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Prices Slashed For Nook, Kindle E-Readers
b0bby sends in a report from ZDNet about the sudden outbreak of a price war in e-reader devices. "On Monday, Barnes & Noble cut the price of the 3G Nook to $199. It also launched a $149 Wi-Fi version. Just hours later, Amazon responded by cutting the price of the Kindle to $189. At $259, the price of the Kindle and Nook just 24 hours ago, an e-reader purchase competed with an Apple iPad, which started at $499 for a Wi-Fi version. Below $200, a dedicated e-reader purchase makes a lot more sense." Sony dropped prices for its readers three months ago, but the move didn't kick off a price war at that time. Some believe that dedicated e-readers are doomed in the long run to lose out to general-purpose devices such as the iPad — and its coming imitators, many of which will be based on Google Android.
Until they drop Ebook prices, they can pound sand...... For those prices, Kindle/Nook should be free
Self Defense - A Human Right www.a-human-right.com
It's a lot easier to say that it's over and the iPad/tablet rush will kill the eReader revolution.
Not to mention the fact that the nook/Kindle are much, much cheaper. That makes taking it to places like the beach (large zipper plastic bag keeps it safe and readable) or just on the go in general is something you don't have to worry about.
Yes, the iPad will have its fans. But there are people who don't want a "do everything" device, they want something that reads books really, really well. And the nook, Kindle, and other eReaders do that. Until there's a radical revolution in color screen technology that gains the benefits that e-ink has (which are great for a book reading device)
Not to mention that the 3G iPad is $130 extra, and doesn't include free 3G for the store so you can make an impulse book buy wherever you are. That's major in the convenience factor of the device.
e-Ink is more expensive than you think (I don't have a definitive price, but according to this link the cost to Amazon for the e-Ink display on the Kindle is $60 by itself). Tack on the cost of the processor, memory, networking gear, battery, casing, quality control, etc., and the supposed cost to Amazon is $185. Given that prices have probably dropped a bit since that report, I suspect they are making a small profit on each device (though of course the cost of warranty replacements probably removes even that). The money is in e-Book sales; each sale may be for less than the hardcover, and the publishers may take a large cut, but what remains is pure profit; sale and distribution of pure data is effectively free.
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
what are we talking, a 5-10,000% profit on each sale?
The e-ink screens that ereaders use cost about $75-90, even in bulk. By dropping prices down to ~$150, they're cutting their margins pretty thin in order to gain marketshare.
Forrester projected that the $150 price point would jump start e-reader sales.
And I predict a $49.99 will make them take off like a rocket!
Now if only there was a price war with content.
I think subtracting the printing and distribution costs of a printed version from a dead tree version of a book would be a fair price for econtent - the publisher makes their money, the author gets the same royalty, and the consumer doesn't feel like their over-paying for content.
Example: $50 paper book - $20 for royalties, advertising, general administrative costs, publisher profit = $30 for printing, paper, trucking of the dead trees. Sell the book for $20 + retailer markup = $28.
I can live with that for the same content. Now if they'd allow for that content to be transferred easily ..... yeah, dream on. I guess if someone want's to borrow a book on the eReader, you would have to lend them the entire reader. That sucks!
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
It doesn't matter to them if the profit on the reader is razor-thin (heh) or even negative, so long as people are buying overpriced e-books.
sale and distribution of pure data is effectively free.
Yeah it's not like they have to pay for bandwidth or anything...
Everyone is learning from Apple (used to be the case with music, still the case with apps):
When you entice people to make a significant investment in your platform (via books with your proprietary DRM system - the nook uses ePUBs, but it's wrapped with their own DRM) so switching means throwing all of the books they bought away, you'll have them buying your device (and more importantly, the books) for years to come.
Some people would argue that you argue that you only read books once, but some people watch movies, read books, etc. multiple times.
Probably nowhere near that high. E-ink screens are an oddball in process terms, so they don't share economies of scale with LCDs(which is why the real cheap seats in the e-reader market are black and white LCD devices, and why E-ink, inc. probably says a prayer of thanksgiving every time Pixel Qi's stuff gets delayed again). A fully pixel-addressable one of reasonable size and resolution is not inexpensive(unlike the cheesy region-addressable ones, which are fairly cheap). As discrete items, 3G modems suitable for computer use seem to go for 30-80 dollars. I'm assuming that they are cheaper in bulk; but that is still something extra on the old BOM.
