Slashdot Mirror
Barnes and Noble Drops Ebooks
computx writes "I just recieved an email from Barnes and Noble that they will no longer sell ebooks and I have 1 month to download the books I have purchased. Wow!"
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
You must have a really slow internet connection.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
E-books aren't popular because they are inconvenient. Have you ever tried reading in a bathtub or on your toilet seat with an e-book?
...Worst idea since...well, a bad idea anyway.
How much cost is associated w/ Ebook distribution?
Sounds like adobe really is making a killing with thoes... maybe they should sue someone, like the riaa.. oh wait
Maybe I just didn't get it, but I never saw the draw of eBooks.
Keep Austin Weird!
At least they gave one month of service...
Still, that's not very long to "support" your products, even if they were a flop.
They must have stopped selling them because Everyone was pirating copies of Light in August, Huck Finn, and Robinson Carusoe. Poor BN couldn't make enough money
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
The eight people who bought ebooks will be VERY inconvenienced.
I can understand why they are dumping them. Who needs a whole book filled with e and E ?? They should start using some of those other letters too !
My mother in law is worse than yours...and yes I will trade!
Considering all the file sharing on Kazaa, and other P2P programs, I for one am not surprised that BN would drop selling them. I wonder how much money is lost for eBook sharing? I also wonder if some 'coalition' (like the RIAA) is going to step in and scream 'No more downloads!' when it comes to eBooks.
MoFscker
sure doesn't hurt as much as a regular hard cover book. My toe is still sore a month later.
First I read the
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
With close to zero demand compared to printed books it would have been stupid of them to continue.
Proud patriot and republican voter.
...would have been great had readers been umm readable and cheap and had the format been widley available.
I'd love nothing more than having all my college books in eBook format, and preferably for half the price... But it doesn't make sense to pay $300ish for a reader with fairly limited battery life and the pay prices for books which in my opinion are still unreasonable.
In Soviet Russia, the television watches YOU!
I recall my one experience purchasing ebooks. It seemed like a fantastic idea. I saved on shipping, and would get it right away.
The DRM management in both the Microsoft and Adobe Readers made it so annoying that it took days for me to be able to read what I purchased. A combination of buggy software and lousy online support ended my enthusiasm. In the end, I decided to go back to good, old-fashioned books.
I don't blame them. I love to read (plug for my book reviews) but reading on the computer stinks. It hurts my eyes, and I would never read a book in the positing that I sit at my desk. And I'm not about to lug my laptop along to read during commutes on the tube.
Besides, i can just walk into the local B&N and sit and read half of any book before the store closes. :) Gotta love those comfy chairs.
-=-This sig brought to you by The Cheat; and by Viewers Like You.-=-
I managed to grab a few books for my pocketpc, and it was a fairly pleasant experience. I personally think the thing that killed it early on was the fact that very few "new" books (ie. new in hardcover) made it to this format in a timely manner. It is too bad, as some of the older books I read were easy to read, and convenient (standing in DMV line), as it is easier to carry my PDA around than to carry a book. Handier too!
I wonder what's really going on at Barnes and Noble. My roomie is a manager there and she said they were reducing the size of the computer section big time. Now they're dropping eBooks. Is this just an odd coincidence or is B & N moving more toward a "traditional" bookstore and coffeeshop mix (meaning does management think computer related stuff isn't "traditional")? Does anyone know?
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
Noone really wants to download a PDF and page through it at their desk and I don't know too many people taking laptops to the toilet, bathtub, or park in order to read. The problem isn't really with eBooks per-say, its that there really isn't a convenient way to view the content.
Some of the new OLED technology may make eBooks more practical for consumers, but right not they just aren't convenient enough and the eBook readers only add insult to injury as many consumers (myself included) just don't see the point in buying a device to read a book as opposed to just buying the paper book and not having to worry about charging it up before making a coast-to-coast flight.
EEEeeeeEEEEeeeeeEEEEeeeeeEEEEeeeee...
I'm surprised to see that the Motely Fool is still around. I would have guess they up and died around the same time the stock market did. Every time I go into a bookstore, it seems like I see their investment guide in the discount bin.
First of all the shame is that the first few posts are by a bunch of idiots with nothing even vaguely resembling a life anywhere near them. The second thing is of course that EBooks had a lot of potential, when I say that I'm really just speaking from a textbook stand point, because as was stated previously, you can't really take and e-book reader or your computer into the tub with you.
On the other hand, when used to replace cumbersome textbooks (disussed here:Little Kids and Laptops) I can see where their utility would come in. What can you do though, sales are low and the demand isn't up there where some people thought it would be.
that's sad. I always believed that ebooks, anyway an electronic form for books, would have been really successful. This apparently demonstrates the countrary. Or maybe this just underlines that the "ebook" form was not good enough. Personally I find very usefull to have ebooks, large PDF's, big text only files of something that is pubblically available. We can talk about RFC's, manuals, 80 years older novels, poems and so on. They are useful for research, studying (school/uni books cost really a lot of money nowadays), being informed and so on. The problem is always the same: authors want to always be sure to earn LOTS of money from their work. Blaming or not blaming them?
I don't think e-books are going to die. When offered for sale, e-books are great products for small businesses, and when given away gratis they're a great marketing vehicle. However the business dynamics of e-books are very different from paper-based books. Selling e-nooks does not make much business sense for a company like Barnes and Noble. Some other company will be kind of e-books. :-)
Greetings,
Norbert.
. . .because I downloaded all my favorite books off of Kazaa and iMesh.
I am over here... now I am back over here!
It's an okay idea, but ultimately really not all that practical.
Plus you can't throw ebooks at people.
Kick in the Head
I don't think e-books were ever widely promoted, with the exception of a couple of titles. Couple that with the fact that reading an e-book simply doesn't have the same feeling as a regular book, and it's not so hard to see why these things haven't taken off. I think, in time, the concept will eventually become popular, given enough technological improvements and mass marketing.
"...today consumers have been conditioned to think of beer when they see a bullfrog..."
-Hermann Goring, Hitler's Reichsmarschall, at the Nuremberg Trials
"Unpatriotic"
-The Amertican government to anyone who criticises their actions
Santa Cruz wants to impeach Bush (this works so far)
EACH PASSENGER TO BE ASSIGNED COLOR THREAT LEVEL (what a surprise; this piece of news is also "under revision")
Anybody think the creators of e-Book stole the idea from the movie Big (Tom Hanks' comic book pitch at the end)?
anyway, I don't know... something about going from sitting in front of computer for 12 hours a day to relaxing on the couch and staring at my PDA to read just doesn't strike me as appealing.
-n-
This is exactly why I only buy unencrypted e-books and sci-fi magazines from Fictionwise
Their Multiformat books are available as:
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) for Macintosh and PCs
Palm DOC (PDB) for Palm compatible devices
Palm iSilo (PDB) for Palm compatible devices
Microsoft Reader (LIT) for PC and PocketPC devices
Franklin eBookman (FUB) for Franklin eBookMan devices
Hiebook (KML) for Hiebook devices
Mobipocket (PRC) (currently available for Palm, PocketPC, and Franklin eBookman devices)
Rocket (RB) for Rocket and REB/1100
I think I have a faily good chance of being able to read at least one of those formats in a few years time, and unencrypted Acrobat files can be transcoded into html easily.
Please note: Even though these books are not protected I have bought over a hundred books and short stories here and mysteriously failed to put them on kazaa or even give copies to my friends.
I am (shock horror for SCO, RIAA etc) both an open source programmer and I support copyright. Without copyright the GPL is meaningless.
- Paul
2. It is uncomfortable to read from light-emitting screens for long. This problem may be overcome in the future with "electronic paper" and such
3. Sense of ownership. Most people prefer to have a physical item as a proof of ownership. I hope this cultural preference will change because it really is a waste of reasources to store books on printed papers and music on CDs.
Tor
I guess that's good news for others, like PeanutPress and Baen.
Yes, I occasionally buy (or bought) ebooks, even though they're a pain in many ways (no first sale, can't lend them to others, don't work well in the bathtub), because it is convenient to always have a book or three I haven't read yet on my PDA, which I carry with me anyhow.
I've only purchased about 50-60 ebooks so far, which is way less than the number of paper books I've bought in the same period. Still, they're a nice supplement.
Now if only there was a convenient mean of converting between the two (apart from a scanner and a printer, I mean). "Pay $5 and we'll send you a hardcopy of the ebook you bought from us" would be a nice addition to ebook sites, I think.
Regards,
--
*Art
I refuse to buy e-books because of the way DRM schemes restrict fair use. DRM means you can never really own most ebooks, and I refuse to buy something I cannot move freely and without intervention from device to device. I'd only make exceptions for things which are indispensable.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
I have read at least a dozen books this year with only one being a traditional paperback. I prefer reading on the pocketpc (Dell Axim) now. With backlight control (usually set to the next to lowest setting and all room lights off) and a side toggle for flipping up or down pages make reading a joy.
