Barnes and Noble Drops Ebooks 411
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!"
"Ninety percent of baseball is half mental." -- Yogi Berra
Only a month??? (Score:5, Funny)
You must have a really slow internet connection.
Re:Only a month??? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Only a month??? (Score:4, Funny)
No, no, no. It's a million monkeys typing on a million typewriters that you use to reproduce eBooks, not a million monks.
That said, I've had luck finding monks on google:
Re:Only a month??? (Score:3, Funny)
In the Scary Devil Monastery, of course. However, I doubt that they're currently accepting any luser requests.
Bathroom Reading (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Bathroom Reading (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Bathroom Reading (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Bathroom Reading (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bathroom Reading (Score:3, Funny)
Tools->Internet options->Accessibility->Ignore colours specified on web pages
Tools->Internet options->Accessibility->Ignore font styles specified on web pages
Tools->Internet options->Accessibility->Ignore font sizes specified on web pages
I'm assuming that you're using Intarweb Exploder, on the basis that there's a fair overlap between that demographics and those that don't understand that markup is a set of hints, not dictats.
Re:Bathroom Reading (Score:4, Insightful)
You could crank the brightness down on your monitor so bright white was closer to the ambient environment, but then everything else is too dark.
A piece of paper does fine since it only reflects the light available in the room, it doesn't create any additional light (obviously) and even absorbs a little bit of light.
We need displays that can match this much more closely, of course people have abandoned reflective displays on laptops. Since they are impossible to read in low-light, even if they are much easier to read in direct sunlight. This is pretty much the kind of display your palm uses. I don't think this OLED thing is going to fix anything either, maybe the electronic ink might be the future for reading a lot of text on a display.
When programing either do a fairly neutral gray on black. or a somewhat interesting color on a dark grey. The later seems to cause me fewer problems on my CRT. (my LCD's "black" is pretty bright still:)
Re:Bathroom Reading (Score:5, Funny)
Who are you, Gollum?
Off White (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Off White (Score:3, Insightful)
Why not just turn down the color temperature on your monitor from 9300K to an easier-to-read 6500K? That's what those settings are for!
Re:Bathroom Reading (Score:4, Funny)
At first I thought you meant something else involving using your palm in the bathroom.
Re:Bathroom Reading (Score:5, Interesting)
I also use a "Palm" device (Sony Clie). I have over 90 books stored on one memory stick, including a full dictionary and NIV Bible, and the chip is just over half full.
Having the ability to read the unabridged text of these books without having to drag a bookcase around is VERY COOL.
Re:Bathroom Reading (Score:5, Interesting)
Naturally, I whipped out my Zire 71, did a full text NASB search and found and quoted the verse. In about 10 seconds. While we were walking. In the dark.
I'm sure people resisted the move away from rolled-up animal skins, too...
Re:Bathroom Reading (Score:4, Funny)
The only real complaint i have is when i get back to the board room, my laptop smells like shit.
However, I would have to say that is an invovenience for others, and not myself. So no big deal.
Re:Bathroom Reading (Score:5, Insightful)
I think this is defniately the holdup for eBooks. Without a portable device, you are tied to a computer to read them, and even with them you are tied to battery life plus the possible eye strain associated with looking at a little screen to read.
I know some people that talk about the allure of paper, and the sentimentality they have for holding a book with paper, but personally if I could buy eBooks and download them into a nice sized reader that had acceptable battery life and a nice, easy to read screen, I'd prefer that. I'm guessing the device exists out there, I'm just not willing to pay a few hundred bucks for it yet.
Re:Bathroom Reading (Score:5, Insightful)
The "nice, easy to read screen" cannot be emphasized enough.
Most portable electronics have tiny screens with low resolutions, horrible DPI, and glare issues. And they suck down batteries.
Newspaper print is generally the worst in terms of DPI for printed material, and even it exceeds 2400 DPI. I distinctly recall talking to a friend of my father who was in the newspaper business. He was wondering when I thought traditional printed newspapers would be in significant danger from portable devices, home printing, etc. I, as a know-it-all geeky CS student, said it'd probably be about 10 years before the display technologies got there.
Well, it's roughly 10 years later and we're really no closer than we were. Printing has certainly improved, but not as dramatically as I expected. Display technologies have gone more or less nowhere -- LCD has come down in price and power consumption, but the resolutions haven't gone up dramatically and there's been no really new technologies in that time period. Sure, OLED and similar are on the horizon now, but they don't promise a solution to the resolution issues. Printed circuits, electronic paper, and other technologies are also closer, but still probably a decade or more away.
Paper is here to stay for quite some time.
