So here’s my thinking: It’s an accepted notion that if people know that you’ve made a better product then they will choose it.

SONY engineers made a very good product in the SONY Portable Reader System so it should sell very well. But if Sony Readers aren’t selling very well indeed, then that fact should serve as a warning to SONY (and presumably the other manufacturers of eBook readers) that they are doing something wrong.

PROPOSITION: An eBook reader is better than going to the library to get a paper book to the extent that it makes a library of books far more accessible to the public.

PROPOSED: That for the SONY Reader or any other eBook system to succeed there must be a good supply of books: enough to create a useful library.

Modern publishing houses receive manuscripts in digital form and they print books using digitally formatted text. If SONY expects publishing houses to publish their books for the Reader, they must have distributed automated converter tools to enable publishers to transform digital files into BBeB files. This must exist because if Sony failed to provide the conversion tools there simply would not be many BBeB books available, and those that are published would have to be expensed to cover the labor cost of manual conversion. That would make Sony eBooks as expensive as paper books, thus ending the chances for the SONY Reader to reach its potential.

The principle gateway to any advanced civilization is its written record; literature, poetry, history, mathematics and all of the sciences are preserved in written form. Although most of the modern record is copyrighted, the foundational record, I mean the old classics of World Civilization are not.

Isn’t it logical to think that SONY would do all they can to encourage volunteers to put the collection of classic works in BBeB form and encourage the free and wide distribution of the library of classics? Surely Sony must want the Reader to succeed or they wouldn’t have created it, so why haven’t they made their conversion tools available to volunteers to get started converting those thousands of classic books?

There is so much left to do. We need to put a large volume of reader enabled classics in the Public Libraries as well as on-line. Magazine publishers need to start publishing via email to book readers rather than just using the Postal Service. Volunteer translators are needed to translate classics in one civilization into a language accessible to people who speak a different language in order to help knit a true world civilization together. Internet sites are needed to index and describe the importance of the works. Given the place of search tools, all of these efforts need to move forward before Sony and others create some wifi enabled version of the PRS with real search capability. However it seems to me that time is running short for them to get started if Sony wants into the market soon enough to stay in.

So why haven't they put the conversion tools in the public domain?

Welcome to MobileRead, 6charlong! Nice first post! :nice:

I can't speak for Sony, obviously, and I haven't the slightest idea what they're thinking is in regard to not releasing their conversion tools (what you're saying makes sense to me, 6charlong), but I can take a guess at one thing, the bit about a supply of books.

They're aware that Project Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/) exists (if I recall correctly from when I talked with them at the Blogger's Day (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7713&highlight=blogger%27s) and the Texas Book Festival (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7209&highlight=book+festival)), and they're further aware that ManyBooks (http://www.manybooks.net/) does a Sony LRF format of PG texts (in fact, encouraged them to point out the existence of those sites on their packaging!). So I think it's a safe guess that they would consider those as an available pool of books, especially as the Reader takes RTF files.

Additionally, they do have their own store: the Connect Store (http://ebooks.connect.com/) may still be relatively small in content, and the Connect Software still has ... lots of room for improvement, shall we say? But they are actively working on a pool of new material.

If they did release their conversion tools, which I'd personally love and applaud, then all that would really do is allow the hoards of users to effectively replicate PG in LRF format ... which is already happening over at ManyBooks.net on an automated basis.

Then again, there's the (strong) possibility that the tools they use might be way on the "not" side of "user-friendly" (as such internal tools often tend to be) and as such their release would be less help than hindrance. However, they could release a full set of the specs (they have already released a goodly portion of them) so that those making their own homebrew (and very full-featured) conversion tools could jump through all the hoops that much more efficiently.

Welcome to MobileRead 6charlong.

Sony offers through their own CONNECT bookstore some of the current best sellers and a thin array of publisher's back catalog materials. Project Gutenberg has made classics available for many years in electronic form and the list grows larger every month. ManyBooks.net offers most of the PG books already formatted in LRF for the Sony Reader. FeedBooks.com offers a growing selection of books available in PDF files formatted for the Sony Reader. Blackhawk and Silk Pagoda offer DVDs of over 10,000 books formatted in either PDF or LRF for the Sony Reader. Add to that the many other sources of free eBooks like the Baen Free Library or the download section here at MobileRead and you have the ability to fill the Reader many times over with the best literature available for almost nothing.

