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Why Nobody Likes E-Books
CybrGuyRSB writes: "In today's Chicago Tribune, there is an interesting article about the total unpopularity of e-books. It seems to partly tie their failure into their copyright protection and briefly discusses the Skylarov case."
The article missed the boat by not looking at O'Reilly. They talked about horrible Amazon sales rankings. A more clueful reporter might have noticed that the unprotected Perl CD bookshelf has a sales ranking of under 1500.
The cake is a pie
I consider myself someone who reads lots of books, and I completely disagree with this statement. I think the people who say they like the feel of a book in there hand have never tried any type of e-reader. They weight of enough books to last me for a two week trip is not pleasant. I would much rather put a few books on my Palmpilot, which I have with anyways, than carry around an extra few pounds of paper.
I have been reading books on my Palmpilot for several years now, and I am completely addicted to it. I even have a Palm III with the old low contrast screen, so I would probably like it more if I moved to a V or 500 with a proper display.
I think people who don't like reading e-books have never tried it. (This is making the assumption that the books these people want to read are available in an usable format. I can completely understand people not wanting to read e-books because they have no interest in 100+ year old stuff from the Gutenberg project or whatever annoying thing the publishers have decided to make available.)
quote: Most publiers are releasing only older titles on e-books. I have yet to see a new hardcover edition be simultaneous released on e-books.
people like to hold things
staring at a computer screen is strenuous
scrolling can be a bitch
it's much easier to keep your place on the page with paper
it doesn't take forever to download a book on paper
cover art is friendly
books on shelves are aesthetically and socially pleasing
closing a window on your browser is not as satisfying as replacing a book on the shelf
i can throw a book if it is frustrating- i'm not gonna fscking kick my computer or damage it in any other way
books are cheaper than computers
bending covers and dog-earing pages are therapeutic activities
i can go anywere with a book
i don't have to pay an electricity bill to read a book(except at night when i need light)
i can fall asleep in bed with a book, but not so easily a mouse and keyboard
if i spill my tea/coffee/soda/beer/water on a book, it's not the end of the world
the list goes on
I've been reading eBooks since I owned a Newton 100 (The Hacker Crackdown was my first). It's extremely handy, for several reasons:
1) I can carry around many books in the space of a PDA (currently a Palm);
2) You can read the book with one hand (get your mind out of the gutter) - I can hold the palm in one hand and turn the pages with my thumb on the scroll button. Sure, it's not much, but that's just that little bit of convenience that paperbacks don't have;
3) Low light conditions - I can just turn on the backlight, and I have an instant built-in reading light;
4) It goes where I do - since I keep the Palm with me, it's always right there if I happen to have a few minutes or more free and I didn't think (or feel like) bringing my book.
However, I have no need of a specialized eBook reader nor Adobe's format. I buy my books and magazines from Palm Digital Media (used to be Peanut Press) at http://www.peanutpress.com/ They have a decent if not overwhelmingly complete selection, they don't overcharge, and everything's quick and easy. I'm not going to give up on paper books any time soon, if ever, but I have easily integrated eBooks into my life.
=Brian
There is nothing so good that someone, somewhere, will not hate it.
Storytelling via word of mouth has been around much longer. When i want to leave work and stop staring at a computer screen then i'll be biking up and down liberty/state/main/s. university street, maybe stopping in Ashley's or Leopold's for a quick pint, seeing who's there, finding out what's new, listening to tales of happenings past and present, meeting new folks and learning from their stories.
I agree that most people's negative reactions to ebooks are due to their newness - your own examples particularly bring this to light, as well as other's "if they were as convenient" statements. When books first came out you'd have to wait a while for a monk to make a copy for you, or wait for Gutenberg's invention. Give ebooks some time and the rough edges will hopefully get smoothed out appropriately.
Personally, i wish i had an electronic copy of every book i've ever read (yes, i read too - i'll stop in Old Towne for to sit and read with a pint on occasion) so that i could easily grep out a certain phrase or name or example from the text.
But i'd also like an electronic copy of every bit of data that passes through me, so the next time i'm at the Fleetwood and someone's telling me about their Seattle WTO experience i could quickly reference it against the newspaper articles and tv news i heard and read. Sure my notebooks handle this functionality too and i wouldn't give up making them for anything, but as i open up my notebook i can't help but think 'grep -i seattle' and wish i could have written down full transcripts of what i heard.
-f
www.blackant.net
I've been using Gutenpalm, a GPL'd book reader that stores text files in zipped form on the palm.
You get the text (from project gutenberg typically) and use a desktop java program to compress it and put it into a palm db file, then just install it on your palm.
Since I spend a lot of time on the road, I can take a dozen or more books with me if I'm going on a trip without the weight. The palm's battery life means I have days of reading at a time without charging up (one reason I turned down a color palm from my employer).
I'v used fancier doc readers, but Gutenpalm is good enough and it compresses the content so I can carry a pretty good sized library around on my Palm. With a 16MB memory module, I could have literally dozens of books handy.
With respect to the issue of paper vs. e-book, I see absolutely no reason to prefer a paperback over a Gutenpalm book, except if you find looking at the palm's screen tiring, which I don't. The autoscroll feature is kind of useless, so if you like that sort of thing, I'd recommend the free readre "ReadThemAll", which does not scroll the text but "wipes down" the new page over the old one. However you'll have to use doc format books instead of zipped Gutenpalm format books.
So -- I'm basically a fan of e-books.
That said, I'll never read a non public domain e-book.
The reason is I don't want publishers to start treating books as "software" and to put the kind of onerous "licensing" agreements. That would be the beginning of the end of intellectual freedom.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Well, apparently, the publisher and authors at www.webscription.net disagree with you. New Books published in html on a subscription basis. Really cool, and some execellent books can even be had for free (donated by the authors). Don't forget to read the FAQ, that explains the whole project.
Most publiers are releasing only older titles on e-books. I have yet to see a new hardcover edition be simultaneous released on e-books.
You're looking in the wrong places, apparently. www.peanutpress.com has released at least several simultaneous with the hardback.
According to some inside info :-) King's Black House will be released as ebook the day it's available in hardback.
Really? Ever been to Fiction Wise? They have a ton of stuff, mostly SF short stories, but some novels. Mostly oldish (5+ years), some not.
It's in your choice of plain text, PDF, PalmDoc, and some others. You can even download any book you have bought as many times as you like (in case you want to change formats, or deleted your old copy).
I found a number of Kage Baker stories I had never read, and a few Larry Niven stories I decided I should own in electronic form. I payed real money.
I haven't noticed the collapse of the publishing industry. Not even the SF shorts part of it. But maybe I haven't been watching?
That's because you aren't looking in the right places. go to www.webscriptions.net. Baen books is publishing all their new books in electronic format with no ridiculous copy protection. Why? Because they realized that when you read the first book of a really good series you want to go buy the other ones. Sure worked on me... :)
Of course, if you hate scifi and fantasy then your
out of luck...