They say you can't curl up with a good computer.. but I say BS. I think it's more comfortable.
It's also the fastest way to check email via wireless! Before my PC boots I can turn on the pocketpc and check email.
E-Books are good in lot of ways. well they save trees. I undertsand that people find it difficult to read ebooks because of the mode of delivery but take for example NetLibrary or Proquest's Online Libraries(I read books through my university subscription) are quite good. The pages are not scanned(i hate scanned books unless they are too old). and all you need is a good browser and a good screen. I found it difficult to read on the screen at first but a day or two into it I started to love it. Its may not be easy at first but people would see its advantages once a good method of delivery is devised. One major advantage, to me, using ebooks is that they are searchable meaning i can get to the stuff i want to read whithout going to the index! any one else with me on this?
I believe there are many reasons for this. A big one would be that most people do not enjoy staring at a computer monitor reading for long hours at a time. This can become very uncomfortable, especially for people who work on computers all day to begin with. I read three 300+ page novels (Star Wars fan fiction, the Snotzenexer Trilogy, awesome stuff, check 'em out) on a computer screen, and pretty much the only reason I did that was because I didn't really have the capability to print those pages.
anyway
Another big reason, is that most people don't seem to like the idea of paying for something that is just some digital document that just sits on your hard drive, and doesn't seem to be anything more than a typical word processing document.
Then there's just that psychological factor of books, turning pages, seeing the book on your shelf, being able to hold it in your hands. In this day and age, with so many people doing all kinds of work on computers, the idea of coming home and curling up with a cup of coffee in front of your computer monitor is a whole lot less appealing than in your bed with a book in your hands.
So while e-books have obviously failed this generation, I do not believe that publishers should totally give this idea up. They should wait for a little bit, and then push this idea on this new generation coming up. If they can get the kids to grow up with this concept, books will become far less prominent. ahem.. I shall leave now
This post was brought to you by the number 584811 and the characters / and .
While the costs, profit margins, and filesharing probably had an effect.
I think the true killer to this product is that technology just isn't up to doing recreational printed material. The readable font-size and eye comfort factors are still inferior to good old ink on paper. And it will still be that way for a few generations of screens.
I say there won't be a comeback for a good 5-10 years.
This makes me happy as we run a startup service trying to compete with them. PayLoadz. Now we just have to get rid of those damn Amazon buggers before they patent it!
What kind of horrible scheme do they have set up that they have to cancel a potentially lucrative business
There are very little costs for keeping and distributing the ebook to the customer.
Even if sales are low, B and N still makes a profit because the author/pubisher is the only one they have to pay, and they only pay them if they sell ebooks.
with this kind of scheme, it would be hard not to make money
Go to http://www.blackmask.com.
Thousands of *free* ebooks.
Who cares if B&N drops 'em? Blackmask has the good stuff, everything's free, and they're in six (at least) different formats for nearly every device under the sun. Plus no stupid DRM.
They make great reference materials for techies, poor recreational reading, or even reference materials for anyone else. I mean an eBook gardening reference doesnt do you much good crawling around in the dirt.
B&N gave it a shot, and gave up. Kudos for trying.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
The eBook is too young to die.
The eBook isn't dead - it's just immature. Anyone remember the Apple Newton? I don't mean to offend the legions of devotees that the machine apparently has, but the fact of the matter is that it was too young an idea to succeed, and we had to wait until US Robotics came out with the PalmPilot to see that kind of computer enter the mainstream. The same thing happened with Windows 1.0. I could go on and on. The problem with these kinds of things is that some solid ideas are lacking things - battery life, maybe, or size or reliability.
I think the same thing is happening with eBooks - they're too bulky, expensive, battery-hungry, difficult to read, and just generally inconvenient to read when compared with books. Not to mention that I don't like shelling out a few hundred dollars for a machine to read eBooks when I could use that money towards twenty or thirty paperbacks. And as many people have said, paper does have its charm.
I can see the convenience of eBooks, and it seems like some early adopters have, too. But they're just not ready for widespread adoption yet.
I produce electronic music and write little games. Have a look.
...when in the bathroom.
Give away the readers and sell the books. That's what they should do.
But I suspect another major reason is that publishing-on-demand may be rolled out in the next few years, and ebooks would provide a great inroad for competitors/pirates/users at schools with POD facilities to get in on Barnes and Noble's action.
I purchased the previously /. reviewed Code Generation in Action from Manning for half price. So far, I am finding this book to be a pleasant ebook to read, despite it being in pdf, which is due to the writing's conversational style. There are others who are enjoying this ebook and its half price availability. I don't think I would be as pleased if I were to read an ebook of something like A New Kind of Science. ebooks will only get better and become more available.
dave
I would also like to see college texts available in ebook format. Currently students face high prices, and faculty authors (who get paid by universities to teach, after all) don't make substantial money from textbooks. The key idea here is disintermediation--get rid of the textbook publishers. I can remember when the textbook editions I assigned my students would last for several years. Now most publishers renew textbook editions with *very* minor changes nearly every year. Publishers make more money, and they know they can do this because of the captive audience. And really--how often do we need an update to Introduction to Logic or Symbolic Logic (courses I teach among others). I could understand if the updates provided new content or new services, but they generally don't (part of my job is reviewing textbooks for publishers, so I have a pretty some sense of the academic philosophy market). Note also that textbooks cost usually > $50 or $60. Now imagine this: faculty sell ebooks for their courses for perhaps $15 or $20--but sell it directly rather than through a publisher. Faculty make money directly (or could forgo the money--could just make the materials available as part of the terms of service with most state universities). There are tons of services to help even techno challenged college faculty save a MS Word document in ebook format. This will happen, even if BN has backed out.
I have tried using Microsoft Reader on my PocketPC 2002 PDA, and frankly, the software is just plain broken. The activation process was convoluted and inspired absolutely zero confidence. The free trial books i downloaded wouldn't activate properly. I wasn't about to purchase an eBook only to be forced to call customer support in order to read them. I imagined having to fiddle with registry values, dll version conflicts, activation codes, and ultimately be forced to reinstall my OS over a frickin ebook. No thanks. I think the combination of eBook and PDA is great, if only it worked.
BOO! TERRO
The basic problem is straightforward. The public believes that the prices that they charge for e-books are too high.
When you do not recieve a hardcopy of a book, you don't feel that it is of the same value. Just today, I was reviewing a book on Amazon that I was interested and found that it is available in electronic format for 2/3 the price. However, that is TOO MUCH MONEY for what you are getting. Without a physical book:
- you cannot read it elsewhere
- you can lose it with an accidental keystroke
- it is more difficult on your eyes (in most cases)
- At times, you are not in control of the media. In cases of some digital music, DRM allows another company to possibly "disable" your music at a later date, if they decided to change the purchase terms.
Those are major downfalls. If a book cost $20, I would be much more willing to purchase an e-book if it were $5 instead of the more likely $15. That, however, is probably below the cost of "manufacture" for the book, which is unacceptable to most publishers. However, the product they are selling is not equal in value to what they are trying to charge.
What I suggest is making the e-book an incentive 'add-on' to a physical book. Sell the physical book for $20, but then throw in the e-book as a bonus, or for around $2-$3 extra. That way you not only have the physical volume, but also a searchable e-book.
With the increasing popularity of TabletPC devices perhaps dropping ebooks was short-sighted. Since TabletPC tries to mirror the paper and ink experience, you might conclude that e-books would be well suited to this format. Readability and battery life would still be issues.
I just downloaded some 4 or 5 ebooks today at Project Gutenberg (http://promo.net/pg/). I think there is an appeal to downloadable books, but that's because I have no other way of reading something at work on my breaks unless it's on my machine.
"I'd rather stay here with all the madmen, for I'm quite content they're all as sane as me..." ~ David Bowie
www.webscriptions.net. Just because B&N doesn't want your money doesn't mean that nobody does...
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
Baen Books has an electronic publishing program that works for them and their authors. For $15 you get all of their books for a month (generally 6 titles, although 2-3 are usually reissues or the paperback release of a previous hardcover). If that's too much of a committment, individual books are available for $4-5. You can download the books in HTML, Palm Pilot, Rocketbook, RTF, and MS Reader formats. There's no DRM involved - Jim Baen figures that if he makes the books available at a reasonable price, people are generally honest and will pay for them rather than pirating them. They even give away electronic books in the Baen Free Library, and their authors have reported that they're seeing increased sales in their backlist, even from other publishers, that they can only attribute to appearing in the BFL.