Where most of the discussion centers now is on that group of books that are too new to be in the public domain; but, not new enough to be thought of as a big seller by the publishers. These are the ones that many are calling for the publishers and authors to either make available in ebook format or to release into the public domain. (Or at least to allow Project Gutenberg or ManyBooks to make available.)

As for the conversion tools from Sony, I find the books converted by BookDesigner to be superior to those offered by Sony through the CONNECT store.

6charlong, I think you propose exactly the opposite business model from the Sony business model. In your model, Sony makes money for every person who reads books on their reader. The "reading books" marketplace is saturated, anyone can get any book they want, consider all the bookstores that have closed since Amazon.Com opened. In order to maximize sales, they can't charge much of a premium per reader since they are attacking a saturated market. If the publishers make and distribute books using open source tools, then Sony makes nothing per book. The earnings from your model are:

Earnings = small * number_readers + 0 * number_books_read

Sony is informed by their Playstation product, since playing games is a hobby like reading books. In this model you make little to nothing on the game player, producing a demand for accessories and game content. Then you tightly control these products to maximize profits. The earnings in the Sony model are:

Earnings = 0 * number_readers + medium * number_books_read

That's why you can't sell or give away eBooks you've read, they know number_books_read is > number_books. They've moved out of a saturated marketplace with small margins (books or handheld electronics, whichever you think the reader is) and into a marketplace with limited supply, one provider, and hopefully higher margins. If they could get this approach to work, like Apple did with iPod, then the Reader will be a business success. If we all decide to run BD on Baen/Gutenberg/... book sources and read those instead they will have the worst case scenario earnings:

Earnings = 0 * number_readers + medium * 0.05 * number_books_read

That will be the death of the Sony Reader, IMHO.

I'd love to know how much revenue the Connect store brings in. As in, is it working how Sony planned? I used my $50 credit and that was it. Maybe if they were all under $4-$5 I'd be interested, but not full retail.

If the publishers make and distribute books using open source tools, then Sony makes nothing per book... They've moved out of a saturated marketplace with small margins (books or handheld electronics, whichever you think the reader is) and into a marketplace with limited supply, one provider, and hopefully higher margins. If they could get this approach to work, like Apple did with iPod, then the Reader will be a business success. If we all decide to run BD on Baen/Gutenberg/... book sources and read those instead they will have the worst case scenario earnings...

Good point. But with the iPod, you can easily import MP3 files from sources other than iTunes, and this doesn't make for a losing earnings scenario for Apple. Even without iTunes, they've taken the MP3 player market hands-down.

Sony should be able to sell a reader successfully, even if they don't control the content. How? Make a reader everyone wants, and no one can refuse... the iPod of readers. Connect is just icing on the cake. Sony can't assume they can control the content market (I'm 2 steps away from releasing my own novels in LRF format!), so they should concentrate on making the best damned reader possible, at a price point no one can refuse.

We need to be willing to buy content.

I believe that in order for the EReader of any variety to be access we the user community need to be willing to pay for content. I do not believe that ereaders will be a success if we as a community only look to “free” books for content. I am a very avid reader but I must admit there are only some many titles at PG that I want to read. I want newer content. That means paying for it.

I am willing to pay “book store” prices for a paper back, so why not an ebook. Yes I think that they should be cheaper than paper books because of less printing, transport, inventory costs, etc. but I am still willing to pay for my content. This is the only way that there will be enough current content from the best most marketable authors ever available. With content will come a better “Business Case” for people to buy a reader.

No $$ paid for new current content = no market for new readers.

I am a new Ebook user, has not actual arrived yet, and I am disappointed in the number of people in this forum who are looking only for free content.

Just the new bees thoughts on the subject.

But with the iPod, you can easily import MP3 files from sources other than iTunes, and this doesn't make for a losing earnings scenario for Apple. Even without iTunes, they've taken the MP3 player market hands-down.I find myself wondering if some of that effect might not be psychological.

What I mean is, folks might react negatively to a music player that only plays one format, and/or is locked into a single source of music, and resist buying any such device. (we see a lot of that sort of attitude on e-readers too)

But what Apple did was say, "okay, here's a really cool music player that'll play whatever music you have electronically -- oh, and by the way, we've got a service that sells music too, but that music can only play on our players." (that's changing now, of course)

My theory is that by doing that, they may have avoided (most of) the reflexive resistance to a 'locked' device, by offering an 'unlocked' device and a 'locked' content service (said locked service was needful in getting the content providers to buy into the idea). And then, once folks have the devices, they decide that maybe that really easy iTunes Store with the huge selection of music, isn't so bad and scary after all, and why not just buy their new stuff there after they're done ripping all their existing CDs?