We are probably talking at least 100% above BOM; but I'd be surprised at anything markedly higher than the consumer electronics average. The real rip-off, though, is in the fact that you are paying all that just for the right to purchase a bunch of fancy bitstreams, generally for at least as much as the paperback equivalent, sometimes more, from somebody's proprietary storefront.
With a 4"+ screen it bridges the gap enough between too small and not portable. While e-ink may mean less strain on the eyes, I mostly read at night so I would need some sort of light anyways.
Text is small, bandwidth has become cheaper, and at this point the eBooks are barely cheaper than the regular books. The nook can only use 3G for the B&N store on device, and the Kindle has only a very basic web browser (it's barely usable, good for a quick wikipedia lookup but not any extended browsing).
So the purchases more than make up for the 3G downloading.
I think there is an application for ebooks at the public library. It'll be cool to walk in with your ebook and then access the public libraries entire catalog. Research and magazine sections as well.
I own both a Sony reader and an iPad. The Sony reader is far better at reading fiction than the iPad. The iPad is great for more technical stuff and magazine like reading.
At least I thought it did.
iPad meh...
Is that Apple's version of Natalie Portman?
I think, it is pretty much Game Over for dedicated readers.
You want that or not, but iPad won, even so far it is sold less in units in total. But still it will kill Kindle, I think. And devices that will be built on top of Android will replace Kindle and stuff like that. Simply because they can do more than just reading a book.
Especially last update from Apple to iPad on reading PDFs is really a killer feature. To be fair, Kindle is very nice gadget, but unfortunately, not enough good anymore.
because they found a new customer, publishers. We are just the frill too line the publisher's pockets. Amazon was doing great with their pricing model yet people still yelped over the "high costs". Well for the time being we will have to look back on their model as the good old days.
I am disappointed that the larger Kindle is still held at its price. That is the one I am most interested in. Can't stand the iPad, totally useless in the sun; as in I like to read outdoors, I don't need another device to make a basement dweller. I compared both, the benefit of having geeks for coworkers and while the iPad has more function in the realm of books the Kindle just is it. One e-ink comes out in color that will remove one of the last complaints people have with it. Well that and the ability to easily annotate entries.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I'm waiting for two things: an e-ink reader that has nice contrast (actual BLACK on light grey or preferrably on white-ish), and for e-book reader Android apps for Kindle/Nook/etc ebooks for my new htc EVO 4G.
The last time I had to move, my 120+ boxes of books nearly killed me, and I've filled many more boxes with books since then. *sigh*
One thing that seems to be true with Android is it's always "coming". There's always a really great Android moment on the horizon.
But there are already many Android tablets. They're not coming. They've been here a while. Last January's CES was infested with them. They all just suck. They get reviewed and they ship 10 units and they go away. The Nook which is mentioned in this article is an Android tablet!
The idea that manufacturers are going to just copy iPad is asinine. Look at the Sprint EVO, which had 3 iPhones to copy and it gets 8 hours of standby battery life. In other words, if you don't use it at all, it still dies in 8 hours. A key feature of iPad is the 10-12 hours of actual use, and 30 days of standby. I've gotten on a train in Silicon Valley with a fully-charged iPad, surfed on 3G the whole way, and when I'm putting it away in San Francisco, it still says "100%" in the battery meter. I've had the device for 3 weeks and never even seen a low battery warning.
And iOS is not a phone OS scaled-up, it's desktops-and-servers OS X with a touch interface on top. Android doesn't have that kind of graphics layer, multichannel audio, advanced typography, C API, and other desktop-class features that only become even more important as you scale the display up. Being able to port desktop C apps over rather than rewrite in Java only becomes even more important.
And the bag of parts on an iPad approaches the retail price point. There is no room under there. A big display and battery is a big display and battery. An iPad 3G 16GB is $629 retail and Nexus One 4G with 1/4 the screen size and 30% of the battery volume is $649 retail. The biggest problem for Android v2 has been it's more expensive than iPhone! That's why it only sells on the closed networks in the US. That's why 75% of Android devices run v1.6.
In tech, it is a fool's game to try and predict the future anyway. But if you are doing this Android-is-coming-soon thing, that is something you should talk to your therapist about. It's just become so tiresome. Any mention of iPad or iPhone online and the next thing you know "Android will be better next year!" Sheesh. It's like a reflex. If only it was as easy to actually make functional, consumer-ready devices.
I disagree. I've owned a Sony Reader and an iPad. The iPad is, hands down, easier on the eyes.
The Kindle and other eInk displays have a contrast ratio of 6:1 to 7:1. The iPad backlit IPS display is 750:1 to 930:1.
