What Will It Take For eBook Adoption? 511
zmcnulty writes "Gizmodo has a new weekly feature that appears to be off to a great start: their first 'Feature Creep' writeup (by Sanford May) is an excellent overview of some of the obstacles standing in the way of adoption of eBooks, and more importantly, a handheld device that supports them. We've probably all heard of the Sony Librie's lukewarm reception, but if you're not familiar with the somewhat stunted eBook market, this is an excellent essay to get you on your way."
It will happen eventually (Score:5, Interesting)
The common wisdom is that eBooks will have a hard time for two reasons: bad reader devices and book junkies opting only for the hard stuff, the dead-tree form factor.
There will come a day when there is a generation of folks who use ebooks and consider printed books cumbersome and an anachronism. I'm not part of that generation but I see it coming.
I do remember doing some research back in the early 80's with kids that had reading disabilities and we found that there was a difference in comprehension when reading from a monitor (more or less direct light) versus a printed page (reflected light). Direct light seemed to yield better comprehension. We controlled for a lot, but not all, contravening variables so I don't know if this is cogent to the ebook debate.
Cheers!
Erick
Readers and Books (Score:5, Interesting)
And obviously the price would have to be reasonable, probably less than $100.
real books or ebooks? (Score:5, Interesting)
reading my first e-book (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not thrilled with it, preferring a real book, but it is readable and the ability (if I actually bought a dictionary for my palm) to look up words right there and make annotations is pretty cool.
Tech books seem more likely, but the convience of having a number of books at no additional weight is really nice, especially when I travel.
The biggest thing killing ebooks right now? High cost and DRM. I don't want to pay more (or even the same) for an e-book and I want to be able to read it on several devices.
Audible.com has better pricing (and they have to pay someone to read the thing) so I'm not sure why e-books don't.
I don't see eBooks having a huge uptake (Score:4, Interesting)
What I do see happening with extreme speed is on demand paperback publishing.
The big publishing companies are presently not in the business of book creation. They are in the business of manufacture and distribution of wood products. Instead of varnish, they cover theirs in ink.
It makes MUCH more sense store the books electronic at a site, and use a credit card (or cell phone) operated printer that can produce a good quality bound paperback in a matter of ten minutes or so.
"Bookstore" will be the place you go to get the book. They'll be able to have one or two on the shelves of popular books for browsing and tens of thousands of browseable book jackets as well. You'll also be able to go online and decide what book you want and have it "sent" to that printer or possibly even bring your own home-made or open source book on flash or thumb drive or something and have it printed.
Wired: Kinkos
Tired: Borders
Expired: Using Wired Magazine to sound hip.
--AP
eBook UI (Score:2, Interesting)
We're selling plenty of PDF's. (Score:5, Interesting)
*Many* of our customers choose to buy what we call a "combo pack", that gives them both the dead-tree version and a searchable, non-DRM restricted PDF file. While I think the dead-tree form has the best ergonomics, the PDF is really handy for reading on airplanes, etc.
Paper is better in some ways and eBooks are better in others. Use the right tool for the job!
--
Bye bye publishers? (Score:3, Interesting)
I was shocked at the lack of simple software for e-Books. I tried loading a html book into it. IE slows down more than a sunday driver at a crossing.
It was painful to use. A pda is not much smaller than a flimsy paperback. I am talking about travel reading, making the most of those flights, taxis, trains.
We can get content from the web - that is fine. We can read enough news - but some good books wouldn't go amiss.
I downloaded copies of Terry Pratchets Discworld, all of them. I guess this is legitimate since I have all of them in hard/paperback at home.
Some are TXT, they read best. Some are
I think the real problem is, book reader costs. The cost of that little LCD. Lets get the market adoption of those to a critical mass. People who have them now might not appreciate reading a book via it, and see it as a reminder / toy.
Common format - I installed Acrobat reader on my PDA, blam, half the screen lines faded out wierd, froze, adn I had to soft reset. Thanks Adobe. *cough*wankers*cough*
Sorry that was for them handling their PDF encryption the way they did.
So, I would happily pay money for a book. I am writing my own eBook reader for simple txt and html files. I want 'next page' that cleanly replaces the page. I want to move my eyes to the top, like a book, not fix them at one point (scrolling) and jitter as I 'page down'
I think moving your eyes as you read is less stressful.
