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Doctorow: Ebooks Neither E Nor Books
xanderwilson writes "Author Cory Doctorow has released his paper/speech for the O'Reilly Emerging Technologies Conference this year into the public domain. A very interesting read about his experience with Magic Kingdom (which he is soon re-releasing under a more lenient Creative Commons license), the failure of e-books, and filesharing as a tool for creators."
Ebooks: Neither E, Nor Books Paper for the O'Reilly Emerging Technologies Conference, 2004 February 12, 2004 San Diego, CA Cory Doctorow doctorow@craphound.com -- Forematter: This talk was initially given at the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference [ http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/et2004 ], along with a set of slides that, for copyright reasons (ironic!) can't be released alongside of this file. However, you will find, interspersed in this text, notations describing the places where new slides should be loaded, in [square-brackets]. This text is dedicated to the public domain, using a Creative Commons public domain dedication: > Copyright-Only Dedication (based on United States law) > > The person or persons who have associated their work with this > document (the "Dedicator") hereby dedicate the entire copyright > in the work of authorship identified below (the "Work") to the > public domain. > > Dedicator makes this dedication for the benefit of the public at > large and to the detriment of Dedicator's heirs and successors. > Dedicator intends this dedication to be an overt act of > relinquishment in perpetuity of all present and future rights > under copyright law, whether vested or contingent, in the Work. > Dedicator understands that such relinquishment of all rights > includes the relinquishment of all rights to enforce (by lawsuit > or otherwise) those copyrights in the Work. > > Dedicator recognizes that, once placed in the public domain, the > Work may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, used, > modified, built upon, or otherwise exploited by anyone for any > purpose, commercial or non-commercial, and in any way, including > by methods that have not yet been invented or conceived. -- For starters, let me try to summarize the lessons and intuitions I've had about ebooks from my release of two novels and most of a short story collection online under a Creative Commons license. A parodist who published a list of alternate titles for the presentations at this event called this talk, "eBooks Suck Right Now," [eBooks suck right now] and as funny as that is, I don't think it's true. No, if I had to come up with another title for this talk, I'd call it: "Ebooks: You're Soaking in Them." [Ebooks: You're Soaking in Them] That's because I think that the shape of ebooks to come is almost visible in the way that people interact with text today, and that the job of authors who want to become rich and famous is to come to a better understanding of that shape. I haven't come to a perfect understanding. I don't know what the future of the book looks like. But I have ideas, and I'll share them with you: 1. Ebooks aren't marketing. [Ebooks aren't marketing] OK, so ebooks *are* marketing: that is to say that giving away ebooks sells more books. Baen Books, who do a lot of series publishing, have found that giving away electronic editions of the previous installments in their series to coincide with the release of a new volume sells the hell out of the new book -- and the backlist. And the number of people who wrote to me to tell me about how much they dug the ebook and so bought the paper-book far exceeds the number of people who wrote to me and said, "Ha, ha, you hippie, I read your book for free and now I'm not gonna buy it." But ebooks *shouldn't* be just about marketing: ebooks are a goal unto themselves. In the final analysis, more people will read more words off more screens and fewer words off fewer pages and when those two lines cross, ebooks are gonna have to be the way that writers earn their keep, not the way that they promote the dead-tree editions. 2. Ebooks complement paper books. [Ebooks complement paper books]. Having an ebook is good. Having a paper book is good. Having both is even better. One reader wrote to me and said that he read half my first novel from the bound book, and printed the other half on scrap-paper to read at the beach. Students write to me to say that it's easier to do their term papers if they can
see you're missing the point
the article is free but the word wrapping is offered as a premium service.
Indeed, I just cut and pasted it into KWrite and it looks great.
Then I really got into the spirit of the thing:
I printed it and read it on paper.
KFG
The Holy Roman empire was neither holy, nor was it Roman. Discuss.
/Coffee Talk
Weaselmancer
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Remember to bring your public key and a couple forms of ID!
Funny, that happens to me every time I have to use a PC too.
I'm the exact opposite. Besides being able to set the font nice and big, the main thing I like is text-to-speech software. I set the speed to about 450wps and comfortably read along.... My book consumption has gone from less than one per year, to about 3-4 a week.
450 words per second??? I had no idea Alvin & the Chipmunks had produced so many audio-books.
And despite 450 words per second, you're still only reading 3-4 a week?
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
Word wrap? The convenience of readability? Good Pluto's rectum-fired ghost, man, is that all you're concerned over? Let's see you wrap fish or line the litter box with an e-book... To me, these issues are far, far more critical.