Other than perhaps directly under the sun, the iPad display wins. In dim light, the iPad owns.
Yeah, just like how consoles were replaced by those general purpose PCs (and imitators, *cough*). It's gonna happen soon, right?
Reading the details the Nook will allow you to hook up for free to any B&N or AT&T WiFi hotspot. If you're in a B&N bookstore, you can "read" any of the ebooks for free. You can't take them with you if don't buy them. So, you can just come in and kill a few hours drinking over-priced coffee and reading like at a library.
They also have a "lending" function, as long as you use their software. I won't buy DRM books, but for people who don't mind you can "lend" an e-book to a friend for 14 days. Works with the iPod, Android, Mac & PC as well as some other platforms. Oh, and the Nook runs Android.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Just ordered a wifi one...hope they come in stock soon so I can have it by the end of the week. A price drop was all I had been waiting for to jump on the ereader bandwagon. Android is pretty nice too!
Goodreader on iPad works great with PDFs, you can even crop out those white spaces so you get larger text.
THIS
I'll wait for DVD then.
e-Ink is more expensive than you think (I don't have a definitive price, but according to this link [engadget.com] the cost to Amazon for the e-Ink display on the Kindle is $60 by itself).
GP is still fundamentally correct - e-Ink displays are overpriced. The reason why that is the case is that there is a single company - E Ink Corporation - holding key patents on technology, and maintaining monopoly on production.
Then again, what is "overpriced"? I paid $300 for a Sony PRS-505 two years ago, and, given the amount of use the device has got over that time period - more than any other gadget I own, with the exception of cellphone - consider it money well spent.
So, YMMV - largely depending on what you read, and how much. For people who read fiction a lot (as in, 1 book per week or more), I'd highly recommend one.
The real rip-off, though, is in the fact that you are paying all that just for the right to purchase a bunch of fancy bitstreams, generally for at least as much as the paperback equivalent, sometimes more, from somebody's proprietary storefront.
You can easily ignore the stores. Which eInk-based reader on the market today doesn't read books in open (as in, non-DRM'ed with a spec) file formats?
These will be worth buying once they're at $50. And they'll sell billions. I don't really see why Amazon isn't just doing the $50 deal today to take out the market and get people buying ebooks. This is another market that's waiting to be flooded with either overpriced Apple hardware or commodity hardware that can read books from anywhere. If Amazon wants to be "the eBook store" they need to make their reader ubiquitous.
Those prices were from over a year ago. They should be a fraction of that price now.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
I think what he is talking about is taking FedEx or UPS out of the map. Amazon usually offers free shipping on orders over $25. I'm in Canada so its around $40. Anyways, I remember because there's a lot more stuff on Amazon.com (partner resellers etc), that people would find $0.99 items or less when their order was nudging on the free shipping price. That second item will cost Amazon more than its worth FWIW.
A fair amount of bandwidth is gobbled up just browsing the Amazon website. Amazon has to upkeep their website anyways. So I think the cost of delivery of the digital goods which would probably be a few bits and bytes more than some other user is friendlier to Amazon's pockets than paying free shipping on parcel delivery regardless if its a minimum order or a $1000 order books or not. I'd wager digital delivery is also friendlier on the environment.
A 6" 600x800 screen, as seen in most readers, is simply not high-res enough to read most PDFs in fit-page-to-screen mode - and you can't really go for anything else, as scrolling is very painful with such low screen refresh rates, and PDFs don't reflow. You need something bigger, like Kindle DX, or, better yed, iLiad. iPad also does better largely due to high-resolution (well, and the fact that it can actually scroll them reasonably well).
It doesn't matter how much it costs to make. All that matters is what I'm willing to pay. For a device that's inferior to real books for reading, and completely incapable of real computing, I'd be willing to pay about $25, and that's only if I had full control over the device and could put any document I want on it. For a device that's tethered to Amazon and has DRM up to wazoo... they couldn't give the thing to me.
Ahum. iPad and its coming imitators? Anyone who thinks so has been living under a rock. Days after the release of the iPad I already received advertising e-mails from Chinese manufacturers producing such lookalikes. And indeed mostly Android based, though I have also seen Windows based tablets. Same for the iPhone. That one took a little longer as the actual device outlook was a little less predictable.
The big difference starts of course with price (about half), choice (hundreds - in different sizes and colours) and functionality (Android vs. iOS).
But to say imitations are coming - well no, not really. The big manufacturers may have yet to launch imitations, but then they are always slow to react. The Chinese have their imitations on the market already for well almost as long as the real thing is there.
