I much prefer reading a physical book than a "virtual" one. This is probably going to change for the general public over the next few years... but on to my point: It costs $2.50 to buy the book online, in a format that costs them almost nothing to distribute. Ok, so you're getting the book cheaper than buying it physically. Here's the thing though: Are you allowed to print it? If so, it would cost more to print it (for most people) than to buy another copy of the book. Here's another thing. What happens if you loose your copy of the book in your hard drive - many Windows users I know regularly reformat. How do you get your copy back? Buy another one? I know I wouldn't loose a book if I had a physical version... So is it costing more or less for the consumer to buy an eBook?
Desperation is a stinky cologne
Settle & DreamTech were subsequently acquired by Ventana Communications, which was the first publisher to put CD-ROMs into paper books with hyperlinks to the Web from the book's content. And the first to put a web browser (Netscape) into a retail product (The Internet Membership Kit).
Here is a link to download "The Right to Read" by Richard M. Stallman that I mentioned in my previous post. It's a short story, only about 23kB.
All three versions have a really long copyright notice and licence agreement at the beginning. Just scroll down past that to get to the story. Each of these is the same text, but in a different format or language. There is only one part to the story.
I seriously doubt we will ever live in a "copyright nation" as described in the story, but I believe the closed operation of these "e-books," combined with mass-media provider paranoia (look at the music and movie industries) does give us the potential...
Is E-books secure? Does it send vital user information back to the compnay for marketing data? Is King's book worth installing E-books?
I have a website. It's about Macs.
But it isn't really SPAM if you request it. I thought SPAM was unsolicited email.
You giving your email address to the company and clicking the submit button gives them the right to send you email. Is there a EULA regarding this download?
SPAM does suck though...
--- Can i borrow your Clue-Stick(tm)? I need to go beat a few people with it...
Just try downloading it with the reader on Amazon and you time out. Try downloading just the book and you get a neat little message saying 'blah blah blah, overwhelming demand, blah blah blah, server down.' Nice legwork boys, you figured oh, what, 8 or 9 people would download it from Amazon? I bet it will be quite fast when it's $2.50...
I've always been a bit put-off by electronic books. i'm not sure, but i think that lots of people feel the same way. having to have a "device" to read a book on just seems kinda clunky. books (the paper kind) are perfect the way they are...they don't need electricity, they can't break, and you can even drop them in the bathtub by accident and they still work (basically) just fine! try doing that with an ebook device or your computer. sure, electronic books may be cheaper and easier to get than paper ones, but i don't think that paper will ever be completely replaced. beyone that, electronic books will make for even more piracy issues, since it will be very easy to email somebody a copy of a book...
>If you believe the homogeny is good, shop walmart. If you don't care about the growing gap between the lower and upper classes, shop walmart. If you don't want to support the people in your neighborhood, shop walmart.
Hey, look, I don't disagree - but I look at it differently. I figure my not shopping there isn't going to make a difference. The only way that not shopping there is going to make a difference is if everybody does it. Where I live, that ain't gonna happen. The people treat each other so coldly here. So I don't bother... Things like this have a tendancy to work themselves out.
>Competition does not include doing such things as lowering your prices until neighborhood businesses go under, then slowly raising them back to normal again.
Ok - I have never seen this happen. I thought Walmart prices were set for each state and that individual stores had no real control over them. Am I wrong? The Walmart in my area hasn't raised prices on the products I buy for the last 2 or 3 years. Maybe they are still working on killing off the competition?
>Suddenly the variety has gone downhill and we're being homogonized.
Funny you say that - the Walmart in my area has MUCH more selection and different goods than the local stores. But I suppose this is Canada, and since Walmart provides a lot of American goods, there is bound to be more selection there. I suppose if Walmart was Canadian, I'd be thinking the same way.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Why are mom-and-pop stores still trying to compete in a market where everyone wants it cheap?