Has anyone tried to re-sell their E-books? I know I can run down to the local 1/2 price book store and sell/buy for a fraction of what the retail value.
-- No sig for you!
OK, this has been covered ad nauseum. But if you really want eBooks, done the way that they should be, with no DRM, and an outright friendly redistribution policy that amounts to "Make copies for your friends and hand them out, as long as you aren't charging for them that's great", then go to Baen Books (follow the big "Free Stuff Here" link).
They seem to be making money on them. They sell the eBooks cheaper than the real paper ones (the problem with BN's was that they were ludicrously expensive) and you can get the full eBook whenever the hardcover comes out. Actually, you can get the book in pieces before the hardcover hits stores.
In addition to giving away free books, they also have free sample chapters of upcoming books.
You can read all about the how-and-why of it here on Baen's site. Go read that link. It's absolutely indredible. It seems that Jim Baen gets it. We'll wait and see who else does.
I've been reading Baen's eBooks for about a year now. Reading on a desktop PC with a CRT does suck. Reading on my PowerBook's LCD is awesome. It's not without some inconvenience (batteries, not being able to read in the john), but it's comfortable and easy, and it's way cheaper than buying the whole book (they offer individual titles for $5 each, or $15 for their selection of 5). I usually have enough magazines and stuff laying around to read in the john anyway.
If you purchase a selection you can download it in MS Reader shareable format (no DRM). Or HTML, or RTF. Whatever. No DRM on anything. There's no Adobe PDF, because Jim Baen doesn't like PDF (never have heard that story).
If you purchase the latest John Ringo Posleen series book (Hell's Faire) in hardcover you get a CD with the first 3 books on it, along with a boatload of other books (like a dozen books on one CD). And the license is "not for commercial redistribution", so you can use it, read the books, make copies for your friends, whatever.
Barnes & Noble is rapidly falling down my list of "places I like". They're succumbing to all the same horseshit that companies like Music Warehouse, K-Mart did -- They spend less and less time being concerned with their core product (books & periodicals), and spend more and more time trying to sell me peripheral foo-foo shit like DVDs, Playstation games, and cotton candy in a bag.
About a year and a half ago, I went into a Music Warehouse looking for a Zeppelin CD.. A classic, an album that any place calling itself a "music warehouse" would be insane not to have. I walk inside, and what do I see?
A glass case on a pedistal, with a pair of Reebok shoes lovingly placed inside of it...like i'm supposed to fall to my knees and start jerking off to it. After walking through 6 of 7 aisles of DVDs and and *childrens backpacks* I get to the back of the store. What do I see? An entire *wall* stacked floor to ceiling with hundreds of copies of a single Britney Spears CD. At that point, I just walked out.
Pretty much the same goes for Barnes & Noble these days... I cant go in there and find books they *should* have. What I *do* find, is plenty of DVDs, backpacks, cake, Playstation games, and cotton candy..in a bag.
No doubt, they're getting rid of eBooks to make room for something else neither your or I need. Like some more glass pedistals with Reebok shoes inside.
Bowie J. Poag
It took 2 tries for DivX to get it right, so I'm waiting for open source to pick up Ebooks and make it popular again. ;)
I find that having a paper copy and an ebook is great when learning a new programming languages. Traditionally, I like to read the book and refer to code directly out of the paper book. But ebooks are essential when you are trying to read code out of the book that takes up multiple pages, without having to flip back and forth all the time. Ebooks are also useful if you want to do a quick search for something it's quicker and more accurate (if the word/phrase you are looking up isn't in the inex) than looking it up in the index to use CTRL-F. The paper book and the ebook compliment each other quite well.
I think it's great when author's like Bruce Eckel who release paper versions and ebooks versions of their books and even updates to their ebooks.
-- How many sigs are as useless as this one?
I wouldn't be suprosed if this decision wasn't motived from a committee. Publishers need only take one look at the debacle that is the RIAA to decide eBooks can probably wait a few more years. Let the RIAA fight the piracy P2P issues, see how well DRM works out, and then come back if the water temperature suits their tastes. After all, paper has been working fine so far, and lucky for them most of us are still too lazy to type/scan in the books we read.
There are many eBook libraries available on Freenet, and also eDonkey.
This is only a small set back.
I bought one, once upon a time. Didn't want to wait for the harcover version. Hilarity ensued:
1) Price was the same as hardcover, $24.95 WTF?
2) You could only read it on the PC you downloaded it to. WTF?!?
3) You could not make a backup of it. If it got hosed, kiss your $24.95 goodbye WTF!?!??!?!
No more of that crap for me.
And the funniest thing about all this? You can download a DRM-free version of just about any book you want for free on IRC and other places. The publishing industry need to quit following the RIAA's footsteps and instead learn from someone who is doing it right.
Don't throw your computer out the window, throw the Windows out of your computer!
So what? I've seen people who've read thousands of palms...
Like many have said here already, I prefer reading good old fashioned printed on paper books. Still I think that eBooks may have a chance once a really cheap and easy two sided printer hits the market.
If I could easily take the eBook and print my own paper copy to read that'd be perfect. I could get the book right away and print a few chapters at a time to read wherever I may be. Heck, I could print it on really cheap paper and recycle it all when I'm done if I want. And I could print the thing as big or as small as I like.
The only trouble with this is the absence of the right kind of printer at an affordable cost. But forget about any kind of inkjet printer, the ink is just too expensive for this.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
E-books and e-newpapers could be such a good thing.
I see a lot of posts complaining about how eBooks aren't so great. I've put close to $400 into eBooks in the past couple years which is a lot more than I've put into dead trees. Perhaps I can explain why.
You see, I read a lot and I go different places. 50 books is a lot to haul around if I'm not sure what I want to read next. A laptop is a lot less so. An Internet-enabled computer at the other location where I can get back to the secured section of my home page is even less cumbersome.
"Ah ha!" some of you are now saying. "Most eBooks are locked down so you can't just pick them up from the password-protected part of your web page!" Well, that was true of Barnes and Noble's offerings. That's why I spent very little money there.
I spent quite a bit of money at places like Fictionwise and Baen's webscription service. All of Baen's stuff comes wrapped in a pleasant HTML format that's easy to use. Some of Fictionwise's stuff is still locked down, but you know what? Most of that is available in the Microsoft Reader format, and the cracking program discussed on Slashdot a while ago is easy and quick to use and it does a reasonably competent job of converting to HTML.
So, while I am sorry to see Barnes and Noble drop out, I want the folks at Baen and Fictionwise to know that they can expect more cash from me. A lot more.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Baen Books does well with ebooks. They have a "webscriptions" page where you can purchase ebooks individually or a month of ebooks on a serial subscription model. There are even freebie books available.
With the month of ebooks, you get about 5 or so books for $15. Two of the books are usually new, and released in parts. 3 months before paper release, you get 1/2 of the book. 2 months before paper release, you get 3/4 of the book. 1 month before release you get the entire book in ebook format.
Many different formats are provided including HTML, Microsoft Reader, and RTF.
I've purchased a number of books and month "subscriptions" from them. I find it handy to have the books on my laptop when I travel. Not as good as paper, but handy when I've run through all of my paper books or I'm waiting for something to finish. Of course, sometimes, I just can't wait to get the latest book from some of my favorite sci-fi authors.
B&N has been on my bad side since none in my area would carry this 2600. They simply stated that they werent revcieving this quarters issue. For all I know they could be telling the truth, but theyve carried all the others so ive com eup with my own little conspiricies...
Honestly, I have been looking for a suitable reader, and have yet to find any hardware that has a large enough screen to read comfortably.
Those with a large screen and reasonable price (Gemstar and RCA) are closed platforms.
Those that are open platforms usually have hardware that has problems such as small screen or limited battery life.
The closest that I found was the hiebook, which is steep at about $300. Plus, it looks like there has been little in support for the product in over a year.
Until I can get a reader for a little under $200 that has an open platform and a large enough screen to read comfortably and a reasonable battery life, I won't buy any ebooks.
I get them from Peanut Press and the price is reasonable -- cheaper than the dead-tree edition. Check out Sherlock homes as an ebook versus hard cover. The only DRM is that my credit card number is the decryption key, so I can't go posting the thing all over the place, but I can back them all up to a CD and load or unload them as I please. I keep my screen set on large print, so I have to "turn the page" (i.e., touch the bottom of the screen) more often, but I think it's a good deal.
===== Murphy's Law is recursive. =====
How exactly can you drop an electronic book?
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
To the many people who have pointed out that reading an e-book on a desktop computer/laptop isn't ideal, that's surely not where the future of mainstream e-books lies.