I certainly hope so! I've been reading that you can root it too and run some android apps. One of the big things I look for in just about any device is hackability.
Only a complete fool would say that an ebook reader is inferior to real books.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
While I agree that e-readers are way overpriced (as are all smart phones and the iPad), I think $25 is a bit extreme a price point to expect. Considering I can load it with a whole bunch of books, including my collection of PDF magazines and other documents, I'd go as high as $75 to $100, as long as it didn't have a lock-in to a particular book seller. If there is a lock-in, then I'd expect the device to be free or that I'd get paid something, perhaps a few ebooks to start me off.
The iPad should be about $200 max, considering the app store lock-in. WiFi only, it should go for maybe $150 without a camera. The same device without a lock-in, and with an SD slot and camera, I'd go as high as $250 because I'd use it for light computing chores as well as communicating. I'm cool with waiting until the early adopter Apple-tax expires and the prices come down to Earth. Even then, except for travel days and occasional back-porch surfing, I don't see myself using it enough to make it worth more than that to me. There are only so many people to whom I can show it off before the novelty wears off and I'm stuck with another device I don't use very much. I'd read books on it, but mostly free ones because I mainly use the excellent public library with a few exceptions for authors that I think deserve my money. Having to pay inflated prices for ebooks is just not gonna happen. I don't need to carry more than a few books with me very often, and I'm not so old and feeble that I can't bear the weight of a couple of hardcover books.
Do you remember the price of the original iPhone? I can get one now for $99 at AT&T and it will be a free upgrade soon, I bet. I bought my iPod Touch 2ndGen (or maybe 3rdGen. It's the latest 8gig model) at Woot for $129 of which probably $30 is still Apple tax. Considering I have to buy all my apps at the app store, I would think a larger portion of the selling price would be off-set by Apple, due to the locked-in revenue stream.
You are welcome on my lawn.
One well known contributor to what people call "eye strain" is a bright room environment (a sunlit room) contrasted with a dimmer display. The contrast ratio of the device itself contributes to reduced eyestrain, if black and white are more distinct from one another.
Anyone that up-modded you should read this: The Anosognosic’s Dilemma: Something’s Wrong but You’ll Never Know What It Is (Part 1) because they are too stupid to wield mod points.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
When everyone says free, they are generally talking about the marginal cost.
The marginal cost of an ebook is practically $0.00. The marginal cost of a $8 paperback is at least $2 (materials and physical movement of the book.)
Taking a popular book as an example:
Twilight by Stephanie Meyer
paperback $7.99
kindle $9.99
So the marginal cost per book goes down and the price goes up. It's easy to see where customers think they're getting gouged when they're paying more for a cheaper copy that is more restrictive (no resell possible).
t
Not only that, but I own 20 year old paperbacks. It's not clear that Kindles will last anywhere near that long.
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
It's only game over for people who want a more expensive device that does more. Although you may not see the point of inexpensive, single-purpose devices, there are millions of people who do. Nobody "won"; there are simply two different markets that buy two different items. And as cheap as ebook readers are getting, a lot of people will have both sitting on their night stand.
I have Kindle International (the wee one)
Why do you need to read PDF?
All my e-Books are in re-flowable format that looks great on the small screen.
Sure ... the PDF of the book I downloaded on Bit Torrent doesn't look great ... but then again I have no rights to that do I?
And if I really want to I can convert with a numbr of apps to convert to an ebook format so the device will remember what page I am at (doesn't happen for a PDF ... at least on the Kindle)
Ouch
How about for those who don't read books at all like me? [grin]
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Why do you need to read PDF?
All my e-Books are in re-flowable format that looks great on the small screen.
Please tell me where I can purchase technical IT/CS books (say, something published by O'Reilly) in any reflowable format.
And if I really want to I can convert with a numbr of apps to convert to an ebook format
Doing that to a PDF would still require reflowing it, just not in real-time - and there's no good way to do it right. You can get some approximation - e.g. some PDF readers for smartphones try that - but it inevitably breaks formatting for some more complicated stuff.
One well known contributor to what people call "eye strain" is a bright room environment (a sunlit room) contrasted with a dimmer display.
Yes, and the other - much more widespread - contributor to eye strain is a dark room environment contrasted with a bright display. Countless geeks can testify to that.
So, your point being?..
I agree that current eBook reader resolution is not optimal to display a full page PDF. However there is this neat program called soPDF which makes it very very easy to trim the white spaces around a page (the margins) and also allows you to cut each page in two (vertically) so that you see half page every time.
