E-Book Sales Have Tripled In the Last Year 204
destinyland writes "The Association of American Publishers revealed today that e-book sales have tripled in the last year. Sixteen publishers reported that in February e-book sales totaled more than $90.3 million, a 202.3% increase over e-book sales in February of 2010. Meanwhile, sales of adult hardcover books have dropped 43%, while mass-market paperback sales dropped 41.5% (earning just $46.2 million and $29.3 million, respectively). The book publishing association acknowledged that readers have 'made e-books permanent additions to their lifestyle,' arguing that publishers 'are constantly redefining the timeless concept of "books"' and identifying new audiences they can serve through emerging technologies. 'It's nice to see that book publishers are aware of the changes rocking their industry,' notes one e-book blog, 'and that they're approaching it with a sense of history.'"
Eh? (Score:2)
Meanwhile, sales of adult hardcover books have dropped 43%
I've heard of adult books with crusty pages, but never one with a hardcover.
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I always heard that they get softer with age...
And yet (Score:3)
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While I agree that it would be nice for e-books to be cheaper why do individuals insist on comparing the price of a newly released e-book to a paperback when most books are released first as hard covers which typically run from 20-30 dollars. Following the same model newly released ebooks at the price of 10 dollars are half the price of the competition.
By the way most libraries have an e-book shelf that you can use to borrow from for the cost of a library card FREE.
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On the note of cost, I wouldn't mind paying £1-3 in addition to the paper book cost for a DRM free ebook copy. That probably covers the relative overheads of hosting, bandwidth and server admins (or something that does) without giving double profits to the publisher. I'm mostly against double dipping for a format change. Cover your overheads, yes, double your profits, ha no.
Quick example: book from Apress (random) http://www.a [apress.com]
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Why assume double dipping for the publisher? I suspect Amazon does most of the double-dipping.
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I agree completely to the idea of a companion e-book. Something like what the movie guys (yeah I know bad, bad, movie guys) tried awhile ago, bundling an electronic license/version with the DVD.
Tried a while ago? Still trying, seems like. Every movie I buy these days (blu-ray) seems to come with a digital copy and a fricking DVD. Neither of which I've ever used, but hey - at least they include them.
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Because Hard Covers are an addition to a collection for most people, THAT is why they can charge a premium.
The cover type is irrelevant when talking about eBooks. It's just data, and it is priced way too high, for now. Looking at sales numbers, authors make more money selling an eBook at 99 cents then at full price.
Publishing house will nearly go away in the next decade. It's to easy and to lucrative to self publish an ebook. 1000 bucks and you can get widely published among every ebook type, and you get 60
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The cover type is irrelevant when talking about eBooks. It's just data, and it is priced way too high, for now. Looking at sales numbers, authors make more money selling an eBook at 99 cents then at full price.
Surely, with transition to online sales, the "fair price" would be stabilized much quicker because there's more competition? If, as you say, most books are better off sold at $.99, then that's what Amazon will also end up doing, since they get a direct cut of the profit.
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While I agree that it would be nice for e-books to be cheaper why do individuals insist on comparing the price of a newly released e-book to a paperback when most books are released first as hard covers which typically run from 20-30 dollars. Following the same model newly released ebooks at the price of 10 dollars are half the price of the competition.
I don't. I compare to hardbacks. Amazon had Patrick Rothfuss' newest book for about $15 in hardback, or the e-book for $12. So, save $3 dollars to get a digital copy, which I can't lend, can't give to someone else when I'm done, can't sell to a used bookstore, etc.
So yes, I think that e-book prices need to see a major reduction. They are very limited, are significantly cheaper to produce and distribute (approximately 0 marginal cost), and yet cost more than a paperback and nearly as much as a high-volume ha
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And then the ebook stays at that price when the paperback comes out. It stays at that price when the paperback his used bookstores and discount bins. Yes, ebook pricing is better than hardcover pricing, but thats about it.
Really ebooks should follow the price of the book.For a $30 hardcover the ebook should be $15. When the book hits $10 paperback, the price should drop to $5. A year or so after the paperback the price should drop to $1 or $2.