Of course, that's also what Sony's trying to do by allowing more 'standard' file formats, and offering the ConnStore (though it's got a ways to go before it gets easy or big). True, in this case the approach suffers some from a lack of an existing, widely held, large pool of digital content already in the users' hands, but there you go.

I have noticed that folks tend to react negatively to the idea of the ConnStore, until they hear about RTF support (when I mention them in that order), and that they don't seem to be disturbed by the ConnStore if I tell them about the RTF support first.

Just my random thoughts, there, and they're fairly fresh, so salt to taste. :shrug:

Welcome to MobileRead, BruceW! :nice:No $$ paid for new current content = no market for new readers.

I am a new Ebook user, has not actual arrived yet, and I am disappointed in the number of people in this forum who are looking only for free content.

Just the new bees thoughts on the subject.And it's an excellent thought. I think most of us are, indeed willing to pay for content, I personally love Baen's Webscriptions service, and patronize it as much as I can, as do a number of others that I'm aware of.

However, if there are books in the Public Domain that are available for free, then I'm certainly not morally opposed to free. At the same time, I think that donations to the efforts that produce and distribute them are are the responsible thing to do.

There is, of course, a segment of society that will never pay for anything if they can get it for free, however dubious the getting might be, but I don't think they're the majority here at MR. Frankly, there are a number of us that patronize Sony's Connect Store, even though we'd really rather not have the DRM that comes with it, specifically to encourage Sony's efforts ... and in hopes that the book DRM will continue on the path that music DRM seems to be taking, and render the whole point moot. :beam:

However, if there are books in the Public Domain that are available for free, then I'm certainly not morally opposed to free. At the same time, I think that donations to the efforts that produce and distribute them are are the responsible thing to do.



Also I think that many of us in this forum enjoy the work we do to modify the books to a more useful format. This can only be done for 1) ourselves with books we've bought or 2) public domain books where we can share the fruites of our labors. :cool:

I think you're right, slayda, I certainly do so. :yes:

My theory is that by doing that, they may have avoided (most of) the reflexive resistance to a 'locked' device, by offering an 'unlocked' device and a 'locked' content service (said locked service was needful in getting the content providers to buy into the idea). And then, once folks have the devices, they decide that maybe that really easy iTunes Store with the huge selection of music, isn't so bad and scary after all, and why not just buy their new stuff there after they're done ripping all their existing CDs?

Well, iPods were out before there was iTunes... but iPods still sold like gandbusters, because of their cool look, their ease of use, and their ability to play unlocked content. When iTunes came along later, the devices were already everywhere and popular, so this was a way to add to iPod's already-established value... which I think overrided the public's resistance to a "locked" device.

Following that logic, Sony should have introduced a way-cool device that could read popular formats, get them into everybody's hands, then introduce the Connect store to add to the reader's value. Releasing the device and service together took away the chance to establish the reader as way-cool device on its own... it's public perception becomes tied to Connect, and Connect's success will impact on the reader's success to an extent. But further down the line, new reader features could serve to distinguish it beyond Connect.

6charlong, I think you propose exactly the opposite business model from the Sony business model. In your model, Sony makes money for every person who reads books on their reader. The "reading books" marketplace is saturated, anyone can get any book they want, consider all the bookstores that have closed since Amazon.Com opened. In order to maximize sales, they can't charge much of a premium per reader since they are attacking a saturated market. If the publishers make and distribute books using open source tools, then Sony makes nothing per book. The earnings from your model are:

Earnings = small * number_readers + 0 * number_books_read

Sony is informed by their Playstation product, since playing games is a hobby like reading books. In this model you make little to nothing on the game player, producing a demand for accessories and game content. Then you tightly control these products to maximize profits. The earnings in the Sony model are:

Earnings = 0 * number_readers + medium * number_books_read

I think this is a very wise post. You've certainly nailed the reason for the current state of things. However, there's a third possibility for earnings:

Earnings = small * number_readers + medium * number_books_read

I wouldn't be surprised if this is the model with the Reader, seeing as the hardware *does* cost $350. In fact, I think this would be the wise way to go.

I really hope they're not banking on sales of content to keep the Reader business alive. In one sense it's valuable to them, because a high initial price scares off many potential buyers, and sales of books can offset the loss.