:-)
Ok, so your mini-mart isn't doing well because walmart is next door. Solution: Offer something Walmart doesn't. Faster service is one thing that Walmart cannot improve upon. Make your mini-mart into a "walk thru" type service. Or sell mostly expensive cigars, and specialized candies and unusual newspapers. Walmart isn't going to do any of these.
The fact is, Walmart is doing EXACTLY the right thing. They are providing a better service to the customer than the small stores can provide - lower price, good (enough) service. Small stores simply can't keep their prices so low. Too bad, but it is capitolism at work.
To say that Walmart shouldn't exist becasuse it is big and takes money from the local economy, would be like saying Ford shouldn't exist for EXACTLY the same reasons. If I buy a Ford car, most of the money goes to Ford motors, not the local economy. But I don't see anyone rushing to build "homegrown" vehicles - simply because the people don't want them. They are happy with the Ford product (or similar) and aren't going to pay more for something that has no improvements.
What the public wants, they get. If the public wants good enough service, and cheap prices, then that is what they will get. It doesn't matter to them if they get that from Walmart or "Hick's Clothes" - it is the same old stuff to most people.
It is time for the mini-marts and such of this world to move on to other things, if you ask me. Business skills are business skills - apply them as you like. But bad business skills are to compete against a big company that keeps customers happy. Either compete against a big company that is failing to keep customers happy, or enter a new market. Just because Walmart moves in doesn't mean life is over.
[Quite offtopic...]
Here's a market that has NO competition (other than Direc[FA]PC) that a small business could quickly move into: Fast Rural internet access. I want it myself, and am willing to pay $100 US per month to the first person that gives it to me. I know others that are in the same boat.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Most cars still run on gas, including the one that Stephen King was hit by.
[FromTheMorning]
Here's the link to download the book from Barnes & Noble. Have fun, guys!
t ion=free&ordersource=bnfree&bookid=ISBN:07 43204670
http://server1.glassbook.com/fulfill/ebx.etd?ac
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Notice that (at bn.com anyway), you HAVE to give them your email address to download it. Either they send it to you over email, or they will send you "email with instructions on how to download." Ah, let the spam begin!
For those of you who enjoy SF, Baen Books (www.baen.com) publishes a large number of their books in html a good month before the dead tree version makes it to bookshelves. They have what they call a "webscription", which allows members to access full books, as well as the first few chapters of each new book open to the public. They did, about a year ago, publish David Weber's "The Apocalypse Troll" in its entirety online, about two weeks before it hit the stores.
-- Still waiting for the Nike endorsement
ABC News sez: The technology behind the [Rocket or Glassbook] "eBook" format means it can't be printed out or even distributed to friends once downloaded. It can only be read on the computer that received it. Readers can e-mail the document to friends, but the recipient can only read the first seven pages before being asked to purchase the story.
So what do you get for paying $2.50? Isn't this just making books into pay-per-view entertainment? Is this what we want to have happen to the future of the book, that it be locked up in a format that is illegal to break into, unreadable even 70 years after King's death, when it enters the public domain?
AP sez: "This is really the first effective market test," said Keith Loris, president of SoftLock.com, of Maynard, Mass., which provided the technology to download the book to retailers. "Up to now, this has been technology in search of a market."
And it still is. This technology of publishing books electronically is old. This book doesn't provide anything other than the text that is in a paperback or magazine; no pictures, sound, or all that computers can provide. What is new is the horrifying idea of locking them up with technology such as SoftLock's, and making it illegal to share the book with your friends. Their technology offers absolutely nothing for the consumer nor even the author.
If we help out SoftLock or Amazon or Barnes and Noble in their quest to get control over all electronic reading material, we all lose. If we violate King's copyright by making it available to others (even if they own a copy that doesn't work on their Mac), we just encourage these corporate types who yell that strong encryption, shrinkwrap licenses, and all that stuff is needed beyond just copyright, to control how we readers use "their" products. If we ooh and aah over the technology, instead of seeing how the technology is being used to screw us, we fall right into their corporate hands.
I'm waiting until this book reaches my favorite used book store before I buy it.
If you believe the homogeny is good, shop walmart.