The future surely lies with portable devices, such as PDA's or, more likely, the cellphone, ubiquitous now (in Europe at least!). Granted, the majority of current cellphones have pretty horrible monochrome screens themselves, but this is changing fast. Here in the UK, for example, virtually all new phones have large, good-quality colour TFT's and, speaking from experience (E100 owner), reading e-books is a joy.
It's important to note that the biggest issue with B&N leaving the market, if you've bought books from them, involves activation.
MS Reader, for those of your unfamiliar with it, ties books to your "Passport" once you've activated Reader. Unfortunately, you can't "deactivate" Reader, and if you upgrade your computer, you need to activate that computer before you can access the books you paid for.
Seems semi-reasonable, in a DRM-kind of way, until you run into the "6 device limit" (which has been upped from 3). Once you hit that limit, you're dead. You can't access the books any more with that Passport.
This doesn't happen that often, but once it does, the recommended approach is to create a new Passport, and ask the vendors who you bought the books from to assign them to the new Passport. It's a hassle, but it works...and then you get access to the books again.
However -- and here's where the "real" problem hits -- if the vendor is gone, you can't do this. And if you can't do this, your books are gone.
It's a big deal.
Its name will be.... (drumroll)... iBook.
Really.
At least two of those books can't be pirated because they're in the public domain.
Guttenberg has about 5000 books in etext now, and their are many many more available books online in the public domain from sources other than Guttenberg.
This is what the RIAA, SCO, and the like really fear, everything else is a sideshow. When people use open source software, public domain works, and entertain themselves online, as befits a free people.
A year or two ago Scott Adams started selling "God's Debris: A Thought Experiment" as an E-book. I decided to try it out, but the reading sotware was horrible. I was on dial-up using proxy software in Windows 98 (I think). My parents' PC had the connection, but I downloaded the E-book onto my computer. For whatever reason the reader, when it tried to verify that I could read the book, could not connect to the DRM servers, so I was locked out. I had to install the reader and download the book (via the reader) again on my parents' PC. What a hassle.
Vote for global prefs bug
I honestly never knew B&N was selling them online. Whenever I've wanted to look for eBooks, I've headed to PeanutPress.com. At least they use Palm Reader documents, a format that's actually useful.
The real reasons ebooks are having a hard time getting noticed are drm and pricing.
MS has jacked up DRM to the point that its nearly impossible to use an ebook if you arent willing to pirate it. Many book publishers havent figured out that if an ebook has 0 portability (another drm issue) or is only useful for a certain amount of time..its value is far less than that of even its paperback equivalent. Even $10 for a half meg text file is way too much IMHO. Amazon, Baen and Peanut have the right idea with many books priced at only 2-3 dollars. Even fictionwise is at least semi-reasonable but B&N has never seemed to get the idea.
As for convenience, e-books are much better suited to the palm or pocketpc than full size computers. I believe that in many instances e-book reading on a portable device is better than reading on paper. Note taking, highlighting and reviewing are much easier not to mention most devices remember where you left off if you have a tendancy to fall asleep reading.
There is a market for e-books, but much like the RIAA and the record companies, the publishers and sellers just have to get over the old model of doing business and accept the reality of the new market.
One thing I would like to see happen is maybe having publishers inlude a mini cd or secure url for an official digital version with the hardback editions. The costs would be minimal and it may do alot to generate awareness, they could even keep their DRM intact.
How odd to see so many posts from the /. community railing against what is clearly a prototype technology.
Yes, ebooks are sucky. Yes, the nicest fonts on the most optically undemanding monitors are still no substitute for the feel of the dead-tree edition in our hands. But isn't this just a thinly disguised cousin to the decades-old analogue/digital debate? Am I the only one who is sick of vinyl die-hards and their "CDs have no warmth" rhetoric?
The current problems with ebooks, as Cory Doctorow says, is the ever-present spectre of DRM.
"I believe that the electronic publishing models that have been tried -- especially those that rely on restricting readers' freedom with "Digital Rights Management" software -- are dead ends. There are lots of ways that electronic texts are inferior to paper (every discussion of "e-books" has to involve at least one paen to the smell of old books and another to the wonder of reading a book in the tub), but there are also lots of ways in which they are superior. You can carry a lot of them around in a small device. You can back them up. You can email them to friends. You can convert them to your favorite file-formats, you can search them, you can copy-and-paste them. When we turn to use-restriction technology, we foreclose the possibilities that make electronic text superior to printed text." (source)
Ebooks, once sites like this one go the way of napster et alia, will become as common as MP3.Some journalistic follow-ups from this article:
"Demand for e-books has been growing quickly, but remains relatively tiny. According to the Open eBook Forum, a trade organization, e-book sales totaled about $5 million in the first half of 2003, compared to $3.8 million in the first half of 2002.
"One bookseller dropping out will have no impact on Random House's commitment to e-books," said Random House Inc. spokesman Stuart Appelbaum.
Open eBook Forum executive director Nick Bogaty said he has no individual corporate statistics, but believes Barnes & Noble.com had just a small percentage of sales. Palm Digital Media, OverDrive, Inc., and Amazon.com are among the leading e-book competitors, Bogaty says.
Barnes & Noble.com had been quite active in the market, even starting its own digital imprint in 2001 and releasing an original work by Dean Koontz.
"We all believe there is a future for e-books," Goldman said. "It's just not here yet."
'Intellectual Property' is big business - and businesses are now seeing how much they have to loose if they keep letting everyone share.
Unfortunatley, the genie is out of the bottle, and people are used to sharing, which will make it hard to go back to 'oldfashioned' distribution methods. Of course, nothing a little heavy-handed litigation, political lobbying, and scare tactics can't solve...or so they would think.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
eBooks is an idea, ahead of the technology, and society. OLED would take care of the display. MRAM, and variable speed processors combined with fuel cells would bring it much closer. The only remaining problem would be the piracy issue (just as the shift to digital, from analog magnified the problem). Anyway dead tree books still generate quite a bit of money for everyone, from new to used.
I read books from Palm Digital Media instead and I presume they'll stay in business for as long as Palm do (how long will that be?). I think e-books are the greatest invention of the 20th century but most people aren't really ready for them yet. I am almost the only person I have ever seen on public transport reading an e-book. And yet I find them really convenient. 1 minute waiting in line at Safeway: time to read a page of a book. Sitting on the toilet: time for a few more pages. I suddenly find I can fit books into my busy life again. It's great!
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
I've looked into it seriously for the last couple of years, and so have other authors of my acquaintance; with a few exceptions, eBooks just don't pay the bills.
From the consumer standpoint, reading an eBooks is unpleasant. I get a nasty headache reading for sustained periods from even the best displays. Handheld devices are too small, large screens aren't portable -- and an "old fashioned" paper book doesn't require power, nor will a "real" book become unreadable because of changing formats and hardware standards.
I see ebooks as a suplement to -- and not a replacement for -- paper books. Audio books have found a very comfortable place in the market; ebooks, I'm sure, will find their own niche.
All about me
I much prefer to use something I can scribble notes all over and easily highlight. I have not found anything nearly so convenient for this as paper, in the ebook software forum. I don't mind reading a few articles on my PocketPC, but anything more then that, to me, is more pain than dishing out the bucks for something paperbound.
"The purpose of learning is growth, and our minds, unlike our bodies, can continue growing as long as we live." - M.J. A
All jokes aside, there have been several books written without the letter E:
Gadsby, A Story of Over 50,000 Words Without Using the Letter "E", Wetzel Publishing Co., Inc. 1939.
La Disparition, George Perec, 1969.
And I think there was another on published recently by a Canadian author, but I can't find a reference to it.
This post cannot be rebroadcast without the express written constent of Major League Baseball.
This is yet another shining example of how attempting to sell a product you can never hope to control the distribution of is fataly flawed.
At the very least you can't hope to sell it at the same price you would for something you can actually touch and claim possesion of.
Apples Itunes is the right way to run this setup (and the sales figures back that up).
Another nail in this ideas coffin was the fact that books are more than just the words within them. Theres something exciting about having a 1st edition print, or the cover art, or the binding. People like to hold books, and carry them around, and look at them, and show them to thier friends, etc, etc. Its just not the same with a PDF, or an "encrypted PDF" (ebook).
/* * pope1 */
eTHUMP
ebooks are a bad idea, it's 2003
Barnes and Noble booksellers (NYSE symbol BKS) is not the same as bn.com (NASDAQ symbol BNBN). They are separate companies with separate management. BKS does however own about 38% of BNBN's stock. BNBN is a joint venture between BKS and Bertelsmann. Don't feel bad, the fools (Motley and otherwise) at Fool.com and Forbes magazine don't seem to know the difference either -- and they are both selling investment advice!
Who in their right mind is going to shell out any $$$ for an freaking EBook, let alone the $$$ for an EBook reader?