Even though I do not yet have an eBook reader, I use it to prepare some long pdf for print, I can print 3 pages per page in good size (6 pages per sheet). That's how I print long text like R manuals.
It is also quite useful to prepare PDFs for reading in small screen in general.
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
However there is this neat program called soPDF which makes it very very easy to trim the white spaces around a page (the margins) and also allows you to cut each page in two (vertically) so that you see half page every time.
If you split page in two without reflowing, the result would have to be read in landscape mode. Most dedicated readers can handle that (IIRC only Nook doesn't have landscape so far, though you can get it with third-party software if you root it), but their form factor is physically designed for optimal comfort when holding them in portrait mode - weight distribution, placement of page flipping controls, etc.
Indeed, if you are content with viewing in landscape in page-chunk-by-page-chunk mode, Sony PRS can do it out of the box directly on PDF files dropped onto its storage, with no special software or preparation needed. But it's still inconvenient enough, I find that I never actually use it.
On the other hand, I bought a Sony Reader and I love it. I just don't buy it for books I'll be reading more than once or books where the price difference won't justify a purchase. The reading experience on the Reader is better than a paper book. It lays flat, it can be held in a single hand or not at all. There is no curve to the page. There is no flipping hand positions from left page to right page...etc...
Tons of free books out there have justified the cost for me. I just don't see it going mainstream until the price of books makes sense.
t
You can hack the files and remove the DRM. It is a hassle but it (allegedly) works.
For a device that's inferior to real books for reading, and completely incapable of real computing,
I can:
There are things where an ebook reader is inferior to real books.
Can you share books with your friends? Can you sell the books (or give some of them for free)? If you have two kids, can they read two different books you bought for your ebook?
There are things the eBook Readers do better than paper books - but not all of them.
How much would it cost you to buy one book? $$ versus $$$
My Sony PRS500 reads non drm books just fine. .lrf anfd .txt have always been drm free. Anymore though I have converted most of my e-books to the epub standard.
"Some believe that dedicated e-readers are doomed in the long run to lose out to general-purpose devices such as the iPad" -- Not so fast. I specifically bought the mid-range Sony reader *because* it is a dedicated reader. They have trumped Amazon, and B&N with simplicity, specificity. I can swipe back and forth between pages just as if I was reading a book. I can read *way* more formats than the two other (main) vendors devices support. Does tethering to my computer bother me? Not in the slightest. Being able to download (ONLY FROM the vendor's store) over 3G wireless seems like more of a tether, to me. You're locked in, and that's just the way they like it. The sony I have has two memory slots, a DUO and a standard SD card slot. I can shove ~90 gigabytes of books into this thing (at present).
But that's enough of the features. You can read the specs for yourself elsewhere.
My point about the Sony dedicated reader is that it does it's job, it's simple job, better than the other readers. It's much like a Un*x program: small, specific, perfect for the job at hand. I want to read a book. I don't want to surf blogs, or play games, or fiddle with facebook. I can do that on my Evo. I can do that on my laptop, or desktop. Hell, I can even do net-based things on my Fios tv-box, now.
How so? Books are a communal thing, an eBook reader is not. My mom has been buying what was once considered 'trashy" Sci-Fi and horror paperbacks since the late 50s, thanks to her our public library gets to have one of the best classic Sci-Fi horror sections around, and my mom is on a first name basis with the librarians and most of the college girls in town thanks to her "need to free up shelf space" a couple of times a year. When she is in the library (which is often) she ends up chattering for ages with the local college girls, who want to know what she thinks of a particular artist/series or want to know if she has a missing book in some old fantasy series the girl is reading (which she often does) and they will sit there for ages discussing books.
You just don't get interaction like that with an eBook. They are just little ones and zeroes, little chunks of DRM that are quickly not worth anything, even to the one who paid. I remember when this whole eReader fad came around last in the mid 90s, and just like today the publishers wanted too much money for DRM infested crap. Just like then I have a feeling it will all end up in the trash, while my mom and the college girls at the library swap the last fantasy authors over tea.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
You raise some good points, but your "can they read two books you bought for your e-book" is off base. Sure, if you only have one e-book reader; if you have one per person it becomes much more flexible. For the last few years that was an expensive proposition (although in my experience the things paid for themselves in a few months) but prices are falling fast (and have you priced bookshelves recently?)
My daughter has my old Kindle and my wife uses the Kindle reader on her phone. We can all share the same library, meaning for instance that my daughter and I can (and do) read the same book at the same time with only one purchase.