If you don't care about the growing gap between the lower and upper classes, shop walmart. If you don't want to support the people in your neighborhood, shop walmart.
Competition does not include doing such things as lowering your prices until neighborhood businesses go under, then slowly raising them back to normal again. This is of no benefit to anybody. It simply reduces the variety of stores available by preying on people who think they'll always get the better deal they're actually only getting for a year or two.
That kind of thing is standard, and I've seen often as I live in a portion of suburbia that's just recently starting to get noticed by the big chains. Suddenly the variety has gone downhill and we're being homogonized. I'm thankful that I live in a neighborhood which has enough income that so far, we keep the little stores alive nicely.
----------------------------
If you want to read the King story on your Palm organizer or Windows CE device you can get it from PeanutPress.
I've purchased a lot of ebooks from PeanutPress and have been very happy with them. PeanutPress has the best book reader for the Palm, and they even provide a Java based tool for converting text documents into a format compatible with their reader.
JUst curious - I presume the special reader software will limit other programs from accessing it? Meaning that common access packages to help sight impared people won't be of any use.
This kind of content may soon be illegal in Northern Ireland where equal opportunities legislation is much more extensive.... Of course - that's if they can ever sort out thei little problem about not wanting to give up guns.
The most important factor to me is support of open standards. can I easily upload content that I've created to my ebook? Can I easily translate postscript or PDF documents to the required ebook format? Conversely, can I translate my open ebooks into postscript format for printing?
The next most important factor is price; I don't want a laptop, I just want a nice, simple and legible screen to read text on. The more lightweight the better.
After that, we're talking content space (how many pages of text can it hold?), battery life, and display quality.
I'm seriously thinking of buying some kind of ebook in the near future, but I want to make sure I don't invest in brain dead technology. My primary concern is open standards and open document exchange.
Thanks in advance!
I feel that $2.50 is overpriced for a, what, 60-page novella? That's close to the cost for a printed full-color 120 page magazine delivered to a store near me. Granted, they get less advertising income than from a magazine, but production and distribution are orders of magnitude less expensive (the publisher is handing most of those costs over to the resellers running the websites).
This is typical of the electronic distribution schemes I see for music, etc: they're just too greedy. And in the long run, it costs them money and denies them a major opportunity. Here's why:
Books today cost an arm and a leg. New paperbacks run from 5 to 10 dollars, nearly double the cost a decade ago. As a result, readers are sticking to the authors they know, because it costs too much to speculate on an unkown author and maybe get burned. This is why Stephen King and etc. are doing okay, but the midlist and lower end authors who aren't household names are getting crunched hard.
The problem is, this leads to market shrinkage in the long term, because hot authors grow cold, or at least taken for granted, and then they don't sell as well. If people haven't been experimenting with new authors, when their fave gets boring, they stop buying as many books. You need the consumers to keep discovering new authors to keep the market from collapsing.
E-books are a really good solution to this problem. Firstly, the production and distribution costs are orders of magnitude less than for printed materials, so publishers can reduce the costs and still get their slice of profits. The overall cost can be reduced to the point where, for consumers, it becomes a viable impulse buy. I'm thinking around $1.00 (American).
Secondly, e-books are inherently ephemeral. You just don't tend to keep them around, because you're reading them on a handheld with limited storage space. Sure, you could store them on your desktop computer, but it's the computer, you don't sit in front of it to relax and read. It's the same reason why, once we got a DVD player in the living room, I stopped watching movies on my desktop DVD drive. You want the experience in the surroundings designed for it.
Lastly, E-books are likely to actually drive sales of printed books. If you do read an e-book you like and decide you want to own, you'll probably want a paper copy. For fiction, at least, a nicely bound copy you can take down off the shelf is a lot more satisfying than some bits on a computer somewhere. Moreover, if prices are cheap, you'll be a lot more likely to find new authors you want to read, and that's a vital thing for the publishing industry to foster.