But I really think that any business trying to make a living on content alone (especially when they stand to take a loss if they *don't* sell content) isn't designing their business model around the realities of the 21st century. Content is rapidly being driven downwards in price by ease of sharing owned content and the ease of publishing one's own content. Imagine what the YouTube of eBooks would look like, and which business model would do best in that circumstance.

The only thing that allows the second business model to work with games is a highly controlled game publishing business. It's impossible to make legitimate PlayStation games without Sony's approval, and very hard to make illegitimate ones. The direct opposite is true for books.

So, if they can't make money (or at least, not much money) selling books, and they need to sell the Reader cheap.... What's the solution? Personally, I think they should go the cellphone route and sell cheap Reader hardware bundled with a subscription plan to a bunch of content. Sign up for two years of access to the Connect library, get a cheap Reader. If you don't want the Connect membership, a Reader will cost you full price.

If they could get this approach to work, like Apple did with iPod, then the Reader will be a business success.

The above quote is a misuderstanding of the Apple approach. iTunes is a marginal money maker/loser for Apple since most of the song price goes back to the music company. Apple makes its money on the device, the iPod itself.

The proprietary approach for books is never going to work (Gemstar tried it, Sony tried it with the Librie) and if Sony reader or any other device is marketed on the make money on content approach, that device will fail sooner or later and deservedly so. The game analogue is flawed since you cannot play games any other way, while you can read books with your eyes and no device.

Make a good reader and charge enough to make a decent profit on it...

As I mentioned I never am going to buy an e-book that I cannot read on any reader that I want, and I am not going to spend on an e-book more than 6-7$ unless I get something extra of value to me (like the Baen 15-20 or so e-arcs that I spent 15$ happily to read 4-5 months prepublication, or JBU/GG where I bought e-arc subscriptions for 50$ year each). I am willing to pay for content but I am not willing to be ripped off.

Okay, so my sequence of events was a bit off (thanks, Steve), and that knocks my theory a bit of kilter.

But in the case of e-Readers, you could make a case that there wasn't all that big a pool of books available to begin with (you could also make a case that there's still not ;)) since most folks (even now) don't know about PG, et. al., so they couldn't really follow the iPod/iTunes path too faithfully anyway. :shrug:

But what you've said makes me think even more that they should make a point of playing up the texts available elsewhere, to avoid tying the Reader too closely to the ConnStore in people's minds. :shrug:

Getting folks used to the idea of e-reading is what will get them buying books, and a good way to do that is to point out that they can already do so without DRM, and a lot of good stuff is available free, and oh, by the way, there's this Sony store too.

I asked my Aunt who's a published writer of books on Writing, if there was a device a little bigger than her Dell Handheld that would have a screen with a look close to that of a book page, and does nothing but designated reading with a long battery life, would she get one? She said absolutely without a doubt.

She knew about alot of the failed readers out there, but knew nothing about Sony's Reader.

Read my lips Sony, you have to spend money, to make money. Buy some shelf space in more than 3 stores, make it a little easier to find it on your website, and maybe throw a commercial out there. I have another idea, get some more Writer's to talk about it publicly. The only buzz I hear about on this device is from us mobileread members.

If there is a higher demand for these devices and content, we'll see more buzz develop, more updates, and more publishers taking Connect seriously.

Before the Ipod was developed, there were quite a few failed devices. Nobody even knew what an MP3 player was until Ipod came along. Like Ipod, Sony took a great idea that was out there, made a much better product, but they continually fail to market this thing.

We need to be willing to buy content.


It would be a safe bet that you will find few here to argue about that point. Most of us have no problem paying for content. We might vary in the price of the content but not for paying for it. It seems that the "cost of the paperback version" seems to be the most prevalent as worth buying (as opposed to most places charging "hardback" prices).

But something else you might think on is what if the content you want to buy is unavailable. Here you are wanting to give someone money for their merchandise but they don't really have what you are wanting to pay for. That is the other limiting factor in most ebook vendors. This leads to the massive amounts of unauthorized and copied ebooks in the digital ether since once they're made they have a tendency to slip outside and take walks.

Which leads to such lovely publishing logics. "Online, badly formatted copies are killing our ebook business." "Oh, well let me buy my ebook from you." "We don't carry that one. Nobody wants it." "Guess I'll have to get it online then." "What? That's why we don't sell that ebook! You will just steal it anyway. Online, badly formatted copies are killing our ebook business!"