One of the big wins for us, though, is space: We have thousands of paper books already, way too many to put on shelves. The expansion slewed a lot with the influx of e-readers.
jim frost
jimf@frostbytes.com
Well, that is exactly what happened when music started to appear on compact disc. The price was double that of the vinyl version with the excuse of higher production costs and having to recoup investments. It took only a very short time - less than 6 months IIRC - for those production costs to be lower than those of vinyl records but the price stayed the same, double that of vinyl.
Book publishers are trying to pull the same stunt here, only without the excuse of higher production costs. They want to use the shift from paper to electronic paper to jack up prices - and value perception. I have never gotten used to the high price of CD's, records used to cost around 17 (Dutch) guilders - the guilder was probably around half a dollar - when CD's were introduced for 42 guilders so that price has stuck in my head. Record = 17 guilders or now around 8 euro. As I stopped buying full-price records when I finally got a CD player I don't really know what they cost now but it will be more than what they're worth to me. The same goes for books, an electronic book should never - ever - cost more than a printed version. I'd pay half the price of the printed book directly to the author - who will make out like a bandit compared to what they get in the current scheme - but I will never - ever - pay a publisher more for less. They have tried to bite me many times and failed to do so, one more greedy mongrel won't change that.
--frank[at]unternet.org
Comment removed based on user account deletion
They may have a monopoly on e-Ink displays, but don't have a monopoly on (what I imagine is) their largest market; e-Readers. If they are actually overpriced (ie. they COULD charge less), then they should really rethink their business strategy before everyone ditches e-Readers for more general purpose tablets.
I have to admit I like the E-Ink. I read on both my HTC Touch and my DSi and personally I kill my eyes. The E-Ink is just like a book, but much more portable. Besides the light of the other displays makes me feel wired at night, and then I can't sleep. http://lifehacker.com/5524849/ban-portable-electronics-before-bed-for-more-restful-sleep
I'm a complete fool then.
I have a several bookshelves full of real books, and on many many occasions I've loaned people those books to read and they've brought them back after enjoying them. Sometimes, they've even loaned them to a friend in between.
Books have a versatility that DRM'd E-books can't have. And even without DRM, if all the books in the world were PDFs, plenty of people don't have convenient portable Ebook readers for me to share those PDFs with anyway.
In a world where my purchase rights to share a book I bought with a friend or random stranger (or sell it at a garage sale) is protected instead of the DRM garbage that prevents me from exercising those rights, I might value Ebooks.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
They may have a monopoly on e-Ink displays, but don't have a monopoly on (what I imagine is) their largest market; e-Readers.
It's true, but eInk does have an objective advantage in this niche - at least judging by the sale figures of dedicated eInk readers.
If they are actually overpriced (ie. they COULD charge less)
Given the recent price drop from both B&N and Amazon, it would seem that they could.
... then they should really rethink their business strategy before everyone ditches e-Readers for more general purpose tablets.
I think they're trying to milk the market for all it's worth before Pixel Qi stuff comes along. I'm not sure that general-purpose tablets are going to be a threat at the existing price and weight difference.
For increased levels of smug try the 'Calibre' OSS ebook management thing.
Also, FYI, woot had a Sony Reader (one of the early ones) for $110 recently : that's getting to an impulse-purchase price-point.
Except that the bandwidth runs over 3G networks to the device, so they eat that cost as well.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
WHAT? I missed a ereader for 110$? I would have not even had to think about that purchase...arg!
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
I assume you haven't heard about ManyBooks.net, where you can find thousands of books you will never need to reflow, because you can download them in the exact format your device makes the best of. Or read it online as a web page. Your choice.
I just went there, and it seems to be mostly fiction. Note that I was specifically talking about technical literature in my post. For fiction, there are many places to buy books in proper formats.
I assume you haven't heard about all the tools (Calibre, chm2pdf...) that allow you to change in seconds the format of most of books to suit your device.
Calibre is great, but it doesn't help you with PDFs. Once again: you need to reflow them to fit the screen, and the format is not properly reflowable by design (because it requires absolutely positioned and sized text runs).
I assume you assume that Adobe garbage about PDF being the right format for e-books
No, I don't. I'd gladly buy technical books in e.g. ePub, or even HTML - problem is, practically no-one is selling them that way (or at least I haven't seen any). Hence the question: if you know of any place that actually sells technical books in any reflowable format, please just give the link to it. Don't preach how PDF is crap etc; I know already. Just give me the way to actually use something different.
They do, but the small amounts of data moved through to these devices has to be incredibly cheap. Otherwise they wouldn't be including it at no cost.