Jon
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
Anyway, if I download this free version from B&N using Glassbook, will I be able to load it on my PalmOS device, or am I stuck with some stupid "copy protection" like, say, Mjuice. (That's if I can even download it through our proxy. I haven't been able to download from Mjuice since the second version of their software was released...)
Can anyone tell me why the URL for downloading the ebook after I've installed the Glassbook reader detector control contains; http://server1.glassbook.com/fulfill/... ...GbDetected=&GbVersion=&GbBuildNumber=&AcrobatDe tected=&Submit... (URL shortened so I don't screw up the page). When did I say I would allow the control to check for Acrobat, or anything other than the Glassbook reader? Can anyone follow this up?
Your analysis is seriously flawed here. The Buck Stops with Mom-n-Pop. For one thing, the chunk is not any bigger because 30-40 people are getting a few cents. In fact, it's smaller. Because after these minimum-wage earners get their pittance, a bunch of that profit goes up the pipe to corp - and their shareholders. Oh yeah, those minimum-wage earners don't own any stock, trust me.
This is why the Wal-Marts of the world do take money out of the local economy. Not only that, but by taking that money to shareholders and "corporate citizens", they further widen the class divide.
As for "unfair practices", Wal-mart's sheer size allows it to undercut anybody they want to. They can lose money on a store in order to eradicate the competition. Maybe that's fair, and maybe it's not, but either way - it sucks.
The real problem is consumers. They don't realize that by pinching a penny here, and saving five minutes there, they're shooting themselves in the foot. Suddenly, everyone without a college education is making min-wage, at a shitty job, where the boss doesn't care about who they are.
Then crime goes up, and people start getting high on smack, and the police force starts cracking down, and Mr. Wal doesn't have to care, cause he's somewhere on his Yacht.
Maybe a little extreme there, but there's truth in my exaggeration.
Breakthrough blah Electronic distribution blah blah publishing blah blah blah old media blah blah slow download blah marketing blah blah...
So, is the story worth reading?
Weblogging Considered Harmful:
You can also get it in .PDF format if you give B&N your email address. It's the choice that scrolls off the page (on lower-res monitors). Under the rocket eBook link.
/dev/null and they won't bother you ever again.
Just tell your mailer to put everything from barnesandnoble.com in
High-speed Road Trip (18.000KPH)
While it is nice that Stephen King releases his new book electronically, many classical works have been available at the Gutenberg project for a couple of years now.
A large number of e-texts, which will cost you literally _years_ to read. And they're all free and legal...
----------------------------------------------
the pun is mightier than the sword
If you leave aside the copyright issue (which is probably different for any other country), I suggest to standardize DTD's for all kinds of texts (novel, short story, poem, song lyrics, play) and convert the existing etexts to XML.
Although there are tons of texts available, most of them are distributed as HTML with lots of unncessary layout. Often they are split over many small HTML files which makes it hard to download them (not everybody has low online costs).
Once you have them stored as XML files you can create different XSL files to view them the way you like them or print them if that's what you want. In combination with an XML parser it might also be very easy to convert them to some proprietary binary etext or word processing format (if you really need that). With the transformation language for XML it might even be possible to automatically convert a complete novel to LaTeX and get some nice PostScript file!
There is a PDF viewer at tucows.com for EPOC (e.g. Psion devices), which is a port of xpdf. I guess that program takes some MB's of memory, which might be too much for a Palm. Or just nobody ported it to Palm OS.
Go see the EPOC version's homepage at http://www.xs4all.nl/~svdwal/Pdf/Pdf.htm
I've been looking at the Glassbook formats, it seems it uses PDF's, however they're encrypted, or cyphered with EBX. Seems pretty straight forward, I've got a way to pirate the books from one persons reader to anothers already... So much for encrypted access control. Do people never learn?
-- iCEBaLM
Why don't you write to Mr King about the unfairness to the small eRetailers? I listened to him talk a few days before Halloween a few years ago in St Louis and he spent quite a bit of time bitching about the big money book stores and how they were killing the new authors. He talked about how his wife could always get her books published, not because they were good but because she was his wife. He also thinks that the way modern publishing works people like Mark Twain would never get published at all. He understands the risk of loosing the small book sellers.