When one buys a device objectively, considering that this reader is not free, everything about it has to be known beforehand. That said it is not fair to come back against the maker for the choice made; it was a user choice.

On the other side, this choice wasn't really an enlightened one because with eink there are so few devices available yet; then again the maker is not at fault. We had to acquire the reader knowing that we have to deal with shortcomings as to our wish list. But this device can be expanded on and I'm sure software upgrades will maintain it the better choice it is.
And again, the 'ebook' as a media can not belong to any entity. Ebabel is plainly wrong.

I'll say it now for any publishers that read this.

I don't get all my books legitimately.

I do and will continue to replace my non-legal content with legal versions as and when they become available. So far ConnStore has replaced 63 books. I want to replace the rest and have my entire library legit. Just like my paper library is.

Help me out and publish your back catalogues.

And again, the 'ebook' as a media can not belong to any entity. Ebabel is plainly wrong.

It's a model that's worked successfully in many other fields.

When you buy music from Apple's iTunes store, it will only play on an iPod - you can't use it on any type of music player.

When you buy a game for your Microsoft XBox 360, you can't play it on a Sony Playstation 3 (and vice versa, of course).

If you buy accessories for a Canon camera, you can't use them on a Nikon camera.

It's in the manufacturer's commercial interest to "lock" you into their product line, by encouraging you to spend a lot of money on things that you can't use with any other manufacturer's products.

I'm happy to buy content if there's no DRM (man I've been burned by DRM more times that I care to remember. I mean what good is it to buy music legally only to end up downloading it illegally due to DRM issues? What *are* they thinking??) and if it's cheaper than it is now. I am not willing to pay paperback prices for ebooks.

I'm happy to buy content if there's no DRM and if it's cheaper than it is now. I am not willing to pay paperback prices for ebooks.

Ditto.

But what Apple did was say, "okay, here's a really cool music player that'll play whatever music you have electronically -- oh, and by the way, we've got a service that sells music too, but that music can only play on our players."
Actually, iTunes is more than the iTunes Music Store. It can convert your legacy music on CD into the format that plays on your iPod. You could do this with MP3 (even using iTunes), and you can import other MP3s into iTunes. iTunes also organizes your music into playlists and gets album data from online databases.

CONNECT cannot organize my other documents, because it doesn't do organization. It cannot process my existing library, either the paper books or the other electronic books I have, because Sony doesn't feel like it.

Frankly, in the book world we are better off than the music world. Though copyrights are far too long, there is a substantial volume of useful writing with expired copyright. We have an organized effort to collect it in Project Gutenberg. Music doesn't have lots of pre-1913 recordings to work with. My iPod has never played a piece of public domain music.

The reason we don't have a killer eBook is that Sony is our eInk product manufacturer, not Apple. No amount of Sony wishing will change that.

Actually, iTunes is more than the iTunes Music Store. It can convert your legacy music on CD into the format that plays on your iPod. You could do this with MP3 (even using iTunes), and you can import other MP3s into iTunes. iTunes also organizes your music into playlists and gets album data from online databases.True, and I completely agree about the lack of features in the ConnStore compared to iTunes.

What I was trying to get at is that Apple's approach of offering the hardware that would also handle "not their stuff" might have reduced folks concerns about the DRM in the iTunes, so that over time, folks stopped caring about it and started buying the DRMed iTunes offerings. And by extension, since the Reader will handle non-ConnStore files, the same sort of psychological process might come into play.

I wasn't trying to suggest that Sony is becoming Apple, nor to make any comment on the ConnStore, either relative to iTunes or even the ConnStore itself. :nice:

I wasn't even trying to make a value statement about the mental process I'm trying to describe -- all I was trying to do was point out the psychological process that I think I might see, and discuss it specifically. :shrug:

Guess I didn't manage to do that too clearly though. :mad:

No, Sony is clearly NOT Apple. Sony IS a product manufacturer that made it big creating compelling hardware, but recently has seen its edge eroded by other manufacturers. They have been diversifying into content (like movies), which is proving to be a very different animal, but which they are dedicated to taming.

Maybe Sony hopes to compel publishers to release their current catalogs (which, by and large, are digital files anyway) in their formats, once they have a popular reader to point to, and glean profits through format or reseller royalties siphoned through Connect. Maybe Sony wants to buy a few publishing houses. As long as their content is lucrative, they will not worry overmuch about the content they do not control. This strategy could be as successful to them as opening the device to others' content... maybe moreso... and it affords them more control. So it's not that surprising how they are approaching the Reader and the Connect store.