I'm very happy with my Sony Reader, which I purchased from woot for $100.
No lock-in to Amazon's proprietary formats, all the functions I need from a reader, no poorly done implementation of features I'd just use my laptop for instead.
Yes, though I'd rephrase that to "Books have a versatility that DRM'd e-books could have but don't."
For example, Amazon could allow you to sell your "used" DRM'ed e-book by transferring the license. Similarly, Amazon could allow you to lend a DRM'd e-book (again, by brokering the license).
I grant that even then you'd still only be able to do those things within the walled garden of that DRM scheme's ecosystem. (You could only sell an amazon kindle book to another amazon customer, which is less versatile than a book.)
But the publishers and distributors have no will to provide that versatility. Which is why I still agree with your point.
Not all reading is prose with indented quotations or other formatting that doesn't re-flow well. Everything I would need to read on such a device has formatting that needs to be preserved. A short list of such features: indented quotations, verse, 2+ column lists, graphs, charts, figures. And you really earn your handle with the remark on PDF: all my professional publications available online are in PDF. This is true of just about all fields' journals. Basically what I'm saying is that reflowable text is fine for a limited subset of pleasure reading, but most professional reading relies upon spatial organization and graphical representation of information.
I wouldn't say they are inferior, you just trade different benefits for different costs.
I was in the "dead pulp for life" gang too, awhile ago. But I borrowed my father's Kindle (more like he loaned it to me to figure out how it worked for him) and played with it a bit, and promptly decided to go out and get a Nook. I still love my room of books, and I still love the feeling of getting a new pulp book, and I still go out and buy too many physical books. But, the electronic format thing is also great. I like the ability to get free books (public domain, though piracy is possible for those who do that sort of thing), I like not having to carry bulky books around with me. Right now my Nook has around 70 books on it, I don't think I would be able to carry them around with me if they were physical. Some of them are reference books, which is always nice, and I am generally reading 3-4 books at a time, making lugging them around a bit tough.
I also like the $9 price point, most of the time (it could, and should be lower). Books have gotten ridiculously expensive of late, so every little reduction helps. It saves the crap shoot of trying to find a specific book at the local used book store.
Its a trade off, pure and simple. One is not superior to the other (for reading at least, nothing beats a good bookshelf full of good books).
Also, with the Nook, you lose the proprietary Amazon format, and can loan (some) books, and borrow books from your local library with it.
I've found that I generally demo books on my Nook, and if I like them I pick them up at the used bookstore for permanent storage. So it hasn't really acted as a "book replacement", it just a way to cram more books into a smaller, more convenient area. I don't trust the digital format enough for long term storage, and it lacks the comfort value of being able to admire books that you enjoyed.
That said, the Nook, and ebook readers in general, completely fail at some things. Reading technical books is almost impossible. I read a lot of texts on philosophy, and my Nook is pretty much useless since I can't easily page around, or leave decent marginals on the fly. Its very hard to quickly skip back 200 pages to reference something previously written, which kills it for most academic reading.
Obviously I'm not arguing against your tastes. If you HATE digital books then more power to you, you shouldn't read them. But to claim that they are inferior (objectively) is a bit silly.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
Yes, I can share books with my friends. I can even read the same book I gave to them, at the same time I gave it to them. And, the bonus is that it costs me nothing to buy the books. They're free. Yes, I read classical literature, and it does indeed make me a better person than you. I would mention that I don't watch TV, but I don't want to cause a smug alert.
By comparison, purchasing all of the classical literature that I now read on my Kindle would be prohibitively expensive, and only one person would be able to read it at a time.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
No, you're a fool because you assume that I buy my books.
E-books are far superior to anything else, FOR SOME PURPOSES. That's the part you left out.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
My books have no DRM. If you bought books with DRM, then you're the sucker, not anybody else.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
The publishers are being very greedy with e-books. In reality if they priced the e-books the same as paperbacks I would probably still buy them since the e-books save shelf space (which is at a premium). If they were fair and when a book first comes out, they price the ebook at slightly less than the hard cover (since the physical cost savings are more with a hardcover than a paperback, maybe even $5 less or so). Then when the paper-back is released, the e-book should go down to at least the cost of the paperback. A hard cover does cost more than a paperback due to materials, but usually they charge way more than the price of materials. Then they keep the higher profit margin for a few months before coming out with the paperback with less profit margin. I think that is okay as long as they are fair with the e-books.