How are they doing this? Applying illegal or unethical business practices? Or are they offering larger, nicer stores, cheaper prices, and Starbuck's coffee? Your quote implies one business luring customers away from other business is a bad thing. That's business. If you can't take it, find another.
Personally, when I want to buy something I look for the cheapest price and good service. If B&N has something cheaper than Mom's Books then I'll probably buy at B&N. It's up to Mom to offer something more than B&N. It's not B&N's fault that Mom can't compete.
I understand what you are saying; I just don't blame Big Business. In Atlanta, we had an awesome bookstore called Oxford Books that had everything and lots of strange stuff. You could browse all day. But they went out of business because they weren't moving all their stock. They frequently over-ordered books that only a few people would buy. Is that B&N's fault?
Don't blame Big Business. Instead, try zigging while their zagging.
-tim
The first electronic book I ran across was Halcyon Days, back in 1997. It comes as a bundle of HTML files, but still gets sent out on diskette (which is cute in a retro sorta way :)
I'm not sure what's fair or right here. But I think the tendency of big chains to displace mom-n-pops is definitely insidious.
When I was young, long ago, there were mom-n-pop American restaurants all over the landscape. Quality varied from very poor to very good. But the notion of American food culture was not a complete oxymoron as it is today. The symbol of our culture is indisputably MacDonalds, and that worries me.
The same tendency can be seen in all areas the huge mega-corps move into. Yes you get fast cheap and efficient service but you also get a a bland lowest common denominator product with little choice. This is especially harmful with chain bookstores where new authors and authors in less popular genre have a hard time surviving trying to sell to the chains that understandably concentrate on the money, which is in bestsellers or well known authors. Maybe most of those authors would never develop an audience but a significant portion would given exposure thru market diversity.
It is easily and perhaps correctly argued that all this is the result of natural consumer choice. But it seems to me more of a deadly feedback loop where people don't miss what is no longer easily available, and even become more resistant to new and different experiences and products (called brand loyalty by some.)
they are the ones going around and causing all the independents to close down.
I hear this argument quite a bit, yet in my town three years ago a Barnes and Nobles moved in three blocks from a good independent bookstore....and it is still there.
This argument about "less diversity" is, to be blunt, pure crap. I've been an avid bookshopper for almost twenty years and I can say flat out that things have not been better in terms of the diversity of books that can be bought than they are right now. Even ignoring the online retailers. I remember, in the late eighties, being amazed that I could finally get all of those obscure Aliester Crowley novels that I'd been looking for. Where? A Texas based chain called "Bookstar". I remember being amazed at the selection of SF at the new Barnes and Nobles that opened around that time. The only SF section that was better was 150 miles away.
I remember being a teenager and having difficulties finding anything but the most mainstream SF, little in terms of history, etc. To get anything better, you had to drive to a used bookstore, and there it was still hit or miss. Now, with these book superstores on every corner, it is a hell of a lot easier to get what you want.
Truth is, the independents that are going out of business are mostly the bad ones. The good ones can stay in business with one of these "superstores" nearby.
The cake is a pie
I hear this argument quite a bit, yet in my town three years ago a Barnes and Nobles moved in three blocks from a good independent bookstore....and it is still there.
This argument about "less diversity" is, to be blunt, pure crap. I've been an avid bookshopper for almost twenty years and I can say flat out that things have not been better in terms of the diversity of books that can be bought than they are right now. Even ignoring the online retailers. I remember, in the late eighties, being amazed that I could finally get all of those obscure Aliester Crowley novels that I'd been looking for. Where? A Texas based chain called "Bookstar". I remember being amazed at the selection of SF at the new Barnes and Nobles that opened around that time. The only SF section that was better was 150 miles away.
I remember being a teenager and having difficulties finding anything but the most mainstream SF, little in terms of history, etc. To get anything better, you had to drive to a used bookstore, and there it was still hit or miss. Now, with these book superstores on every corner, it is a hell of a lot easier to get what you want.