Publishers made that choice (Score:2)
Publishers chose to train readers to associate high cost initial releases to higher quality binding rather that the release time. If, as they claim, hardcovers cost not much more than paperbacks to manufacture, they've been putting out books in lower quality bindings,why, just to be dicks?
They've made their bed, now it's time to lie in it. Ebooks will be priced based on the quality of the manufacture, not their release date. The difference can come out of their bottom line.
You're giving them exactly what they want (Score:2)
Publishers hate ebooks. They would far rather you buy paperbacks, which is why they're being such dicks about prices and "windowing".
If you want to protest, pirate.
Re:And yet (Score:5, Informative)
Oh, you mean like Baen. And they only charge less for some books - others they give you for free [baen.com] and have found that it increases their sales for related books. Oh and on some of their newer hardcover books they've been including a CD with DRM free share-with-your-friends-requested ebooks of all the previous books in the series (i.e. Cryoburn of Bujold's Vorkosigan adventures).
Ultimately it'll be the market which decides how this plays out, but I know where I'm going to vote with my dollars.
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SF diverged from "literature" around the time of Wells, and despite a few misguided attempts by a few authors (such as Vonnegut), it's remained separate. Literature has largely come to mean self-important, vacuously self-referential drek, whose quality is determined by how unreadable it is; the more unreadable, the
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I did say Fantasy, not Sci-Fi, but I know what you mean. So, I suppose I can expand the question. Anything at all worth reading on there?
Of the names they have listed, give Bujold a try. I've enjoyed almost all of her books; fun story, great characters, generally very well written. It looks like they only have one book and a short story available for free. The Warrior's Apprentice is quite good, and was actually my introduction to her work - it is the first book featuring Miles Vorkosigan, her major central character (earlier books, now together in the volume Cordelia's Honor, cover his parents - and I think they actually were written first
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That's very principled of you. I'll be pirating my ebooks until publishers get their fingers out of their arses and start offering DRM-free books
Thanks! We need more readers like you, who have principles!
Best Regards,
The content creators.
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Perhaps you should speak to your publishers to adjust book prices so they're not more expensive than paperback books. I have purchased some ebooks but only ones that I already have in hardback and love to read. Without a way to resell a book that doesn't appeal to me after purchase, I'm a lot less likely to purchase an ebook. I have purchased quite a few game PDFs because they're less than the paperback versions. Shadowrun core and supplements are $15 and $12 each on PDF.
[John]
Profit Margins and Monopolies (Score:2)
> I'll be pirating my ebooks
Try not to. Publishers have *very* slim profit margins, and supporting them lets them buy more works, which tends to increase the number of published books. Also, when you are thinking of Amazon, buy Barnes and Noble if you can--not because they're better, but because it's so important they stay in business. If Amazon becomes the sole major player, they will not only take a bigger slice of the pie than they already are (making it even harder to publish or write books), ther
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. Publishers have *very* slim profit margins, and supporting them lets them buy more works, which tends to increase the number of published books.
I think that was part of his point. Who cares about publishers? The game should between readers and writers, everything else is superfluous fluff. Publishers are like music labels, ancient and archaic and holding back culture and progress to maintain an outdated and outmoded business model. Looking at how publishers handle ebooks, and more specifically ebook pricing, I find a hard time having much sympathy for them, myself.
I do try to support other retailers that aren't Amazon, I bought a Nook instead o
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You do realize that unless the book is distributed _only_ in ebook format the author still has to recoup the cost of printing the initial run of dead tree books right?
Which they do by selling those books.
Your argument is backwards: 90+% of the work of producing an ebook by a traditional publisher (editing, copyediting, cover production, etc) has already been done in order to produce the dead tree book, so the ebook sales are practically free money. That only changes if dead tree book sales drop to the point where they no longer cover their production costs, and that's unlikely to happen for quite a few years..
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> That only changes if dead tree book sales drop to the point where they no longer cover their production costs, and that's unlikely to happen for quite a few years..
They make decisions about what books to buy and how many authors to support based on whether the book will make a profit and whether it has the potential to make a good one. ebook sales factor into that decision.
