eBooks - What's Holding You Back?

blueZ3 asks: "It seems that the readers of Slashdot are the most likely early adopters of electronic books, but from posts I've seen here, it doesn't appear that many on Slashdot are e-book fans. In the hopes of sparking a discussion, I'd like to ask what keeps you personally from reading e-books?" "Here are some of my guesses as to why people haven't taken up e-Books:

1. Form factor: They just prefer the feel and 'interface' of a paper book.

2. Lack of a compelling device (or perhaps lack of convergence): They don't own a reader (other than a PC or notebook) and can't take them with them.

3. Lack of content: Books they are interested in aren't available in electronic format

4. Distribution model: They don't like the DRM scheme their favorite publisher offers, or are otherwise unhappy with current offerings.

Maybe lively discussion from a prospective set of customers might spur the creator of the next generation of electronic book devices. Too bad the name 'iBook' is already taken."

What reason do you have for not taking up e-Books? Are they listed above or are there other reasons that you would like to add?

Comments

Straightforward answer

[AKAImBatman]

I'd like to ask what keeps you personally from reading e-books?

Lack of content and overreaching DRM. The selection of devices doesn't help either.

I'm a big fan of Baen's online books. They're quick to purchase, and simple to download to a Palm Pilot. And should you need to file again, you can easily redownload it from your "personal library" feature on Baen's site. Not to mention that they give away free books to get you hooked on new series.

Downloading to my Sony Clie was the perfect way to read eBooks, too. The backlight was pure white, the fonts were crisp, and the scroll-wheel on the side meant that I could hold the device in a pistol-grip in my palm rather than balancing it between my thumb and finger-tips so that I can thumb the up/down buttons on the front. (Sony screwed this up in later models, BTW. They replace the up/down buttons with a wheel, and eliminate the wheel on the side.)

The Clie wasn't so good for technical books (the layout is screwed), but for fiction it was great! I could stand on the bus and read without the difficulties of trying to turn the page on a paperback with one hand. Plus, the Clie fit in my pocket much easier than a paperback, and wouldn't lose its place when I needed to stash it away quick so that I don't miss my stop.

The only real problem I had was that I ran out of content. Baen has some great books, but they're no Simon & Schuster. I looked into other sites, but it was just too much pain and anguish for me to want to bother with. Most sites had a poor selection (though I have noted that selection has been improving lately), limited you to DRM formats (most of which don't work on a Palm Pilot), overcharged for their titles, and just generally hassled the consumer as if he was a theif who should feel honored to have limited access to stuff he paid for.

Thanks, but no thanks.

More publishers should pay attention to Jim Baen. Not only does he release titles you buy in open formats; not only does he give away free books; but he bundles CDs with many hardcover books that are chock-full of eBooks (such as the entire Honor Harrington series). In addition, the license on the CDs state that you can make copies and give them away to friends and family. No restrictions, as long as you're not making a profit.

Now THAT, is how you grow a business. Not by treating the customers like criminals, but by treating them like valued friends. =)

Re:Straightforward answer

[Daniel_Staal]

Take a look at Fictionwise. They have a very good selection, much of which (though not all) is avalible in multiple DRM-free formats. They also let you redownload files if you lose them for any reason. (Though if you bought a 'secure' file you can't change DRM schemes on a file. Other files you can switch formats with impunity.)

I make a point never to buy anything that's got DRM from them, but I still am able to get loads of books and stories from them.

At the moment they've got the Nebula award nominees for free...

I do most of my reading on my Clie at this point, with books from Fictionwise and Baen. (And some from the Gutenburg project.)

Re:Straightforward answer

[Robotech_Master]

Interestingly enough, more publishers are starting to pay attention to Baen.

Or at least Tor Books is, as they're going to start publishing ebooks through Webscriptions right along with Baen. Including the ebook that I reviewed for Slashdot a couple of years back, A Fire Upon the Deep . There's a great quote from Tor's senior editor, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, about why they came to this decision:

We've tested a lot of e-book waters, including various cockamamie schemes involving overpriced e-books laden with DRM.