Truth is, the independents that are going out of business are mostly the bad ones. The good ones can stay in business with one of these "superstores" nearby.
The cake is a pie
Think long and hard about what is possible at public libraries.
You'll be suprised how many people read a book without
actually paying for them.
*GASP* PIRATES!! DIE LIBRARIAN SCUM!
;)
-- www.bteg.com | bleh.n3.net | hac47.dhs.org
Reverse engineering wouldn't be necessary if people would use an open standard format (i.e, the Open Electronic Book Initiative). See the proposal at
http://www.openebook.org/specification.htm
I am wondering if there was some brave soul who has a copy of the free body who would be willing to either pst or e-mail me a copy, link?
This actually sounds really cool considering that it's so cheap and also on the net so that means that it's entirely easier to quote save or e-mail parts to people for various reasons, far better than having to do what gutenberg has to do and essentially rip books apart and then scan them in with OCR.
What format does this use? PDF? PS? text? does it allow for multple versions for different platforms? seems like the site selling it dosn't appear to have much more info than you can enter an e-mail address and buy a copy.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
Well, I must thank King for being ther first author I've heard of to do this e-text thing, and I hope others will follow. I'm not sure if reading books via the computer screen would be that comfortable though, unless there's a Palm-sized unit with lots of battery power and an easy-to-look-at-for-long-time-periods screen. I just can't see sitting at a desk reading an e-text, nor sitting a laptop on your lap while you're laying out on a couch/bed reading.
And to that first poster (J23SE), where'd you pick up e-texts of Tolkien? I've never heard of a legal Tolkien e-text, but if they are legal, where'd you find them (i.e. gimme more info, please).
Eruantalon
Eruantalon
The Annals of Middle-earth
Amazon is giving away also the book. You have to download a reader that runs only on Microsoft OS. Veeeeery stupid.
Read it here.
Ironclad Security only exists when you have Chuck Norris on the shift. Do we really have to discuss this? (Plutonite)
I am a little confused as to the formats that the book comes in. First there is the Rocket eBook which is a pretty nifty thing. Second is from Barnes & Noble called a Glassbook format. Third, from Softlock it appears that the book is in pdf format.
For me I would think that the pdf format would be the best since I can transort it to just about any platform. But I am wondering how they enable the copying protection that they mention. I have never heard of any type of copying protection like this available through a pdf file.
Any ideas regarding what the best file format is? For many of us that read ebooks, ascii is the preferred format, as it can be formatted for any situation (can be read on pc, formatted to a Palm, etc...), and stands the best chance of being a valid format in the future.
For me, the big holdup in ebooks is the format. I wouldn't buy a hardcover book that would be unreadable in 4 years, so why would I accept that in an ebook? I'll just stick to the Gutenberg Project, rather than support limited formats.
Correction: This isn't really the first major book in electronic form... It was the first to be specifically written for the net, but I have electronic copies of several (Animal Farm, etc... even some Tolkien!) J!
I interviewed with and ebook company once. They seem to support the same ideology as the RIAA/MPAA of content access control. The CEO told me rather proudly of a new law coming to effect that would help them achieve this end. I know now that he was talking about the DCMA. The book would be encrypted and could only be read with a licensed reader, on a licensed machine, and unprintable. I know that I for one DO NOT wanna have to sit at my computer all day to read something. Maybe I wanna lay in my bed and read where it is more comfortable, and better for my eyes. Oh but wait I cant print it out! Maybe I wanna move it over to my laptop and read it on a plane/bus/train trip. Ah ah not unless I pay for it again! (read DIVX). And if my machine dies and I wanna put it on a new one.... well you would have to pay for it again. I think I still prefer the good old normal print edition. That way if I wanna borrow my buddys Dragonlance or he wants to borrow my LOTR we can do it.
So, who's up for reverse-engineering the various eBook file-formats? I'd like it much better if I could print the file out or manipulate it as I please and know that no one is tracking what I'm doing with it.