The ebook sales also aren't "free money." First, they're not free in the Lochean income-should-be-earned sense because you have a
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They make decisions about what books to buy and how many authors to support based on whether the book will make a profit and whether it has the potential to make a good one. ebook sales factor into that decision.
Why would a publisher put a book on the shelf if they know it's going to lose money?
The ebook sales also aren't "free money." First, they're not free in the Lochean income-should-be-earned sense because you have at least some further work to be done or already done, including contract negotiations and new typesetting.
I didn't say they were 'free money', I said they were 'practically free money'. 'Typesetting' a typical fiction ebook is insanely easy compared to typesetting a print book, because there's very little formatting you can do. Contract negotiations have to be done regardless of how the book will be sold, so the additional cost is small.
As I said, 90% of the work is the same regardless of whether it's a dead tree book, an ebook
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> Why would a publisher put a book on the shelf if they know it's going to lose money?
Oh, sorry--I just realized you were asserting that they didn't need to recover the cost of the print run out of the ebook sales. Yes, you're right--I had thought you were asserting the money they made on ebook sales was irrelevant and just extra. I agree that if they already have a print book most of the work is done, but you do the work for both distribution channels, so I don't know if that's the right way to look a
Note to Publishers: I'm Done with Paper (Score:5, Interesting)
Wife has a Nook. I have a Kindle. We are each inseparable from these devices, which are each currently filled with easily a two-year backlog of books waiting to be read. If you distribute a book, and there is no electronic version of it available, it's gonna have to be the Word of God newly etched on tablets for either of us to even consider buying it.
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Too bad you cannot share a book you find interesting, unless you give her your kindle. Remember those days when we were kids, when we used to read it and pass it to our friends when we were done because they were "freaking awesome!!11!". :(
I am all for ebooks, they save environment and everything (till it gets to the point where people start tossing out their kindles and nooks). But there just has to be a way to enable sharing.
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Physical books consume "house space", which is a _very_ expensive economic resource where I live. You also need to carry them every time you move (for one reason or another, I move rather frequently). When my wife wants to reach for one of her old books, she simply can't as they are all in boxes as we don't have the shelve space for them.
FWIW I've been trying to get rid of many paper books I own, and (trust me) often libraries won't take them. Simple paperbacks are often refused. Part of the reason is that
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I don't buy DRM-encumbered eBooks. If anyone wants to borrow a book from me, electronic or otherwise, it can be done. Moreover, I can read my ebooks on any device I have that supports them, and can easily convert between formats with calibre [calibre-ebook.com].
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I've resisted so far as well. Thankfully at least a couple of vendors offer DRM free versions of ebooks like Baen [webscription.net].
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they save environment and everything
Uh, no, you have that backwards.
Growing trees and cutting them down and printing books from them removes CO2 from the air. And I will point out that every book printed is using using waste wood from lumber operations, and/or trees specifically grown to to make paper from. No one's wandering around forests cutting down existing trees for paper. Worrying about 'cutting down trees' is like worrying about 'cutting down corn'...I don't think we're going to run out of corn.
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What's the environmental impact of constructing a physical library? Of the transportation used to go there? Electricity usage? Other infrastructure?
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Do you have a citation for this? Or are you just assuming?
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"Word of God newly etched on tablets "
funny, that's exactly what most authors think there work is~
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Yep. I've only bought 1 paper book since I've bought my kindle several years ago.
After reading all the responses to this article, I'm going to turn it into an e-book. Apparently, it's easy.
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That's sort of my thought on the matter. I've yet to come across a book, with the possible exception of a reference book, that was worth the migraines I get from trying to position myself to read for more than a few minutes. There's also the issue of trying to store these books. And that should be something that the publishers are worried about because otherwise why bother buying new?
Book people seem to think that there's something about physical books that's innately pleasurable, but really that's just an
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at was worth the migraines I get from trying to position myself to read for more than a few minutes.
You should see a doctor about that, perhaps an optometrist. That isn't natural, and might point at some abnormal physiological problem.
There's also the issue of trying to store these books. And that should be something that the publishers are worried about because otherwise why bother buying new?
I hear there is a new invention for the convenient storage and retrieval of physical books... It involves a vertical arrangement of horizontal shelves, books can then be placed on these shelves for storage, and organized in various ways for rapid retrieval. I've seen them slowly coming to stores, there might even be one near you.