Re:Bathroom Reading (Score:2)
My m505 has 12-20 hours of battery life on a nice 1-2 hour charge (e.g. when sleeping.) A great backlight, and a slot for an SD card. While yes, I do read hardcovers once in a while, I actually find the palm more convient than paperbacks. All the words are arranged evenly on the scree
Re:Bathroom Reading (Score:4, Interesting)
I think the best market for e-books are libraries. Imagine going to the library and being able to grep the entire contents of the library to find books related to the subject you're looking for. Libraries have been lacking any really effective way of indexing since the concept of library came about. If they used e-books it would eliminate the problems almost entirely. Honestly, use grep, sed, awk, and a sql database and there you go. That's what I do for the books I have.
Re:Bathroom Reading (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Bathroom Reading (Score:2, Funny)
oops
Re:Bathroom Reading (Score:2)
I don't know how B&N e-books work, but doesn't this mean that you'll never be able to "install" the e-book on another computer, since you can't unlock it shaking hands with their server? I may be getting confused; B&N may not work this way.
If I Recall Correctly, all twelve of B&N's e-book customers should demand their money back.
Re:Bathroom Reading (Score:2)
Re:Bathroom Reading (Score:4, Funny)
No kidding. After I carry the tower, the keyboard, and all the cords in to the bathroom, the LAST thing I want to do is go get the 50 lb. monitor!
Then when I'm done I have to lug it all to bed for some light reading, just to wake up 15 minutes early to reassemble the office.
EBooks suck.
Re:Bathroom Reading (Score:2)
As a very frequent international traveler, to me nothing sucks more than running out of reading material in a non-English speaking country. With ebooks, I always have a good supply loaded onto my laptop & PDA, ready to go.
It's still not quite as satisfying as holding a book, but it's pretty close
Blackmask.com (Score:5, Informative)
Go to http://www.blackmask.com [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.
Depends (Score:3, Insightful)
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
2 Other things (Score:2)
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
Re:Bathroom Reading (Score:2)
Re:Bathroom Reading (Score:2)
Safari: Content and readers that matters (Score:3, Informative)
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. A
Re:Bathroom Reading (Score:5, Funny)
I don't know. I managed to drop my old Palm IIIxe into the can one weekend when I was working by myself. A split-second decision to throw my pride (and revulsion) by the wayside, a few paper towels, and a couple of shots of Lysol later, and everything was good.
Net cost: $0 (assuming that you can't put a dollar value on lost self-respect)
I "canned" a paperback years earlier. Ain't no way I was fishing that out.
Net cost: $5.95
A warning to everyone out there... (Score:5, Funny)
*meep!* (Score:5, Funny)
One of our mutual friends wrote this up after hearing the story:
Why? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Why? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
Bad Support (Score:5, Funny)
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
Re:Bad Support (Score:3, Informative)
Can't find works in the Public Domain (Score:3, Insightful)
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 ow
drats (Score:2, Funny)
E books??? Why (Score:3, Funny)
Re:E books??? Why (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:E books??? Why (Score:5, Insightful)
Textbooks and refrence books were the killer-app for e-books. unfortunately the textbook and tech book makers are very against technology.
I would kill to be able to carry around my 30 some college refrence books easily in my pocket or in one book sized device. but it's impossible as the companies and people that write those books do not want them in any format but dead trees.
doesn't sound strange (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:doesn't sound strange (Score:3)
Those places offer books for FREE! you dont even need to pay for the bandwidth!
I hope that "some 'coalition' (like the RIAA) is going to step in and scream 'No more downloads!' when it comes to " libraries.
After all...its not a free country or anything.
I sure dont want those new technology-based kids READING BOOKS...they may turn out to be not ignorant.
Why not put as many books online as possible and offer them for free.
Hope the books are doing okay! (Score:2)
First I read the
eBooks... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:eBooks... (Score:2)
Oh my, I would've never made it through two degrees if all my books were digital... I'm a big fan of the team work session: go to the lab, break out the books, and throw out whatever makes no sense to you. It's much easier to do this when everyone can flip through books, make little annotations, point things out by finger, and bookmark for later reference. Of course...
and preferably for half the price...
Now THAT I would give up t
Re:eBooks... (Score:4, Insightful)
As to free software for reading, you've got your choice of Weasel Reader and Plucker. Both are quite easy to use, and come with tools to convert other formats into what they need to read them.
The only reason companies are finding eBooks unprofitable is they're discovering not too many people are interested in paying the same amount of money to buy an ebook (and not get the paperback) as they would to buy a paperback. Add to this that most of these nits are selling ebooks in proprietary protected formats that may or may not be readable in 5 years (paperbacks are certainly readable 5 years from now) and you have to wonder if these companies are beginning to make executive decisions based on the opinions of the interns from the "special" school.