I wonder... Has the PDF file format been reverse-engineered by anyone? What about any of these "eBook" file formats (GlassBook Reader, Rocket eBook)? I once looked inside a PDF file with a binary file editor, but all I saw was a bunch of numbers and weird stuff. A bit like a PostScript file, but deliberately obfuscated.
I really dislike the idea of only being able to read the "book" on a "licensed" machine. Read the message on SoftLock's website-- "Enter the email address of the computer where you plan to read the story." I'm not sure how they're authenticating, but I don't like it.
Something else to try: get the PDF version, then, for each page, copy and paste the text from the book into a text editor, and save in your format of choice. This may or may not be possible, as Acrobat does have the ability to stop you from copying and pasting.
I realize this could be construed as encourging copyright infringement, but read Richard Stallman's "The Right to Read" at Project Gutenberg before you flame me.
P.S. If the link for SoftLock didn't work, try this one. Sorry, I can't get a direct link to "The Right to Read"; Project Gutenberg seems incredibly slow at the moment.
Well I have a thought even the biggest techno-geeks I know still like to read large quantities of text on paper, so while Steve King wins one for eletronic information, people (like me) are still going to print it to text.
I live in Canada. $2.50 to me is $0.25 to most people. Heck, yesterday I saw someone burning five dollar bills to keep warm.
But wait, it's probably in American money.. ack, there goes my days salary.
-Ark
"He who goes to bed with an itchy ass wakes with a smelly finger." - Prince Charles
"I build my canopy of steel.. it fulfills my sense of real.. a chrome protection" - Catherine Wheel
Thirty days later, I received my VISA statement from the internet cafe, and it was $265! I looked again and remembered that I'd spent $5 for the cookies and about $10 for connect time charges. As I glanced at the bottom of the statement, it said "eBook - $250". Boy, was I upset!!! I called the accounting department and told them that I thought the waitress had meant $2.50. But they said there was nothing they could do and that I could go pour hot grits down my paints. Therefore, for revenge, I'm emailing a copy of this book to everybody on the internet, so nobody else will be fooled by this scam again.
But you can give them your email address and they will email it to you. (we will see )
k ing.asp?userid=4LN6ZHK7W8&srefer=
Here's the link
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/bookshelf/ebooks/
AdFuel
OK, hear me out before you mark me as a troll and/or flamebait.
:).
There are many people that argue big business is putting out mom-n-pop stores unfairly. Not only in the book industry, but in regular goods; stores like Wal-Mart, Tower Records, and Blockbuster.
Now, I'll be the first one to say that the above-mentioned treatment is unfair (the big online book-sellers getting the goods first), but in the big picture, is there really a problem with these big companies?
If I can go to B&N and buy myself a book for several dollars cheaper than I can at a mom-n-pop, I'm not gonna think twice about it. If I can go to Wal-Mart, and get myself a lawn mower for less money, same thing. Of course there's unfair trade practices, which I'm generally against, but business is business, and the lowest bidder gets mine.
To those that argue that the purchase money isn't working locally, I would disagree - the amount of money spent is being offset by the large workforce that these companies have. So yeah, while a refrigerator split between ma' and pa' is a big chunk of change, there's an even bigger chunk to be had by 30-40 employees working at the bigger stores.
Specialty stores will always exist if there's a need for 'em. I buy records (you know, vinyl?), all the time, putting my money into an industry that should have tanked about a decade ago...
But I digress, if geeks are supposed to be libertarians, you should be able to see this all pretty clearly w/o me.
(BTW, if you have stories of unfair practices by said companies, please post them - I'm always open to learning
Q: What do you think about American Culture?
A: I think it's a good idea.
(adapted from Gandhi)
Oh, goody. Let's all run out and support Glassbook, who's trying to push the same "secure copyright distribution" crap that the RIAA and MPAA are.
Think there's ever going to be an open source reader for their EBX format? Think again. I'll take dead trees over Big Brother.
--
314-15-9265
Most likely not, but obviously people who can't afford the book, or dont have a computer, can't read this book.