Didn't Abdobe and companies like them teach you jerks to stay the hell away from Ebooks?
Don't forget MickeySoft and it's incompatable *.lit files. Is there any non-Windows software that can actually read/view these things?
Ebooks. Good ridance to utter garabge!!!
Praise be to Barnes and Noble for having the sense to Drop Ebooks!!!!!!!!!!!!!
First, as many others have noted, reading books on a Palm is pretty convenient - I've read at least 30 books on my old IIIx. I think that the real reason e-books aren't popular is price. The other day I was looking on Amazon for the new Jon Krakauer book - hardback was $14ish, pdf was $18. I got the hardback from buy.com for $14 with free shipping. I would certainly rather have the dead tree version of a book like that than a pdf for 25% more.
As for smalI screen sizes - suspect that once this type of technology catches on.
For the most part, you're correct: the problem with ebooks isn't the concept, its the current implementation. However, ebooks do suffer from serious limitatiosn by nature:
Those issues are less technological and more social; I have books in my collection that date back hundreds of years. Will someone be able to read your 2003 ebook in 2153?
I'm not saying ebooks are bad, or wrong, or unethical, or impossible. I am saying that they have a very long way to go before they are as good or better than paper books -- particularly for fiction and other non-technical topics.
All about me
PDA's are just becoming everyday household items. Soon everybody'll have PDA cell phones.
I just found myself looking for e-books the other day. There are so many books I'd liketa read, just don't like ferrying them around.
"It depends on the format, but they could be searchable. Ever have a book where you want to find the exact wording of a quote, or want to look up something in a book that has a crummy index? Just search. Also convienience; if I had a good reader (very clear screen) I'd much rather carry that around than a couple 1000-page textbooks."
Project Gutenberg provides a lot of out-of-copyright texts for free, and is a great resource for the student doing the kind of research that you are talking about. If I was doing a term paper on Hamlet, having the etext available would be very valuable. However, if I'm reading Hamlet for the first time (or simply for enjoyment's sake) I'd rather have a paper copy, and that's not likely to change anytime soon. For many of us, reading is one of the ways that we unhook.
** The opinions expressed here are my own, and do not reflect those of my employers - past, present, or future**
I never really understood the eBook business model, or how it was expected to work.
;)
I have a good friend -- Rie Sheridan -- who has found some success as an independent author by selling short stories for a $1 a pop through Echelon Press. But an entire novel? Even with a Palm, I have trouble reading eBooks I've downloaded from Gutenberg.
I think that the way the internet will help change writing is the way that it has changed Comics. The successful webcomics provide regular content for free, and are basically funded through sales of related merchandise -- T-shirts and the like. I think writers will start writing stories as serials... distributing the content regularly for free, and making money off of merchandise.
I'm not just mouthing off, either. I'm going to do that. I'm working on converting my web site, Rimbosity (please be gentle, she's just a P-233 running Linux!), so that I'll be able to provide new music each month and a regular part of a serial each week. It should be up in about a month (conservative estimate; ought to be sooner).
The content will be free; the merchandise will be pay. Meanwhile, I have a day job.
This way, people can use AvantGo or Plucker to download the stories off of the web and keep up with them each week, or just check in once a week when they need a break from work. And I think it will work, for the same reasons it works for webcomics.
So I may be wrong, but I'm putting my money where my mouth is here, and we all will learn soon enough if I'm right!
Ehrm... that is... provided I still remember how to write...
The internet archive offers free downloads of books they've captured in the public domain. It's not complete, but they've got some decent stuff.
http://www.archive.org/texts/texts.php
Personally, I wouldn't even think about supporting Barnes and Noble, but if you're that disappointed about it - my sincerest condolences.
My sincerest thanks, Barnes and Noble, for saving our E-Trees.
Agreed. Two weeks ago, at my local "used book store", I bought one dozen one to three year old books from the "computer-shelf"; all in all for about 150 USD. No, not the latest or any of the greatest, but still.
Maybe somewhat outdated but still not counted out.
I downloaded it in seconds without having to go to the store, in fact I wouldn't be likely to find it in a store (Old H.L. Mencken stuff. I'm sure I could find it but I'd have to do some serious hunting around, or "special" order). It runs under Linux with my existing choice of "reader" (vim, so sue me) because it's in a standard format (ASCII). White text against a black background is easy on the eyes with a decent monitor and high refresh rate. I can grep it. It'll be easy on my back when I move and I didn't have to build more shelf space to house it. If it lose it somehow I'll just get it again.
Ain't Project Gutenberg great?
Keep your damned propriatary stuff.
Downsides? Yeah, you know. I can't curl up in bed with it. That part does suck. If I really want I can print it though, then give the printed version to a friend ( or even sell it, legally) when I'm through with it.
E-books are just spiffy when they're the right book, in the right format, for the right price and for the right usage.
It's just that B&N can't deliver that kind of e-book.
KFG
"lololo" ... Sure you don't mean "Lolita" ?
-uso.
Dreams, dreams, don't doubt dreams, dreaming children's dreaming dreams. Sailor Moon SS
That would be very interesting, but I wonder if it's legal with whatever contracts the authors have signed. Do these contracts still let the author redistribute his work in electronic form as he pleases?
Litigious bastards
Quote from the linked *Motley Fool* article:
s ts/best /new-nyt/nyt-fiction-hc.html/ref=pd_ts_a_nyt/103-9 189277-5743043
s ts/best /new-nyt/nyt-nonfiction-hc.html/ref=pd_ts_a_nyt/10 3-9189277-5743043
"While Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) is best known for its shipped goods, it still sells eBooks. At a substantial discount to its printed counterpart, some of the cost savings achieved through digital delivery are passed on to the end user."
Just for grins, I decided to take a look at Amazon's site, and pick 5 books each from the *NYT* bestsellers list (fiction and non-fiction).
The fiction list:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/subst/li
*The Teeth of the Tiger* (Clancy): $16.77 in hardcover, apparently not available in an eBook (but an "audio download" is available for $15.16)
*The Da Vinci Code* (Brown): $14.97 in hardcover, $14.95 to download (Adobe Reader or Microsoft Reader)
*Blindside* (Coulter): $15.57 hardcover, apparently not available in an eBook.
*The Sinner* (Gerritsen): $14.97 hardcover, $9.99 to download (Adobe or Microsoft)
*A Place of Hiding* (George): $16.17 hardcover, $21.95 to download (Adobe or Microsoft)
The non-fiction list:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/subst/li
*Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them* (Franken): $14.97 hardcover, apparently not available as an eBook.
*Benjamin Franklin* (Isaacson): $18.00 hardcover, $19.99 to download (Microsoft only), or $13.56 as an "audio download"
*Kate Remembered* (Berg): $15.57 hardcover, apparently not available as an eBook.
*Treason* (Coulter): $16.17 hardcover, $19.95 download (Adobe or Microsoft)
*Under the Banner of Heaven* (Krakauer): $15.60 hardcover, $18.00 download (Adobe or Microsoft)
The way I see it, of ten books people might actually want to buy, four are not available as ebooks, four are more expensive in ebook format than in hardcover, and two are cheaper in ebook format (but, in one case, by a grand total of two cents).
I'm aware that this doesn't take into account shipping cost for the hardcover (though many of these books seem to be available with free shipping through Amazon with a minimum $25 purchase), or the time waiting for your shipment to arrive.
If I'm mistaken in my thinking, I welcome correction, but I just don't see the cost savings being passed on to the end user.
I think the best reason to read ebooks on a PDA is that while at work you can sometimes manage to look busy while reading an ebook. However, you won't fool anyone with one of those big archaic dead tree things.
I agree, white is not the best color for reading on a computer, but black is not the solution.
Try this out: 255 255 240 or #FFFFF0
It's close enough to white that it looks "normal" but doesn't cause as much strain. Also, with the way our eye work, when it's the closest color to white on the screen our eyes fool us into thinking it's acctually white.
Try it sometime. Works best to make your document editor paper this color and then place a white picture farther into the doc. On a blank page let your eyes get used to the color then scroll down to the white pic. You'll be amazed at how the colors seem to shift though you know they didn't change.
------
Just by baen. Thats it. Go out and buy war of honor and the Hell's Faire. Even if you hate the books, buy it for the CD you get atleast 8 different types of books with it. Most good. The major reason I bought those books was because of the CD.
When people can see that the marginal cost f an extra copy is 0, no one likes to pay for these things - look at music, not many people (10m at iTunes vs 50m file sharers in the US) choose to pay for something that they cannot hold, whereas many people buy CDs.
When you buy a book you feel that you get something which is worth what you pay for it - a solid item that you will always have. It's reassuring and feels like good value. An ebook is neither of those things.