Also, a simple 'dog ear' function that remembers where you were.
Oh, and when I read a book, and it makes a reference to a clue before, a quick 'find last reference' of a word might be nice.
I think footnotes should be placed inside and then replaced with a *, which you can tap to view. (since they are no longer footnotes, we can call them annotations?)
Of course, when we effectively zero the costs of publishing, what are publishers good for? Of course, they can tie thier writers into thier e-Books if they publish the hardcopies also.
They could get a small fee for supporting thier site and download bandwidth. But as I see it, 95% at least of the price I pay should go to the Author.
Then we can see eBooks at very low prices. And the only ones who will loose out are the publishers. Who cares about them?
Now we need some way of moving music into a computer so we can listen to it on the move... that woudl rule, then we could... no it sounds like a silly idea. You cannot get rid of music publishers.
Why emulate a book? (Score:2, Interesting)
* the way PDAs are evolving, they are the most likely platform for ebooks evolution. Sure enough, no one wants to carry a full-scale laptop just to read in the underground. But what the author suggests, like an IPOD-like device for books is an overdoze as well. Why would I want to carry my PDA, an IPOD, AND a special device to read text, when there is a device that can allow me to do all of that?
* the biggest mistake made so far by numerous companies trying to promote ebooks is the fact that they are trying to blindly emulate a book. Why have a hard cover, unfoldable double screens and similar nonsense, if not only for nostalgic reasons? Where is *innovation* in that?
* standarts. The ONLY existing standart right now is
* DRM issues. Sure, authors want to be paid. My guess is that the OSS movement applied to old good arts will not work, as artists don't want to create in their spare time =) But none of the existing DRM schemes offers enough flexibility to please both customers and publishers. Time to innovate!
Just my 2 swedish cents
Commuter (Score:2, Interesting)
Same deal when on holiday - I can relax on the beach, or half way up a mountain, or trapped in an airport with an eBook because I always have the PDA with me.
However, I have yet to pay for an eBook. I consider the price charged, and the DRM installed to be outrageous. Choosing instead to read authors who publish eBooks for free (Cory Doctorow, Lawrence Lessig, etc) or trawling through Project Gutenberg.
What I would want is for each dead tree book that I buy to come with a free eBook. That way I can read the book comfortably at home, but use the eBook when it is more convenient. I don't want DRM - I want text that I can port onto any electronic device I want.
Re:eBook UI (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Easy answer (Score:3, Interesting)
There will always be a market for GOOD books in paper form. I think, eventually, that's pretty much all we'll be able to buy in paper form.
My book collection is about 50% "good" books, that is to say, useful, needed, worthwhile books. The other half is mostly genre fiction and other types of pulp. Note this is not the proportion in which I buy books, but space contraints require pulp purges on a regular basis.
This is where eBooks would come in handy for me. I'd LOVE to condense my pulp collection to a hard disk.
I think the iPod comparison is inapt, however. We don't use books the same way we use music. If you buy a CD, you don't just randomly loan it to people after you've listened to it once, not REALLY caring if you ever get it back. We'll need a format that accepts the reality of book use.
Re:It will happen eventually (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Easy answer (Score:2, Interesting)
I'll never get burned that way again.
Re:Easy answer (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not 'good books' that are needed but good ol'fashioned pulp books. The one dollar, cheesy plot, mass produced, scantily clad hero and heroine, trash books that helped push romance and sci-fi as genre's until real writers and stories could be established.
If I have a "good" book, I'm more likely to buy it in paper format, because it's a GOOD book. I'll want to make sure that in 10 years, I can still read it. I'll want the 'collectors' version. It's the difference between buying the DVD and or the VHS tape, for the good stuff, I want the quality presentation. eBooks, are not quality presentation.
What really needs to happen is for one of the publishers of those trash novels you find in the "book" section of Wal-Mart or displayed as "impulse" items in dollar stores to decide to start including eBook versions of their works with the pulp version. Once people have eBooks, they'll start considering eBook readers an actual reasonable investment rather than a geek toy.
Re:What I'd need (Score:3, Interesting)
* The reader must allow me to upload any text, not just from its own selection. This includes raw text files, html files and pdf. If I can't use it for papers, references and public domain/copyright expired works, it's not much good for me.
You want a palm. A palm with a better daylight screen. (The Zire 71 has some issues in bright light, but I suspect that's due to the screen cover I have on it.)