Books are innately pleasurable, good book
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Same here. I had been buying less books than what I would otherwise, because of lack of storage space.
There is so much material for (legal) download or for sale at Amazon, that I really only consider buying a book if I can easily get it in my Kindle. Not to mention having adjustable font sizes. Putting travel guides into the mobile (Kindle app) is also a major convenience.
All this people that imagine donating books their grand children... they for sure /never/ gave thought about the true cost of hoarding al
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No, God isn't a very good writer. His last work etched on tablet, he couldn't even bother to edit it down. It's like he released his first draft. Even Carlin was able to enact a 10 to 2 reduction:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzEs2nj7iZM [youtube.com]
And let's not mention all the plot holes.
In other news.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Publishing costs have gone down to approximately nil, while revenues have remained stable and profits have jumped sky high.
Why the fuck should we pay more than a dollar for a file? People paying $20+ for an ebook (the link below shows some close to the price of a modest house) aren't just stupid, they're fucking stupid. There's no reason you should pay that much beyond enriching the greedy publishers and sellers like Amazon - I don't see licensing or odd behind-the-scenes costs (again, see below) as real co
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Perhaps you'd have a different opinion if you, say, wrote books for a living.
From talking to published authors, they typically seem to get $1-2 per physical book sale, so they could still make more money if their ebooks were available for $2.99 on Amazon ($2.99 is about $2 per book at Amazon royalty rates). Most of the money in writing goes to the publisher and the retailer, not the author.
Experience (Score:5, Interesting)
I bought a Kindle for my wife as a Christmas present a few years back. To be frank, my main purpose was to address the problem we had with ever-growing, increasingly-unstable, easy-to-trip-over piles of books scattered somewhat randomly around our house (she's always been a serious book hound). She wasn't completely sold on the idea, but it only took her a week or so to completely fall in love with the device.
Then this past winter I got one when I found I was going to be "arm less" for six weeks due to shoulder surgery. I also wasn't sold on the device, but have quickly come around. In some ways it's actually more convenient to read than a paper book! And while my initial thought was "Buttons? I dunno, multi-touch is much better" - I now think the navigation buttons are a better way to go. You can easily turn pages on a Kindle using the same hand you're holding the "book", which is not true of an iPad - or even a paper book.
I am bothered by the DRM issue, and initially it held me back from making the move to an e-reader. But since I currently can (and do) strip the DRM from my e-books and copy them to my media backup disk, these concerns don't stop me from using the technology. But I'm hoping someone in authority will eventually step forward with a "Thoughts on DRM" missive regarding e-books - as we've seen with music, selling people DRM-encumbered media has potentially dire long-term consequences; and it's not a given we'll always have the ability (even "underground") to remove it.
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The advantage to DRM is that library will have a way to lend eBooks. In this regard, it doesn't bother me. I would much rather see something put on place that re-enforces our right. Like making it illegal for a company to 'buy back' a book from a consumer without the consumers consent. Consent must be on a book by book basis.
If it had DRM, but the consumer had the power, I would be fine with it.
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There's this new invention called the bookcase [wikipedia.org].
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bookcase.
Ha ha, our bookcases were full over a decade ago. The piles of books initially were just in front of the bookcases, but I think they've somehow acheived sentience and move around while everyone's asleep.
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I just hope you don't have to move too often. Oh boy are those dead trees heavy.
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There's this new invention called the bookcase [wikipedia.org].
There's this requirement for bookcases, it is called space [wikipedia.org].
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Then this past winter I got one when I found I was going to be "arm less" for six weeks due to shoulder surgery. I also wasn't sold on the device, but have quickly come around. In some ways it's actually more convenient to read than a paper book! And while my initial thought was "Buttons? I dunno, multi-touch is much better" - I now think the navigation buttons are a better way to go. You can easily turn pages on a Kindle using the same hand you're holding the "book", which is not true of an iPad - or even a paper book.
As a book hound as well, I have no problems turning pages on my iPad with one hand. A flick of the thumb and the page changes. And even in paperback as I hold a book in one hand and just relax the thumb a little to let a page go. Like both, it's not perfect as I don't give enough of a flick on the iPad for it to go or let too many pages go when relaxing my thumb.