There is also the danger of the possiblity that more elecctronic books could cause something like 'Bookster' (sic) to come about, something that the publishers really wouldn't want to hapen.
Maybe if ebooks were $0.99 they might sell, and still leave a market for traditional media. Until that happens I can't see them doing very well at all.
Beep beep.
...lacking in good CHEAP hardware, along with DRM issues that always seem to get in the way of things more than they ought to.
Most of the excellent e-book readers ran $200-300 (including the top of the line eBookman when they weren't clearing them out- they're going for about $50-90 right now...)- and most of them weren't useful past being an e-book reader for THAT specific platform. You can get a PDA for that kind of cash (and Franklin was running the eBookman play that way- but sadly they went against an already entrenched market with somewhat weaker than average software that was buggy when they initially released the e-book reader...) and get similar results (though not quite as good as something like a hiebook).
A basic, capable e-book reader needs to be:
- Able to be read equally well in low light levels as well as high.
- Able to go at least a couple of hours on a single set of batteries and use something like AAA or AA batteries.
- Able to be easily portable
- Have a DRM system that allows for behaviors like upgrading the unit, re-installing the books on a new unit that is a replacement for a damaged one, etc. (Franklin's DRM scheme fails on that last count- it's tied to the specific unit you're using. Lose the unit for any reason and you have to re-purchase apps and Franklin format e-books.)
- Cost UNDER $100
The last item is what really, really is hurting e-books more than anything else. The second to last is the other one.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Due to inventory taxes the publishing industry has trouble keeping books in print. E-books were supposed to solve that. "Out-of-print" would be a thing of the past.
Now search Amazon for dead-tree books with "barnaby" in the title: there are 148. Now search Amazon e-books: exactly one.
So much for selection. This does not supersede the price or format arguments, but it is another reason why I wouldn't bother to shop for an e-book.
Dear eBook Customer, .
As of September 9, 2003, Barnes & Noble.com will no longer sell eBooks.
If you are a Microsoft Reader customer, you will be able to download your eBooks for the next 90 days through your Microsoft Library.
If you are an Adobe eBook customer and have not yet downloaded your eBook, please remember you have 90 days from your date of purchase to complete the download via the email link you received.
After December 9, 2003, eBook titles that have not been downloaded to the appropriate Readers will no longer be accessible.
If you have questions related to your past eBook purchases, please send your inquiry to ebookquestions@book.com
As always, we appreciate your patronage, and we regret any inconvenience this may cause you.
Sincerely,
Barnes & Noble.com
What did I miss?
--It burns! --It's loaded with wasabi.
From the Baen Free Library introductory page, re: online piracy of e-books comes this interesting quote:
... does that remind you of anything you might have seen elsewhere on slashdot in, say, the past couple of years? DMCA? RIAA? MPAA? DRM? Need I go on? Finally, a publisher who is in touch reality.
"The only time that mass scale petty thievery becomes a problem is when the perception spreads, among broad layers of the population, that a given product is priced artificially high due to monopolistic practices and/or draconian legislation designed to protect those practices."
Hmm... artificially high prices, monopolistic practices, draconian legislation,
THEN ebooks will take off. When you can "curl up" with one, and no sooner.
--- Ban humanity.
I think that there is a very distinct market for e-books. And realisticly in the short term the market isn't for e-books as books, but e-texts. Technical manuals, how too books, resource books, reference books. the beauty of the e-book is, or at least should be, the ability to jump to any part instantly and to be able to search for a section and find it quickly. The immediate market for ebooks in not books where we would typiclaly read the entire thing, but non-fiction, non-narrative works where we wouldn't normally need to read the whole thing to make use of it.
There are very few reasons to have a paper dictionary for example, and I can't tell you how many times I flipped through a text book looking for that one section where they cite author X who is talking about subject Y. A keyword search where you could search a book for X and Y (in a much more sophisticated manner than a simple index) would have saved me a lot of time writing my thesis when I was looking through a dozen book looking for that exact quote that I remembered but couldn't remember who said it.
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
Have any of you ever seen the SoftBook? (Now called the Gemstar eBook) It solves just about everybody's problems here, except that it costs money and is no longer available.
This was my Dad's invention and I am trying to see if I can get Linux running on it :O)
-Chris
In case of eBooks, the way of reading adds something to the formula and as a result the most viable customers for eBook would be people who love (or just used) to read from the screen. Guess who? That's right - computer engineers and web artists. And what do they love to read? The stuff that they have to read: books for their job.
I can prove it. Just check the most successful eBook retail site and see yourself: they have lots books for that audience, new books are coming frequently and the price is very affordable. Oh, by the way, no need to even download it: you can read it right from the web or you can cache it for reading later on any off-line browser. You can cut and paste examples right to your editor or the terminal window. And you can even give up the book from your bookshelf back to to the store and get another one instead!
Less is more !
For that reason, I am loathe to use ephemeral DRM formats. I choose paper books for the same reason I keep a PENCIL and pad of paper in the glove compartment of my car... If I have an accident ten years from now and need to record critical details, I rest assured the pencil and paper WILL work.
Ephemeral formats are fine for the Dilbert of the Day, but when its serious stuff, I want something I know will work ten years from now, and I have no reason to believe this DRM laced stuff will be usable for very long.
Adoption of DRM is by far the primary force retarding my adoption of later technologies. I don't care how fancy it is, if I can't count on it to work, besides giving me bragging rights, what's it good for? Its about as useless as a fancy $500 pen that doesn't write.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
I think the reason ebooks aren't popular is due to the fact that they are all cheezie title. PulpBits.com has only good books. Ebooks are hugely popular in Japan. I read them all the time on my laptop. I carry it everywhere. I love Pulpbits.
This is what the RIAA, SCO, and the like really fear, everything else is a sideshow. When people use open source software, public domain works, and entertain themselves online, as befits a free people.
What about a medium or genre that was created after the cut-off date for perpetual copyright (1923 in the USA)? Such mediums include sound films, and such genres include rock music.
What happens in several decades once Project Gutenberg has finally digitized all known public domain works?
Sonny Bono owns you.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I was looking online to purchase a book this past year. Of the several options that I found, the e-book was more expensive than purchasing a hard copy even when shipping was included. One would expect that the e-book would be less expensive due to lower overhead casts.
I have to wonder if the problem isn't pretty much the same thing as the RIAA's - they are attempting to apply 19th-century business logic ("Business=Sell Things") to 21st century business, where a lot of the things being sold aren't, uh, "things".
A number of posters have pointed out that people selling E-Books are having trouble "because they can't control distribution". Fundamentally, that's because an "E-Book" isn't really a "thing" in the traditional sense of the word.
While the market of internet users seems primed to jump for a RATIONAL commercial venture (I think Apple's music service is a step in the right direction, though not QUITE there yet), this is because of the advantages involved in digital media (such as "being able to easily make a lossless copy to bring with me on a trip", or "seeing music/writing/etc. that I want and being able to get it for myself in a matter of minutes"). "Old Media"'s obsession with only selling "things" gets in the way. The purpose of DRM, after all, is really just to make an awkward 'wrapper' around intangible digital data to make it behave like a real "thing". Sorta. But in so doing, you lose the benefits that make digital media interesting to people - I suppose cement-headed executives are still clinging to the notion that they can force the public back to physical CD's and such regardless of the public market's desires.
If the **AA can get it through their evidently thick skulls that when online, they should quit trying to "sell songs" or "sell books" or "sell movies", but instead try selling "song/book/movie access service" at a REASONABLE price, I think they'd be a lot more successful at making money and reducing copyright violations ("piracy"). WIthout obnoxious DRM restrictions, I'd be quite happy to pay roughly the same as video rental costs to download a 'moderate quality', unrestricted-for-personal-use movie (say, $3.00-$5.00 for 'new releases', $1.00 for older movies, $0.50 for TV show episodes, $0.25 for a good-quality MP3/Ogg song, $0.50 for a typical fiction paperback novel in electronic form, etc.). Sure, that's somewhat less than I'd pay for pre-made physical media, but without the cost of physical media and shipping, that ought to STILL be quite profitable, not to mention being sold at a rate that would make 'pirating' the material about as "profitable" as getting a free gumball out of a gumball machine...
This is not to say that I think people should be ALLOWED to re-distribute materials still protected by reasonable copyright (what's "reasonable" is, of course, a whole other issue) without permission. I just think the "Old School" industries need to quit obsessing about it and get on with adapting to the market, and things will be a lot more tolerable for both them AND us. (Why dredge through a P2P application looking for a bad-quality copy of a movie 'for free', which may or may not turn out to be a 'fake' planted by the **AA when one can get a decent quality version for a few dollars or less direct from the copyright owners?)