Oddly enough, a lot of those "books" didn't even sell enough copies to pay for their file-conversion costs. Meanwhile, it hasn't escaped our notice that Jim Baen has been doing something that works, that people like, and that makes money. I'm delighted to be doing this pilot program; I think Jim has been clueful on this issue for a long time, while almost everyone else in publishing has been staggering around on stage hitting one another over the head with inflated pig bladders.

Funny thing, I was looking back over that review I wrote, right before I discovered this article. (Too bad I didn't notice this article earlier so I could have gotten this post listed earlier without having to piggy-back on a high-ranked one, but oh well. :) In that review, referring to eReader/Palm Digital Media's DRM'd version, I wrote (emphasis added for this quotation):

It would have been nice to have A Fire Upon the Deep in open HTML like Baen's e-books, but it is understandable that Dr. Vinge (or his publisher) might have preferred for the book to be digitally protected. Since that is unlikely to change anytime soon, there is little point to letting the perfect be the enemy of the good; as digitally-protected e-book formats go, the PDM format is actually quite decent.

And two years later, here it is changing, and A Fire Upon the Deep is going to be one of the Tor titles coming out in Webscriptions. Guess I'll be buying a third e-copy of the book after all--but that one should be the last one I ever need to purchase.

It's quite exciting that Tor, who publishes 300 new titles yearly as opposed to Bean's 50 or so, and across a broader spectrum of SF than Baen's military/political focus, is taking this step. Maybe more will follow suit. We can only hope.

e-books redux... still not going to happen.

[yagu]

e-books, what's holding me back?

• price (seems only fair the prices should be competitive à la less expensive than the same back in hardback (they're NOT!)).
• compatibility - until and unless I know I can move my book around to different readers/computers to read without being fingered a criminal and with minimal fuss, I'm not interested.
• convenience - related to previous comment - If I have to jump through a bunch of DRM hoops to stay clean, I don't have the energy to do so (though if this does take off I cringe at the number of hours I'm going to spend "supporting" my non-technical friends and family).
• quality - I still haven't seen a device or reader that approaches the quality of print (even the e-ink doesn't), nor have I found something that comes close the the ambience and ergonomics of a book.... heck none of the e-readers even come close to smelling like a book.
• portability - I don't know the state-of-the-art for things like printing portions of an e-book, but I want it to be easy, and again, I want it to be unencumbered.
• selection - I don't want to make my decision on e-book reading based on what's available and what I have to do to get it.
• price - did I mention price?

I think there's a general misconception by the idiots making decision in their conference rooms about rolling out these products. They clearly have misidentified their priorities as technology first, customer experience second (if that). Invariably the emphasis is wrapped around protecting content to the detriment of any pleasure and easy-to-use experience for customers. As long as the e-book industry continues down this path (and all other future e-media) the long term impact is negative for the content providers. It only takes one or two disasters (reader stops working, customer can't get the "rights" transferred to new reader, etc.) for customers to pretty much wash their hands of the experience.

Other than that, it's all good.

I know this list closely matches the article's prediction... but it bears repeating... (I actually wrote up my list before going to the "read more", unaware the read more had the list.)

Rocket eBook

[DavidLeblond]

I use to have the Rocket eBook many moons ago. It was actually excellent to read at night or in dim lighting... no need for a booklight!

- However, you couldn't read outside because of the glare.
- You couldn't read in the bath or on the beach because... well, the thing was friggin $300.
- You couldn't get "used" books on it for cheaper.
- Books cost about as much for it as they did hardback, which is expensive.
- I dropped it once and had to pay $75 to get the screen replaced. I drop a book and its fine.
- Not all books were available for it (when they actually made books for it that is)

I don't see eBooks replacing books any time soon.