[John]
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We had pretty much the same problem, except with printouts of scientific literature. My wife initia
DRM (Score:2)
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It's too bad that, now that publishers realize that ebooks are here to stay, they are trying to take advantage of the situation by keeping prices high and using proprie
...tary formats (often device-specific) and DRM. My apologies. I will now save face by blaming Slashdot 3.0 and watch as people mod me up.
e-Books Still a Scam (Score:2)
Ebooks are great (Score:3)
When I go to Mexico on vacation, I usually go through a book every day or two. This means I would almost need an entire suitcase for books. With my Kindle, I just bring it! When I still manage to run out of books, the kindle has 3G damn near anywhere on earth for free, and I simply buy more. I have any book I want within seconds pretty much.
They are FAR more comfortable to read with than a real book as they are light and small, and don't have a fat side depending how far into the book you are. Nothing more annoying than starting a book and wanting to lay on your left side to read it. You also never have the problem of dry fingers having trouble getting a grip on the page, or accidentally grabbing 2 pages by accident.
Some people like to show off their book collections, or bring up that dropping a book and an ebook reader off a building only the book is more likely to survive, but for the massive massive convenience benefits, I suggest you store your ego, and take better care of your stuff. I'll worry about not being able to get new books (even though you can put text files on it over USB fine) when Amazon goes out of business.
This way books are cheaper, faster/easier to get, lighter, and easier to read. For me it is a no brainer.
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Becasue theya re emotional attached to the idea of a 'book'. I have started to think there are two kinds of readers: readers who enjoy reading, and people who like to collect books. Not the story, but the idea I ahve a paper bound thing.
These people usually stand out. When you ask them about there book they will rush to tell you about how much they read and how many books they have.
I used to read to collect books, but I moved on.
I bought a kindle for my wife. Who likes reading romance, and there are a ton o
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I know slashdot tends to be a little Luddite-ish when it comes to ebooks/ereaders for some reason, but as an avid reader I couldn't be more happy.
They are FAR more comfortable to read with than a real book as they are light and small, and don't have a fat side depending how far into the book you are. Nothing more annoying than starting a book and wanting to lay on your left side to read it. You also never have the problem of dry fingers having trouble getting a grip on the page, or accidentally grabbing 2 pages by accident.
I honestly have not yet found an e-reader that is comfortable to hold while reading. I have tried several, but never purchased one. Perhaps it becomes more comfortable once you "get used to it" after a few days.
That is the only thing holding me back. No submerged Luddite desires, just comfort.
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It's a thin rectangle. Only so many ways of holding one. On my Sony PRS-650, I can pull back and sandwich the cover between my fingers. So holding it takes no effort, just the friction. And I can swipe with my thumb to change pages (the Sony has a touch screen). The cover also allows you to prop up the reader on your chest while laying on your back, works even better in landscape mode.
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I know slashdot tends to be a little Luddite-ish when it comes to ebooks/ereaders for some reason
DRM probably. I certainly would have one otherwise.
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The Problem is Still An Outdated Publisher's Model (Score:4, Insightful)
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Publishers vary quite a bit in terms of both royalties and freedom they provide to the customer. I'm not sure what O'Reilly pays for the books they publish, but the terms of the digital distribution are really generous. No DRM, multiple formats and sometimes even minor updates to the book.
The main downside with them is a lot of the older books are still PDF. But the ebooks are often cheaper than the print and you can even get the two bundled together if you wish.
As far as novels go, I don't know of any that
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I have talked to several authors, and in every case they make more money eBook publishing.
There are several reasons:
1) Anyone can do it, you don't need to go through the publishing maze in hopes that soemone will allow you to keep a tiny bit of cheese. Remember, Advances are rarely given to unknown names. The First book is written when they are shopping for a publisher.
2) Higher percent of the profit. 60-70% v 10%.
3) The long tail. Once your book is out there, it's out there. No worrying that the book store
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Cons:
Marketing. a legacy publisher will have a marketing department that is entrenched into outlets. However, they only really use it for a tiny number of author. rarely first time author.