And I still think the legislature needs to grep through the laws on copyright and simply replace every single "copy" with "distribute" or "distribution" as appropriate, since the doctrine of "fair use" implies that the problem isn't really 'copying' but the distribution of those copies...
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
Does anyone have a subscription to Audible.com? I think you have to pay $15 a month but you can listen to the books on your ipod. I wonder if it's worth it.
lets face it - books were invented for paper publishing. Portable pixel screen devices have one page with little density in comparison. The mass of users determines what computers, pda's, cell phones etc are used for in an evolutionary process. It appears to me that the new devices are being used for abbreviated reading - notes and 'bites' of information - fast changing day to day stuff - that's where their strengths lie. Ebooks are a format pushed by industry, bound to fail like most such things by mass scruteny.
Granted, I usually just get the ones from peanutpress.com (I'll forgo the link - you guys can cut 'n paste).
/. come from peanutpress.com libraries. And they're usually a few bucks cheaper than the meatspace versions anyway - and I don't waste a tree.
They fit on a Palm, I think Windows CE devices, and can even be read on a windows/OS X box. (No idea if Linux support is even offered, though I doubt it for some reason.)
My previous Palm Vx was a great eBook, and my Tungsten is even better. I can put it in a pocket, read on the train, toilet, and the rest. And they tend to have modern books (I'm about to break down and get Tad Williams "War of the Flowers".)
Most of the book reviews I've written for
Just my $0.02.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
Check out Palm Digital Media at http://www.palmdigitalmedia.com - they've got readers for the Pocket PC, Palm, Mac, and Windows, and the DRM scheme is completely unobtrusive (enter the credit card number you used to purchase the book with to unlock it). It's the only eBooks I buy. (the prices are pretty good too)
Because e is the most common vowel in the alphabet. Most books are typicaly filled with the letter E.
La Disparition is a book without the letter E. Gilbert Adair translated this book into English titled "A Void".
There are a few other books who got by without the leter E. You can get details you can get off the amazon website in case you are curious.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
Okay, might be redundant but still.
If I buy a physical book in a bookstore it is mine, the chances of me loosing the book to a harddisk crash is pretty much zero, but with eBooks that's not the case.
Let's assume right now someone breaks into my apartment and carries off all my books: I can get them replaced by the insurance, but what about ebooks? Is the same thing true there?
Maybe it's just me but I rather have dead tree versions, more durable, easier to read (even during blackouts with candles) and worst case I can start a fire with them.
If you want to e-mail me, use my PGP Key.
Don't buy a used Palm IIIxe off of eBay from this guy. Unless, of course, you want to get cooties...
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
..thousands upon thousands of eBooks on a single CD. Imagine the entire Harry Potter collection on your PDA. Imagine never having to lose books to a flood, fire, or your dog's incontinent bladder.
Yeah, there are downsides to eBooks, but there are definite upsides too. The future could include eBook re-releases of books long out of print. With readers (e.g. a Palm or Pocket PC (more expensive)) technology within most people's price point, it really is viable and profitable.
I hope paper books never go away. But I love my eBooks too! Try it, you might just like it.
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
" ...lacking in good CHEAP hardware, along with DRM issues that always seem to get in the way of things more than they ought to."
Well gee. Crimminal behaviour causes problems for the innocent. Imagine that?
Yeah the readers need work, but they're a chicken-egg problem. A better reader is going to cost more. But with little content available to justify the expense. Plus the publics addiction to lowest-price.
"Less material to make the product(no material, i should say), no shipping cost from the publisher to the distributor, so why the same price?"
One you assume that the biggest cost is manufacturing costs(2). Two there are costs to distribute, even electronically. With that being said, yes the costs should be cheaper, but they're not because "convience" costs. Go to your grocery store and look at all the prepared foods. Note they costs more, than something more raw(1).
(1) The analogy isn't perfect but it is close. Convience costs (fast food, etc).
(2) Think of all the costs that don't benifit as much from economy of scale.
I luv em. I read them on my Clie' or Dell Axim. Mobipocket Plus is awesome. Both have great screens, files are compatible, it has it's own publisher...and what i can't purchase, i download from IRC. BTW, I own nearly every book I download off of the net.
what you do with your palms in the bathroom is your business. Please keep it to yourself
Has anyone here heard of something called the "Ziploc Freezer Bag?" It's this really high tech device that is really good at keeping liquids in and incidentally, liquids out.
...Text too small?? You can change the font!
I can't flip a paper page with wet hands, but I can press a button just fine through the plastic.
Also, since the Palm/Pocket PC is backlit, I don't have to worry about keeping my partner up with the lights on while I read in bed.
And I strain my eyes a lot less since I can actually see the screen.
Never thought I'd say this about Slashdotters, but y'all sound like a bunch luddites.
One of our mutual friends wrote this up after hearing the story:
This is precisely why I refuse to buy ebooks. I will never buy content delivered in a format that has a time limit and has to be activated by an outside party. If that party decides to cut you off, or goes out of business, you are screwed out of your money. I laughed when Divx died because I knew it would happen eventually and all the early adopters would be screwed. Same for ebooks, unless you buy skylarov's software.
I have an O2-XDA phone and Pocket-PC all in one. I love it. One of the many things I use it for is to read e-books. And this is especially useful as, because it is my phone, I have it on me all the time. I don't find it too small. I don't find it a strain on the eyes. I have also found loads of free ebooks on the net. I have had loads of fun catching up on all the classics that I haven't got round to reading.
Waiting to pick up my wife from yoga - get out the phone and read a book.
Waiting for my order of fish and chips at the take-away - get out my phone and read a book.
On the train to work in the morning... I think you get the idea.
Yes, the XDA is a little larger (not that much) than the minature phones you can get nowadays, but I generally have a jacket or some such thing with a suitably sized pocket. And for me, some of the tiny phones are just too small.
If you're looking for old public domain stuff, BlackMask is fine. But places like B&N sell the new stuff that Blackmask can't just give away.
The fact is you could spend your whole life reading public domain books.
Some people however, would rather read the new stuff that you can't get for free and are happy to pay for it. Apparently, not enough people fall into that category.
So yes, to some people, B&N dropping e-books DOES matter and Blackmask can't supply them with what they actually want.
You can always go through the digital black market to get what you'd normally have to pay for, for free.
Some people actually have morals, however and would rather not have something or get it in another form, rather than break the law.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
if you have your own Docs/Books , and you want to author, whats the best and smallest size for docs?
PDB? pocket word? pdf? txt.bz2?
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
It was just sitting on the bookshelf in the occult section. Paperback. Not horribly rare- in fact, both it and various books on the Golden Dawn are easier to find than, say, Book Four or a nice hardbound copy of Liber Al Vel Legis. :|
Yes, I'm sure that for you, in your current circumstances and with current equipment, they're a no-go. But must you assume that it applies equally to everyone, in all circumstances, and for the foreseeable future too?
I'm a case in point: over the last couple of years, I've read far more onscreen than off. (And that's not due to having nothing else to read.) Why? I find it more convenient, for a number of reasons:
- It's there. I carry my pocket computer (a Psion 5mx) around with me anyway; I don't have to remember to pick up my latest reading material, and make extra space for it.
- Backlight. I can read in bed, or elsewhere at night, without needing a light.
- Bookmarks and other conveniences. I always lose physical bookmarks; when I don't use them, it sometimes takes a while to remember where I got up to. My reader app keeps track for me.
- Formatting and anglicisation. With physical books, I'm stuck with the spellings and mistakes that they're printed with; but I can edit ebooks and convert them to British English spelling, etc.
- Cut'n'paste. I don't have to retype quotes &c if I want to refer to them.
- Font size. Depending on the conditions, I can adjust the font size &c to match. For dead-tree books, the only `zoom mode' you have is to move your head closer to the object...
- Library size. I currently carry nearly a thousand books and stories with me, so I'm never stuck for anything. I really wouldn't want to try that with dead-tree editions.
- Cheapness. I read some stuff that's out of copyright and available for free (e.g. via Gutenberg). I also have many files purchased from Fictionwise, which is substantially cheaper than buying in dead-tree form. (I'm not admitting to having files of more dubious origin, too...)
- Searching. If I have vague memories of having read something, or want to check back, I can do a straight text search.
Add on to that that I find reading from my Psion's screen perfectly comfortable; more so than reading from a monitor (though I have read some stories there too). Enough that while I'm reading a story, I get engrossed in the story and am scarcely aware of the medium - which, after all, is what matters.(BTW, I've never read anything on my Psion in the bath, but you might be interested to know that Douglas Adams actually wrote in the bath! Incidentally, on an older Psion model.)
Now, I'm specifically not saying that these advantages apply to everyone. I'm sure they don't. But that's exactly the point: neither do your disadvantages. Isn't it enough that some people like ebooks?