* The books need to be _mine_, in the same way that dead-tree versions are today. I can keep the copy for as long as I want, I can make backups to my hearts content, and I can sell it on, or give it away if or when I tire of it. No tying it to a particular reader in other words. I would not appreciate having to rebuy my library, just because my reader up and died.
* Neither books nor reader is to require any kind of interaction with the manufacturer or seller in any way, once I purchased it. I on't want to feel tied down, and I don't want to feel like I'm just borrowing the thing, not owning it.
How about if, after buying a printed book, you have the option of contacting the author/publisher, giving a login, password and the code from your book, and getting both an ebook (probably PDF, maybe with iTunes style DRM), and the right to make as many electronic or dead tree copes FOR YOURSELF as you want? Including redownloads and a lifetime offer to authorize print runs where necessary?
Reading books is safer! (Score:3, Interesting)
still waiting (Score:2, Interesting)
I regularly use my Tungsten T3 as an eBook reader, but the only content I can get is the one available in Project Gutenberg.
With a beautiful reader (TiBR) available, which allows to me to configure it in detail to suit my taste (landscape, full-screen, very-light-grey on very-dark-blue, bookmarks, and so on) I had read many thousand of pages of literary pleasure.
But while I could go on reading classics almost forever, now and then I would like to get a book from the last 50 years, or maybe a technical manual, and I would have no problem in paying for it. Even if the suckers want me to pay as much as the printed version costs.
Sadly, that option is nowhere to be seen.
Too expensive, crappy choice (Score:3, Interesting)
Many excellent points... (Score:3, Interesting)
But I a few important factors haven't been covered, or have only implied.
1) E-books must be cheaper and more convenient than regular books. That means I can pay $18 for a hardcover (after discount from Amazon), or $8 for the E-book that offers similar functionality (i.e. I can loan it to a friend).
2) Major authors/publishing houses are willing to provide books, including non-technical books, in an e-book format. I've seen plenty of people peddling their "free" trash novels on the 'net (Cory Doctrow excluded from the this category), but the fact remains that publishers provide a valuable service to the reading public.
3) Perhaps most importantly, I think the cost of paper/distribution will have to rise considerably for e-books to really take off. That probably means some kind of economic disaster that I cannot totally forsee, such as war with China, sudden ecological change or a sudden, massive spike in oil costs. If the price of printing and distributing books rises high enough, it will drive people toward online distribution systems. And I imagine the trend will solidify for music and movies as well.
I think my third point would be the most likely to suddenly make e-books attractive, but I hope I never see that day come to pass.
My problem isn't content, it's the hardware (Score:4, Interesting)
An ebook can do things that the printed book can't (Score:2, Interesting)
2. Lighted display for reading in the dark.
3. Built in dictionary and encyclopedia for instant reference lookups.
4. Highlighting w/o a highlighting pen.
5. Embedding your own notes.
6. Search.
7.
8. Profit! (sorry)
Re:Easy answer (Score:2, Interesting)
What really needs to happen is for the price to be reasonable. I think people would generally be OK with spending $X (50-100) on an "ebook reader", much like they spend $X on a DVD player. It's equipment that allows use of media.
However, recently when I was on Amazon looking for a few books, two of them were also available in ebook form. For each case, the ebook was $2 more than the paperback book - like, the paperback, $5.95, the ebook, $7.95. Why would I ever pay MORE for the medium in which I don't actually GET a hard copy, and for which it's CHEAPER for them to produce? They can say "Yeah, but the ebook can be pirated so we have to charge more." Well, sorry, but then I won't buy it.
It's like the online music stores in which the RIAA wants you to pay $20 for a DRM-laced set of CD tracks when you can go to Best Buy and pick up the CD for $12 and be able to rip it DRM-free to your heart's content. ITMS is at least showing that if you sell the album for a price that is LESS than the physical media price, people will buy. If it's more, it makes sense to go with the physical media.
T.
My suggestions... (Score:3, Interesting)
2. The device should NOT be proprietary as it should accept books from all publishers.
3. The device should display one page at a type, NO scrolling to finish a page.
4. Backlighting.
5. No proprietary sealed-in batteries. Allow me the option of tossing in a few AAs if I forget to charge it.
6. The books HAVE to cost less than print books. I know most of the money goes to the seller, the publisher, and to the author. But since real books essentially last forever they will be a better bargain unless ebooks are cheaper.