I think most of us (and the rest of the public, for that matter) would be happy with the Reader accepting Connect content, and still being open to non-Connect content, as it is now. The biggest arguments seem to be about the high price of the hardware and the content. I think the hardware price will come down, and Reader features will improve, as is inevitable for new products as they develop and mature. At that point, Sony will assuredly be expecting to make it up in content profits. And if they are in the content business, they can exercise some control over content pricing, and therefore, their profit margins.

Once Sony, like Apple, would have been content making good hardware. Now, in many ways, Sony is the opposite of Apple, and their e-book business strategy reflects that. The fact that their strategy isn't an Apple strategy doesn't mean their strategy won't work. It's just working from the other side of the street.

I agree with most of it Steve.

Being in manufacturing myself I had to wake up to the fact that we can't get a fair, honest price for our work anymore. All this is due to third world wages that affect the cost of everything these days. How many industries have fallen in North America to this? Here we're fast becoming a services economy more than the manufacturing we used to be.

Sony, mighty as it is, is not immune to this. It has switched most industry to these countries, trying to beat others in the game. It worked for a while untill this staging down of industry has started to affect the balance between rich and poor. Middleclass is disappearing fast, moving to one extreme or the other. The greater number moving to the lesser side also moves buying power with it. That in return means less buyers for expensive luxury items, a market usually fed on by Sony.

Where is Sony going now?...Niche markets that it invents and services such as the sale of intellectual works. (music, movies and books)

Any manufacturer, how big it is, will have to switch to a service market. Even the creation, software and sciences domains, intrinsic parts of intellectual markets, will suffer. Third world wage workers outnumber us 100 to 1.

A balance will have to be reattained. But those who have will not give.

The rich will kill the planet and seem quite content do so, for their lives are short and plentifull. It is now a oneway railway...

Sorry about this...

Frankly, in the book world we are better off than the music world. Though copyrights are far too long, there is a substantial volume of useful writing with expired copyright. We have an organized effort to collect it in Project Gutenberg. Music doesn't have lots of pre-1913 recordings to work with. My iPod has never played a piece of public domain music.


In the UK, a music "performance copyright" (ie a copyright on a recording) only lasts for 50 years, rather than the lifetime of the author + 70 years, as is the case for books. That means that any recording made before 1957 is now in the public domain in the UK. Because the PD "limit" is now encroaching on the start of pop music, etc, there was a concerted campaign by the music industry here to try to get the law changed. Thankfully, the government refused.

Of course the copyright on the performance doesn't trump the underlying copyright on the music itself, which has been life-plus-70 in the UK for a long time. So even though the recordings themselves will enter the public domain, all that means is that we won't have to pay the artists any royalties. But we'll still not be free to exchange recordings because the songs are still copyrighted material and will be for quite some time.

But I believe that it means that many classical recordings, where the music itself is out of copyright, can be freely used, does it not?

Yes, that would be the case -- where the music itself is in the public domain, once the recordings become public domain, they're fair game for anybody to use.

I'd love to know how much revenue the Connect store brings in. As in, is it working how Sony planned? I used my $50 credit and that was it. Maybe if they were all under $4-$5 I'd be interested, but not full retail.
I agree entirely with this - I did the same. If we think about paper books, I can buy a paperback for about $7 to $10, read it, then sell it at a secondhand bookstore or on eBay for about half, so there is that $4-$5 figure mentioned. If that was the price on the Connect store I'd prefer to do it that way than waste more time and more trees.
That's why you can't sell or give away eBooks you've read, they know number_books_read is > number_books.
There are ways of making this work: -

- Use to DRM to control releases, so that Sony only allows books to be resold a number of years after initial publication.
- Alternatively, only allow books to be sold on a year or whatever after the initial purchase.
- Charge $1 for transfer from one Reader to another - again the DRM system allows this.

How is this in any way in the interest of the rights holder ? they make absolutely no cash on the sale of second-hand books.

I've spent nearly $300 in the connStore now I have 61 books from there $300/61=$4.91 per book. If I convert that back into UKP I get £2.45. The average book price in the UK is £5.99 making the ConnStore almost half price. Sure some books are more expensive when taken individually but it all evens out over the long haul.

If I convert that back into UKP I get £2.45. The average book price in the UK is £5.99 making the ConnStore almost half price.