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
Could've != could of
Seems rather ironic that an illiterate individual would get modded up in a thread about books.
I was having some margaritas with my friends when we decided we needed to access some scripture. Did a search, found the first bible site I could, went to it - WHAM! Locked out of the web for good. Incompatible content type. Had to reset my entire phone's inet settings. Apparently someone up above didn't think those of us who have some doubts should access the text!
Just because BN could not get enough business from eBooks, it does not mean you-know-what-store is going to kill off eBooks. After all, BN does not sell kitchen stuff on their web site either :)
Hyperom.com
I'm glad to see more people mention DRM and engage in discussions about the social problems with it. But I worry that the public is remarkably undereducated about what DRM can mean in the long run. To me, it's comments like the ones here (overwhelmingly talking about convenience) that shows how much work we as a society have yet to do to get people to understand and defend their freedoms.
If the DRM worked better in eBooks and the technology allowed the portability and legibility of paper books (which, someday, it will), I think more people would still overlook the planned loss in freedom to copy, resell, share, read aloud, and do all the other things we commonly do with paper books. We're already seeing this disappear with music (services like iTunes are paving the way). We'll end up going through another round of some poor 12-year old being sued for copyright infringement and fined thousands of dollars (or perhaps jailed) by some greedy book publisher association because she violated the license on the eBook by reading her eBook copy of Alice in Wonderland aloud in class. If you buy into DRM-encumbered technology now you'll get used to not having the freedoms you currently enjoy and then miss them when they're gone (when it's too late to go back to paper books).
Let's take the time now to alert people of the freedoms they have and warn them against what they stand to lose with DRM. Do you really want the copyright holder to take your eBook away (via your GPS-enabled eBook reader) because you went across town to the wrong side of the tracks? Do you want the ability to fully share, copy, modify, publish, publicly perform, and sell copies of works in the public domain? If so, you'll probably want to stay away from DRM no matter how attractive or convenient the packaging because DRM can take all this away from you and keep the public domain a dim memory.
Digital Citizen
and then you tripped and dropped your palm on teh ground shattering it into a billion pieces; OR the battery died along w/ the backup one (assuming such a thing exists; i don't own one) and now you have a little piece of metal that isn't even heavy enough to be a doorstop.. maybe a moderate paper weight..
..
.. frankly i see no reason why any of the methods should stop being used.. there has been plenty of editing done over time to the text you referenced as it is..
i had 300+ books on my laptop before the gel packed shock proof harddrive died in the last move i had to make somehow (panasonic claims that toughbooks can survive a 3 foot fall onto concrete and while i haven't tested that theory it has fallen on hardwood from said height prior w/o issue) so in conclusion; it's not necessarily better or worse just different... books don't run out of batteries and you cand rop them off the sears tower and they'll most likely survive
and as for your biblical verse, you know how it got there? years of oral tradition; finally being collected and written down
Hey, eBooks just rule ! I have here some book about JAVA, > 1600 pages - which is still not available as eBook. Can you imagine how problematic it is to carry this book with me if I want to read some part of it at home ? If I would have it as eBook I could just put it on my laptop and make my life much easier. I also can not agree that using eBooks is less comfortable than paper books. In first place to skip to page 1000 from page 1 is just few buttons. Also I don't have to have 10 books around me on desk, when I could have 10000 books on my laptop. And what about reading books in the bus ? Hey, PDA + eBooks is eleet ! You just have to get used to the new medium and I am sure it will be more comfortable than reading a paper book.
This Melville Dewey guy has invented a system that lets you find and read books without paying for them! Apparently the Library of Congress has used tax mony to create a competing system that does the same thing.
Don't believe me? The see for yourself!
Xix.
(With credits to Tom the Dancing Bug)
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
we have lots of mp3 audiobooks.
http://www.AudioBooksForFree.com
Once upon a time, there was a place to buy books called Fatbrain. Fatbrain had books for geeks, so lots of you remember it. After a while the Fatbrain folks decided to try electronic publishing as well, they called it eMatter. Then the big Giant (Barnes and Noble) came along and gobbled up Fatbrain. But in doing so, it allowed the original Fatbrain folks to go forth and try the eMatter solo. Thus MightyWords was born. And MightyWords tried to figure out this whole epublishing thing, and was generating revenue.
But the evil giant began to make FatBrain suck, (and just a branding concept) also decided that it would like to mess with the FatBrain/MightyWords founders again, and said they wanted to cash out their 51% interest in MightyWords because...(well there really was NO because).
So all the happy people at MightyWords became un-employed dotcommers, Epublishing was set back five years, and Barnes and Noble continued their feeble attempts at e publishing.
Now, Twenty Months later, B-N is giving up again. Why should we not be suprised?
By the way, SCREW BARNES AND NOBLE
Anonymous
(former MightyWords Employee)
I agree about transporting, but storing books is one of their good sides. A collection of 500 ebooks isn't nearly as impressive as a wall full of bookshelves.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
EBooks on my PC/palm are great for holding reference material and obscure publications that you only ever flick through. But I read a lot of fiction. If i pulled out my palm to read on the bus I would very quickly find myself being mugged. No one would ever want to mug me for my dog eared paperbacks. Also as far as im concerned theres something very satisfying about a book, be it the feel or smell, something you just dont get from a palm.
I got one, and I must tell this devices has lots of pro and some irritating cons...
Pros : Well made, large screen (33% larger than a PalmVx), accepts mobipocket book reader (allows you a large selection of formats), accepts an sd card.
Cons : Battery (AAA) life is way too short.
changing the batteries means erasing the OS, and everything not on you sd card => you need a computer every day, and you can only read 2-3 hours MAX...
I now use a PalmVx, I can recharge it using the standalone craddle, and if the memory is only 8 Mo, battery life is on 4+ hours and I don't need a computer everytime the battery go almost flat.
+ the PIM fonctions are much much better on Palm and you have access to a large soft library.
Also, the little plastic ring that allow you to browse pages on the Ebookman has a brittle quality that make it burst within one year... and you can get a replacement one only after you explained them that their repair offer is really an expensive exchange program (buy a new one with 10% rebate instead of replacing a 0.02 cents platic piece.
So, I tried this way, and I can tell you my Palm Vx beats the Ebookman by far.
And soon I'll get a Tungsten or something with more ram, and then it'll be cool 8p
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
From a reader's perspective: How often have you bought a technical book only to find that you only really need one or two chapters? A 25-50 page eBook can address one specific topic in depth, and at a lower price than the full book. A shorter work can be published in a timely manner. I can write on a topic and publish it in a few weeks - not the 6-9 months that a print book would take. For those who don't like to read on a screen, All Amazon eDocs are printable, and at this length it isn't unreasonable to print on a home printer.
From an author's perspective: Right now traditional markets for authors are articles - which are typically 5 pages or so, or full books. An eBook allows an author to go into far more depth than is possible in a magazine article, without the hassle and effort of writing an entire book.
It is true that at this time the business model for eBooks is poor - I believe it's in part because many people don't see the value of the format. But I think the argument for eBooks, or print on demand (once that technology matures) is compelling for both readers and authors at the 25-100 page range - at least in the technology arena.
Dan
I bought the O'Reilly Java Enterprise CD Bookshelf.
The key factor: the content is in an open format. It's just HTML. So I've been able to stick it on a private web server, index it all, and I can access it from wherever I'm working.
I'd buy the D&D 3.5E hardbacks if they were available as e-books.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
My source for public domain-sourced ebooks. Now, they are missing some stuff I'd like to see, but they really do have a ton of goods there. And, even if your reader of choice isn't plucker, all of the books are available in very simple HTML markup for conversion to your format of choice.
And there's always the venerable Project Gutenberg; most of their stuff is in plain, portable, ASCII. They also have a CD of some of the best stuff available.
I purchased an eBook (Palm Reader format) sometime ago. I enjoyed the book, but found I had paid as much money for my digital copy as I would have if I had bought the hardcover version ($15).
When I was done with the e-book, though, there were no options for me. I could do nothing but keep my digital rights purchase forever, even though I knew I would not likely read it again.
Couldn't put it in my yard sale. Can't sell it on half.com or ebay. Can't sell it in my local used bookstore. Nada
Ebooks won't succeed until the publishers stop trying to gouge the consumers for a product with a fraction of the production costs & no used resale options, for the same retail fee as their hardcovers and paperbacks.
If I could buy Al Franken's new book for say, $4.95-$7.95 in eBook, I'd probably do it. But www.peanutpress.com wants $19.95 !! WTF - I can get the hardcover at amazon.com for $14.95!!
Does this make any sense to anyone? Buy an electronic version at a 33% premium where the cheaper paper version has residual sale potential but the ecopy does not?