We all like to pretend that marketing is evil/stupid/useless, but the reality is that it makes a big difference. My brother is a full time author, and once upon a time a book he wrote was victim of the publishers reorg, and he ended up with no marketing effort from the publisher at all. It was in their catalog, but nothing more than that. Compared to everything else he has written, the book completely tanked. Ordinarily the publisher sends out review copies to book reviewers, they schedule readings and si
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Couldn't the author or a good assistant do this a lot cheaper?
Publishing industry is dead... (Score:2)
Re:Publishing industry is dead... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think we're going to see dramatic changes in publishing, but not to that extent. Self-publishing is great if you've already built up a reputation through print publishing, but for someone who's just starting out as a writer they're stuck with trying to differentiate themselves from the 99% of self-published fiction that's simply dire.
Having a known publisher's logo on your ebook is going to be beneficial for quite some time, if only to say 'give this book a try, it's not crap like all those other ones you've looked at'. Plus most writers want to write, not spend time marketing, creating book covers, etc.
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Re:Publishing industry is dead... (Score:4, Insightful)
I have never in my life looked for a publisher's mark to determine if a book is good.
You didn't need to, because if it didn't have a publisher's mark on the cover it wasn't on the bookstore shelf. Getting into a bookstore was pretty much impossible for self-published fiction for the last few decades, which is why self-publishing has only become popular again now that it's become so easy.
Seriously, I looked at about a hundred self-published ebook samples recently. Most of them were dire, most of the rest were barely readable and the only ones I considered buying were the books that had previously been published in print but the rights had reverted to the author who was self-publishing them as ebooks.
I'd love to support more self-published authors, but I'm having a hard time finding any I can read more than two pages of without wanting to throw the ebook across the room.
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So...if I never looked for one before, why would I start now? Because you tend to find the good, cheap ebooks tend to have one? I have read far too much trash that has not only been published, but published and highly praised to give a crap about a publisher's mark.
There's still a big difference between trash and unreadable. At least you could potentially read to the end of the trash novel without wanting to pull your own brain out through your nose.
Seriously, go read a hundred self-published novel samples and see if you still feel the same way. Or go to fanfiction.net, read a few hundred random stories there and realise that the average self-published ebook isn't much better (they are generally a bit better because the formatting, etc, means they need a bit more dedi
Culture crash (Score:2)
A world without open source books and readers will be like giving us Harkonnen heart-plugs.
In Soviet Russia . . . (Score:2)
precisely why I dont buy a kindle (Score:2)
PRS-650 (Score:2)
Anyone have experience with that model? Seems to look good, but never saw it 'live'...
Also seems to be very hard to get. Even the Sony store here doesn't have it. :-/
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They've been having supply issues for a good while now. There are even rumors that Sony is not replenishing the supply because they want to get out of the eReader business. They might not be able to compete with Amazon on price, with amazon having a huge book store to offset low device prices.
But at the same time, the Sony supports more formats, whereas the Kindle doesn't open ePub. You can also rent books from the library, which I don't think the Kindle supports.
The device itself is great. Highlighting
ebooks in brick-and-mortar bookstores, please. (Score:2)
I like to browse in bookstores with physical books. I haven't found any kind of e-browsing that competes with it. The only thing that's close to it is to download the entire book and page freely.
To avoid overfilling my house with bookshelves, or putting shelves in front of shelves and making them inaccessible, I've decided to use e-books whenever possible (they still don't work well for art books, for example).
When I decide to buy the book I'm browsing as a paper copy, I'd like to buy and download it on t
I really wanted to buy e-books, really I did (Score:2)
but I am not going to pay nine dollars for a paperback I can buy used for two dollars. Worse, the author passed many years ago and gave the rights to his university. So now the e-book version costs as much as the large format paper back versions, the small ones are seven dollars or such.
Where is the value? Out of the the ten or so e-books I tried to buy only one had price parity with paperbacks, the rest were priced over ten dollars a pop and in all cases I am looking at books over ten years old, many twent
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Not all ebooks are the same price. Look around. Also, libraries are starting to lend ebooks.