Currently Barnes and Noble said that I don't get a membership discount on e-books because the publishers set a price. Also there are no sales, etc.. And in many cases the publishers are totally ripping us off. Several textbooks I got have an e-book at $60 while I found a soft cover for $40... Not that I would buy e-textbooks yet because e-ink is not the right platform for a textbook. Still Amazon was a bit crazy before selling every e-book for $5, it made publishers not want to come out with their latest offerings. I don't see why e-books cannot just be sold like normal books. Publishers wholesale them to retailers who then sell them to the customers for a different price. No $5 special deal. Sometimes bookstores run discounts on e-ink and Barnes and Noble applies membership discounts to e-books the same way it applies them to physical books. I didn't like the amazon $5 model because publishers wouldn't release a lot of works in e-book format or would release many months later. I don't like the apple model because the publishers are screwing us. I would prefer the old model applied to e-books. But publishers need to be realistic. You can't charge more for the e-book than your cheapest physical book. If the paperback is not out, then charge a bit less than your hardcover. Once the paperback comes out, you should charge a bit less than the paperback. In reality I might even pay if the hardcover only is out and the price is the same or the paperback only is out and the price is the same. But since there are less printing/binding costs, there should probably be a discount compared to paperbacks and even more of one compared to hardcover. Although most of the sometimes $10 or $20 difference in price is not physical materials...it is just profit margin. Publishers can try to keep the profit margin. But if printing costs are $2 for paperback and $5 for hard cover, they could sell an e-book for $5 less than the hard cover and $2 less than the paperback. it's not like they were pocketing that anyway....
And on textbooks the physical books are over priced. Hopefully some enterprising teachers will make cheaper e-books (since they no longer need as much of an investment) and we can rip text books out of the greedy publishers. My personal favorite is how the Calculus books have 10 editions...Calculus hasn't changed that much in over a hundred years.... Mostly they just change the problem sets so that you need the new copy of the book to do the homework. People like that deserve to go out of business. And if e-books spell the way to wrestle control from publishers then all the better....
The current price battle will make for interesting times. The Border's Kobo reader is interesting, but I'm waiting to learn more about the various book formats (epub, drm pdf, txt etc) and which ereaders are most compatible with a technoid. I.e., which reader will be easiest to put *my* documents into?
The various old-book archives are making this much easier, too.
I don't watch TV either, and you have absolutely no reason to consider yourself better than me because you read classical literature (you might be better than me, but I'm not qualified enough to judge that).
Good points, and good post (I haven't thought about out-of-copyright books). However, the smugness (makes me a better person) rubs me the wrong way.
I don't see why e-books cannot just be sold like normal books. Publishers wholesale them to retailers [...]
How do you wholesale an e-book? Is the publisher going to tell the retailer, "you can only sell 10 of this book?" The wholesale/retail model works for physical goods because of the problem of getting the objects to the consumer in a distributed marketplace. E-books don't have this problem.
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JimFive
Please stop using the word theory when you mean hypothesis.
No actually, you left it out of your original comment I replied to. My retort is therefore entirely valid. If you wish to change the parameters of your argument now, then so be it.
I'd still rather have a dead tree version of almost any book that I can pass on to someone else easily than an electronic version they may not be able to read or access when and how they want.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
I'm pointing out that your comment is nowhere as universal as you think it is. Once you start poking exceptions into it, it falls apart rather quickly.
If you want a dead tree version, just print the fucking thing out. I'm not going to stop you.
Now you're just defending your own bad position, because your inflated ego won't allow you to graciously lose to someone who called you a cocksucker, You cocksucker.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
The smugness rubs you the wrong way? Can you think of a time when smugness rubbed you the right way?
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
I worked at a company that has made this list. We learned that we should rate the company highly - otherwise we had to waste time in meetings discussing how we could improve employee satisfaction.
Well you have to buy rights to sell e-books in batches and reports of the # of sold books need to be sent to the publisher/wholesalers. And the system needs to be audited by an external third party.
Basically it's just like accounting for money....
Posted to wrong article :-(
I don't dispute that it would be possible to come up with a system of "wholesaling" ebooks. I dispute that it makes any sense to do so.
Requiring the retailer to buy in batches means that at some point the retailer is going to be in a position where they have a customer for one book, but don't want to commit to the batch size. So the retailer needs to be able to order one ebook and sell it to the customer instantly (because the idea of being out of stock on an ebook is absurd). If they can do that, why would they ever tie up money to preorder a batch (except possibly for highly popular new releases (such as a new Twilight book).
If the retailer can't just order one book then they get into a situation where they are better off not selling the ebook, which is bad for everybody.
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JimFive
Please stop using the word theory when you mean hypothesis.