7. No DRM. None. Nada. Zip.
Re:My problem isn't content, it's the hardware (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:My problem isn't content, it's the hardware (Score:2, Interesting)
So far, few even mention loading readers with these features. Focus seems to be on book replacement rather than enhancement. Well, book replacement is not a viable strategy for acceptance because there's nothing in a reader that a person already can't get from a book. I constantly crave to grep the dead tree in my hand for that group of words that would lead me back to reread the idea the book presented but I'm stuck thumbing through the pages hoping my brain will recognize the paragraph format or some other group of words that were close to the object of my search.
So a "reader" would obviously need an input method for these extra features. The tablet format is the most natural fit. Perhaps there won't be any readers, but tablets will simply improve to the point where people will want to read books on them. But alas, there is another barrier, DRM. Expiring books won't work when you put in 2 weeks marking up your text for easy reference. Lack of sharing will also suck if the only way to see a colleague's notes is to borrow his tablet/reader.
These problems are not technical, they're social problems. You can't solve social problems by throwing more or better technology at them. Perhaps we're simply reaching the limits of what is possible in a capitalist system run by those few who control most of the wealth.
Think about it. We're not being limited by what humans can accomplish but what some humans think is good enough lest any better starts limiting their desires.
Ebooks are already a reality for me (Score:2, Interesting)
I read them on my PocketPC-based iPaq 1910, which I find quite usable. With the font antialiasing that the OS does, and the good contrast, I often actually prefer to read books this way. Not to mention that I can read in the dark in bed, while my wife sleeps.
In addition, I can bring a whole library with me, so that if I finish one book, I have a selection to continue with, without the weight additional books would cause.
With the Baen website, I can buy an eBook, and download it in formats suitable for PalmOS and PocketPC (I get both as my wife has a Palm PDA), as well as HTML and RTF formats. And if I lose my eBook somehow, I can go and download it again, as they are always available.
What we need to promote eBook usage is more publishers like Baen who "get it". For an eBook, no DRM is very important for me. I upgrade PDAs periodically (and my wife might want to read the book), so I want a format that will continue to work on each new PDA. I'd also prefer that the price be discounted some, as there are no (significant) production, distribution, and stocking costs. Baen gives me both of these, and I hope like hell that they succeed.
Just as iTunes has caused me to buy more music in the past couple of years than I ever have before, Baen is causing me to buy more books.
John
Re:Easy answer (Score:3, Interesting)
I read all day on the computer, but, if it is for pleasure or something I need to really remember....I either buy a copy of a book...or print it off..
I find I can remember stuff much better if I read it off paper....when I have to recall information, I can actually see the page it is on in my head...especially if I've made doodles or notes on the page...and can 'turn the pages' in my head.
I just can't do that with something on the screen. And I just prefer in general, a book for pleasure reading. Especially if on a beach...don't want to lug out computer hardware and have to worry about the battery dying....or sand getting in it.
That, and with an eBook...its a BITCH trying to dog ear the corners of the pages to mark your space....
Re:It will happen eventually (Score:2, Interesting)
Give me a waterproof, rugged, backlit device any time. The device I want doesn't exist yet, but it will. And I'll be delighted to say goodbye to dead trees for the majority of my reading.
Will books be "gone forever"? Of course not. But your romantic attachments to tree pulp do not bear on my desire for a more practical solution.
Two Things: (Score:3, Interesting)
Two things:
First, this article blindly repeats the lie that for artists to get paid, they (or their publishers) need control over distribution. This isn't true; they just need to get paid. Control is one way to do so but there are others. For example, compulsory licenses pay the artists without giving them control over distribution.
(Cory Doctorow does this better than me, here [boingboing.net]. ObAttribution: This link was stolen from other Slashdot posts.)
Secondly, the article way overstates the importance of big publishers.
I'm convinced that the future lies with the small publishers, the ones that can't afford to pay a decent advance but will do a good job editing and make sure that their books are good. Those publishers will embrace DRM-less ebooks because they have nothing to lose. And someday, one of those DRM-less ebooks will be a huge best-seller, and that'll open the door for reasonable ebooks.
Until then, I'll just use Plucker to read free html ebooks like My Tokyo Death Cult [earthlink.net] on my Visor.