Usually when you don't want to, or can't buy a book you borrow it from a library, with an _e-book_ this isn't possible. This is an issue that needs to be solved I beleive.
B&N have also engaged in intimidation of employees trying to unionize.
What's worse, however, is that they're all part of the same huge media conglomerates as the publishers. Gradually, access to independently published works will become so hard as to be unavailable to the bulk of people.
Reducing it to an argument of price/competition is a short-sighted view of the Market economy. Large corporations will always win in the price domain when they have to. When they don't have to ... well, those prices won't stay low. The classic view of the Market correcting things (i.e., if they jack up the prices, indies will bust in on their business) just doesn't hold up to examination -- look what happens when someone threatens, say, the recording industry or the motion picture industry. If you read slashdot, you've seen these stories...
Living Legacy of Consumption Culture
This 66 page work is better classified as a novella than a novel. When King (or anyone other best selling author for that matter) chooses to release a full length work online rather than in print, it will be a much bigger deal. Paying for short fiction online is nothing new. You might have been able to find something of this length in Omni online before it tanked. Before you start swooning and proclaiming "print is dead," consider that this work probably never have appeared in print. A novella is an awkward and difficult length. To short for seperate publication, but too long to be carried in a magazine, this piece probably could only have reached the public in a collection or, more improbably these days, serialized in a magazine. Is it any wonder that his publisher went along with it? This is just a cagey attempt to get a wider readership for it (as well as getting him a rep. for being "cutting edge") And more power to him. That said, I doubt we'll be seeing his next full length novel anywhere but in print. Then again, maybe he was just getting his feet wet before a full scale dive into electronic media. Who knows.
spreer
You can also get it for free at Chapters.ca
Although it is a different situation... I would give O'Reilly more credit for pushing forward electronic publishing than the current King release. The CD Bookshelf series (covering subjects from Unix to Networking to Oracle/SQL) is a collection of O'Reilly technical books on a subject all bundled on a single CD. With example code. A search engine. And its HTML.
Yes... HTML.
No special OS-specific readers; no additional software. Fire up your favorite browser and go. Yes. Even Lynx. Want to search your collection? The search engine is JAVA. A little more involved in some cases, but still quite cross-platform.
Of course, the great thing about this collection is the ability to get at a large amount of data quickly, efficiently, and easily. Carry it with you. Load it up on your laptop. Mount it in your home system and SSH in to run lynx or w3m and browse. But there's another portability issue that O'Reilly's bold move to HMTL provides that other e-book proprietary formats do not.
You can access the data you paid for in any way that's usefull to you.
People have already pointed out they're not about to get comfy in front of their PC to enjoy a book. And its not likely to happen with a bulky laptop. I've found my Palmpilot makes a very functional platform for comfortable reading (others have complained about the size of the text - YMMV). Ahh! But I don't want to cram one of those large HTML browsers and the HTML file in to my limited Pilot's memory. No problem. A quick HTML to DOC conversion and I've got a few select chapters ready for handy reference away from a network or to study in the comfort of my living room chair.
I mentioned that O'Reilly has made a bold move. Their choice in a very functional, but technically unprotected, file system is an interesting one. Hasn't their use of an easy-to-copy format opened them to piracy? I've asked the question of Tim O'Reilly himself in more than one forum. No answer. But you'll note that they have continued to update and expand their CD Bookshelf offerings. Perhapse they know something that remains a mystery to even the publishers of Steven King.
I feel that this is a bad sign for the first major fiction publication that is strictly electronic. If you care about the future of ecommerce, don't just give all your money to the big guys! Ensure that smaller companies can survive on the internet by patronizing their businesses as well. Otherwise we will end up with an internet that is totally dominated by big firms.
For those of you going to Barnes and Noble thinking you are doing the right thing in boycotting Amazon - you're not. In the bookstore business, B&N are widely seen as the real enemy - they are the ones going around and causing all the independents to close down. There were over 5,500 independent bookstores in the U.S. in 1990 - today there are less than 3,500. We can thank the chains, and especially B&N for our new lack of diversity of information sources.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?