Inconvenient at best (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Inconvenient at best (Score:3, Interesting)
This posting reminded me that I wanted to try downloading a book in audio electronic format sometime soon. My buddy lent it to me on tape but I would much rather have it in .OGG or .MP3 so I can listen to it at work when I'm al
My Poor Eyes (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:My Poor Eyes (Score:5, Funny)
That explains all of the RTFAs on Slashdot.
But, it doesn't explain Slashdot.
Re:My Poor Eyes (Score:2)
That explains all of the RTFAs on Slashdot.
I think that may be true. I know that when I read something on a computer screen, I lose my place and my interest more quickly. When I discovered that the GREs had a reading section on the computer I was really annoyed. I know I would have had a higher score if the reading section was printed on paper.
Inflexibility (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Inflexibility (Score:2)
But agreed, I buy about 50% of the books I browse through.
B & N and Computers/Technology (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:B & N and Computers/Technology (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:B & N and Computers/Technology (Score:2)
Re:B & N and Computers/Technology (Score:2)
I don't blame them. The computer section of a bookstore always looked like a big money sink for the store. Too many too books that are outdated almost as soon as they hit the shelves with a very small audience to purchase them.
Re:B & N and Computers/Technology (Score:3, Interesting)
Sure, I buy computer books just like everyone else does, but I am generally interested in the new ones and I buy less now that the net does what it does so well.
Just a thought or two...
B & N and bn.com are not the same (Score:4, Informative)
Until they get e-Paper its a dead deal anyways (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Until they get e-Paper its a dead deal anyways (Score:3, Interesting)
that's if you're even allowed to switch it on these days...
I have a Palm Zire 71... read a lot of e-books on it... the display is a heck of a lot better than that on my old M105... I'm still waiting for a cheap practical large display device though...
the only thing that worries me about companys deciding to close down selling e-books is that of books
Re:Until they get e-Paper its a dead deal anyways (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree, PDF stinks for online viewing. There's nothing worse than scrolling up and down to read multiple columns on a page. But there is this fairly ubiquitous little alternative called HTML. I can't figure out why it doesn't see
evolution? (Score:2, Insightful)
Too different a product (Score:3, Interesting)
The RIAA is after me. . . (Score:2)
It'll be back... (Score:2)
Don't buy encrypted e-books! (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:Don't buy encrypted e-books! (Score:2)
That's funny. The format is use is 100% unencrypted, and 100% compatible with any reader. And, I get to buy them from my LOCAL retailer. The format I like is called "paper". It's only been around for a few thousand years, but I think it's going to catch on one of these days.
One man's death, another's bread (Score:2)
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
DRM (Score:2)
Just wait (Score:4, Insightful)
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
Re:Just wait (Score:2)
Reading on LCD screens isn't quite there yet. (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Awesome! (Score:2)
E-Books aren't mature yet (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
The basic problem (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Still plenty available... (Score:4, Insightful)
Electronic books that work (Score:5, Informative)
eBooks done right (Score:3, Informative)
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 [baen.com] 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 And Noble.. Ugh. (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
I loathed E-Books because... (Score:4, Informative)
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 [baen.com].
Why eBooks? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Baen Books does well with e-books (Score:2, Informative)
Baen Books [webscription.net] 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.
Man
The real reason ebooks are dying for some (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
An Author's Perspective (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
I've been reading an e-book all day (Score:3, Interesting)
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
It's the form factor (Score:4, Informative)
THEN ebooks will take off. When you can "curl up" with one, and no sooner.
The problem? (Score:3, Interesting)
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...
Odd - I like my eBooks (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Is anyone really suprised? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Is anyone really suprised? (Score:2)
Paper books have only 3 drawbacks I can think of: 1) Not easily searchable (remember back when books actually had usable indexes?) 2) page breaks in arbitrary locations, e.g. in the middle of a hyphenated word (in others, scrolls are m
Re:how can you lose money (Score:3, Interesting)
I've yet to meet anyone who ever payed for an eBook. But thats besides the point.
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.
No, they have to pay to own and operate a bunch of servers, pay for bandwidth, pay for staff, pay beancounters to do the books, pay all the other trappings of any business venture. The only thing they save is the couple of bucks the real books
I agree with your sentiment but... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Good riddance (Score:3, Informative)
While I agree that eBooks would never replace the traditional books, they're good for some uses.
By now, everyone is familiar with Gutenberg Project [promo.net], (been mentioned several times in the discussion already). It's a great resource to grab the classics and go over text, if you only need a chapter or an exerpt. It saves me lots of time instead of driving to the library, finding a book, then sifting through 500 pages to find a sect