Re:regauarding e books (Score:4, Interesting)
I still fail to see why anyone would want to spend money on an e book. I like to be able to read a book ... not worry over when they will revoke the book from "my reader. "
Weird. All the e-books I own are DRM-free, so I can do whatever I want with them for my own use.
You're right though, I wouldn't want to pay paperback prices for an e-book with DRM which can be revoked at any time. That's why I avoid buying any which do have DRM.
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So where do you get your E-Books from then?
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So where do you get your E-Books from then?
So far I've been buying older books from Smashwords; a number of previously published authors are using it to sell their backlist of books that are out of print, and most are available in multiple formats from DRM-free Kindle files to plain text.
BTW, there was also an interesting thread on a writing site recently where someone who worked for a publisher was saying that pretty much everyone at the sharp end of ebook publishing in those companies was well aware that DRM didn't work and was costing them sales,
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A couple of good places to get free ebooks are:
There are quite a few others, but many of these sites share 90% of the same content anyhow. I've got a Kindle and greatly enjoy it, but like many of the other readers here, I balk at the ridiculous prices for ebooks (wow, a dollar off the electronic edition!!). There's a great backlog of classics out there that are freely available, so I'm not really wanting
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And if you have a Kindle, Amazon [amazon.com] has a collection of free classics.
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So where do you get your E-Books from then?
Google Books?
Turns out there's a few centuries worth of material freely available. I might be 70 years behind, but I don't see myself running out of material any time soon...
Just kidding. I don't even have an ebook reader (although I have read a few classics on my computer). But that's what I'd do. Heck, I think even Amazon has a large collection of out-of-copyright books that you can freely download in proper e-book format.
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My wife, an avid reader, reads about a book a day. Try carrying 10-15 books on a vacation and you'll realize one of the benefits of e-books. She can now carry 100s of books at a time any where she goes. And they are all DRM free. Yes, I've had to remove the DRM from some of them but they are DRM free now. ;-)
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I don't believe you can physically turn a dead tree book page 10x faster than an ebook can display a new e-ink page.
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I used to think this, but then I took a look at the wall of books in my house and controversially realised that the number of times I'd lent them out to people or gone back and read them again many years later could be counted on the fingers of one hand. When I came around to reading a new book, there was always something new
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I have an enormous library of books, mostly fiction. You are correct. I only occasionally reread them -usually when a new book in a long series lands in my hands and I can't recall the plot of the previous books. I do, however, lend/give them to friends far more often.
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Want to know why I read ebooks?
- I can store all the books I want to read on a single device, rather than carting around multiple books or having to store them after the fact.
- I can impulse buy and have it delivered within a minute or two
- New releases are *typically* (not always) cheaper than the corresponding hardcover
- I've never had a book revoked from reader, and while I acknowledge the possibility, I consider it a tin-foil hat problem.
- Lending a book to someone is something that I very rarely do, si
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All points you made apply to me as well. But I need to add:
- One thing that I can easily do with a Kindle is to avoid buying books by impulse that I never read. I try to discipline myself to always ask for a sample, only when I finish reading the sample (and if I like it), I buy the book.
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You have to stop stressing the small stuff.
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I still fail to see why anyone would want to spend money on an e book.
Because it's convenient?
The big one for me is the ability to configure text size & look. Most paper books (esp. paperbacks) I have to read with my eyeglasses on. With an e-reader, I can make text just large enough that it is readable without eyeglasses at the book holding distance that I find most comfortable to me (and adjust it depending on said distance, which is different between e.g. lying in a bed, and sitting in a bus).
There are also many little things. For one, I like the Kindle 3 cover integrat
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Here's the explanation: It takes time for these things to change. Also, most of the cost of the book isn't in the actual copy of the book (in either format).
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eBooks are definitely still in their infancy and it will be a while before everything sorts itself out.
But I have to wonder what the cost of making a book it. From the energy for the printing press, to the frequent maintenance, and the techs to keep the thing running. Then you have distribution, trucking the stuff around, and then buying back unsold stock, trying to figure out how many books to sent to which store. That would take considerable man hours.
Compare that to a 500kB file that you put up on a w
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That, and taking a magazine with you to the toilet. If you're spending that much time on the throne, you either don't have to go, or should see a doctor.