£2.45 is only 41% of £5.99, so it's considerably less than half price!

good point. I wasn't thinking straight. Posting whilst hung-over is my only excuse.

I agree entirely with this - I did the same. If we think about paper books, I can buy a paperback for about $7 to $10, read it, then sell it at a secondhand bookstore or on eBay for about half, so there is that $4-$5 figure mentioned. If that was the price on the Connect store I'd prefer to do it that way than waste more time and more trees.

There are ways of making this work: -

- Use to DRM to control releases, so that Sony only allows books to be resold a number of years after initial publication.
- Alternatively, only allow books to be sold on a year or whatever after the initial purchase.
- Charge $1 for transfer from one Reader to another - again the DRM system allows this.

I don't think Sony had the bargain hunter in mind when they created this device. The pricing is definitely not my concern. I was always one that never had a problem throwing money down for a new release Hard Cover Bestseller for a book. I also always kept my books never sold them, and rarely lend them out. As silly as it sounds I love looking at my bookshelf realizing how many books I've read, and often pick up a great book to read it again years later.

As far as the 3 ways of making this work:

1. Music services don't allow us to sell our music after a few years, I can sell a used CD or a book, but I don't see it happening with E-Books either.

2. Out of curiosity, how do you plan to sell it? Does that mean you can no longer read it yourself?

3. You can transfer your book, you just have to authorize that other reader or computer on your account.

Music artists stood against used CD Stores and Electronic pirating of music in the forms of Napster and and the like. Author's never seemed to publicly stand against used book stores, my guess is their philosophy was more open minded when it came to people reading their books......I'm not saying your ideas are bad, I'm pointing out that I don't think that is the market Sony is looking to go for.

The good news is sites like Manybooks.com give you the ability to legally download the books for free formatted for our Readers, and you can e-mail a link to someone without having to sell it and say this one is free for you too. :) You can't do that with music.

But what Apple did was say, "okay, here's a really cool music player that'll play whatever music you have electronically -- oh, and by the way, we've got a service that sells music too, but that music can only play on our players." (that's changing now, of course)

Well, Apple didn't say whatever music you have, but whatever music in mp3 format, which is the quasi standard for digital music. Sadly, there is nothing like a standard in ebook formats yet...

I use Linux, and neither Apple nor Sony support Linux directly. I don't complain because it's my decision, but for buying a device, a certain amount of functionality has to be usable. Open devices are a great benefit for all.

I have to give an example with portable music:
Instead of an iPod I use a Sony MD-Recorder - at the time I had to chose, mp3 players where to expensive for me and NetMD was very new, so I didn't know much about it and didn't want to use it.

Some time ago I bought a Sony MD-Deck via eBay, together with ~80 MDs. Sadly, all of them had music on them I didn't like, but more sadly, all MDs where recorded using Sony's NetMD technology. I could not erase them with my non-NetMD devices. But I couldn't even erase them with my NetMD-Recorder (which had replaced my first unit) without using Sony's infamous SonicStage software, which is - surprise! - windows only.
This means, to get rid of a lot of music which I didn't own, didn'r pay for, didn't like, and to be able to use the MDs again for recording my own music from CDs I bought, I had to find a Windows PC whose owner allowed me to install this crappy software and erase the MDs one by one.
This is DRM gone way to far.

In my opinion devices and software should stay as far apart as possible.
I gladly pay for content but I don't want to feel forced or limited.

- If anybody wants me to buy a reader/player, there has to be a possibility to use my own content on it, in an open format I choose.
- If anybody wants me to buy content (ebooks, music...), it has to be in an open format, which I can convert to my liking and to fit my existing and future devices.
- If anybody wants me to buy content through software bundled with their devices, this software has to be available on the OS I use, or I won't use it.

In my opinion devices and software should stay as far apart as possible.
I gladly pay for content but I don't want to feel forced or limited.
I can get behind that. Keeping hardware and content providers separate (on paper, AND in fact) makes for more and better choices of both for the consumer. Tying the two together leads to proprietarism (assuming that's a word).

I think it should be 'proprietarianism' -- has a better ring to it. :grin:

I wonder how much of an anti-trust argument could be made against a hardware/content conglomerate ... probably not very much of one. Not that I'm disagreeing (nor am I advocating litigation -- just an idle thought), I just don't think it has much chance of success. :shrug:

1. Music services don't allow us to sell our music after a few years, I can sell a used CD or a book, but I don't see it happening with E-Books either.That is because the digital media vendors are trying to use the technology to rope in the rights that we have with conventional media for their own profit. IMO this is a retrograde step.

2. Out of curiosity, how do you plan to sell it? Does that mean you can no longer read it yourself?Sony could easily operate a service whereby you de-authorise the book from your Reader and authorise it on the Reader of the person you are selling to. As I suggest, they could charge $1 a time for this service. After selling the book you would no longer be able to read it yourself, in other words exactly the same as with a paper book. Sony thus becomes a vendor of both new and secondhand eBooks. They could offer the secondhand service on a time-controlled basis, for example only allowing you to sell the book one year after you bought it. Or only allowing books to be sold 2 years after their initial ebook release, giving Sony a head start in new sales, but allowing users to recoup their investment later. This would stimulate the eBook market enormously.

3. You can transfer your book, you just have to authorize that other reader or computer on your account.No you cannot TRANSFER your book. You can SHARE it on up to 6 devices, but that is not the same as selling it to someone else (who could then share it on his own 6 devices) and losing the right to read it, as you would when selling a paper book.

Music artists stood against used CD Stores and Electronic pirating of music in the forms of Napster and and the like.I'm a music artist, and I didn't. Piracy is principally the concern of commercial interests, and those musicians more motivated by money than art. The money is nice and we need it to survive, but most of the musicians I know are more interested in playing their music and getting it heard.

Author's never seemed to publicly stand against used book stores, my guess is their philosophy was more open minded when it came to people reading their books......I think a lot of musicians do think like the authors. They are tired of being ripped off by record companies who take all their rights in exchange for a piddling percentage, and we are seeing a backlash against this as musicians take hold of the means of distribution for themselves, setting up Web sites offering cheap downloads of their material and retaining 100% of the revenue for themselves.

I'm not saying your ideas are bad, I'm pointing out that I don't think that is the market Sony is looking to go for.I think you're right about Sony, but I just question the value of what they are doing. The music companies got people's backs up by being greedy and the piracy arose out of that situation. Gradually they are either having to re-invent themselves or die. I think it is a mistake for the eBook market to try and follow the bad example of monopolising content at a relatively high price.

I wonder how much of an anti-trust argument could be made against a hardware/content conglomerate ... probably not very much of one.

Can you say "Microsoft?"

If the conglomerate can be shown to be actively discouraging competition through unfair or monopolizing business practices... you have your case. (If they don't have enough money to bribe you, they lose.) We are certainly not in that situation now. But in the future, well, anything's possible.

In a capitalist society, isn't it the goal of every company to monopolise its market sector and discourage competition? A company's goal - in fact its legal obligation - is to make money for its shareholders, not to be "nice" to its customers! If being "nice" helps to win it business, then that may be a part of its business strategy, but one should never make the mistake of thinking that a large company exists to "make the world a better place".

In a capitalist society, isn't it the goal of every company to monopolise its market sector and discourage competition? A company's goal - in fact its legal obligation - is to make money for its shareholders, not to be "nice" to its customers! If being "nice" helps to win it business, then that may be a part of its business strategy, but one should never make the mistake of thinking that a large company exists to "make the world a better place".

I mostly agree with HarryT... When I worked at Texas Instruments (in their DSP division) their stated goal was to ethically out-compete the other DSP vendors so successfully that they were investigated by the Justice Department as a possible monopoly. Of course, Justice wouldn't find anything actionable because they were going to do it in a completely fair and above-board manner -- by making better products and selling them for more attractive prices. Note: no irony in that statement. That's literally what they said.

The idea was that trouncing the competition by doing a better job than they do provides benefit to society as well as to the company (and it's shareholders), where monopolistically cheating only benefits the company. That's a business strategy that happens to lead to a social good -- but it's still primarily a business decision, not a social one.

In selling this idea internally, they emphasized that good business ethics was both "the right way" to do things (for the moralists in the crowd) and that it was "smart business tactics" for the "greed is good" part of the crowd.

Xenophon

In a capitalist society, isn't it the goal of every company to monopolise its market sector and discourage competition?

Of course... but you have to do it fairly, and the definition of "fair" might be touchy. Still, as TI demonstrated, there's a difference between intentionally sabotaging the competition, and just being better than them.

it would be in sony's best interest to buy a publishing house, one with a good back catalog. they could then offer these books on their site at a great savings and not be stuck with "we were only following orders."

even with drm who wouldn't buy a bunch of back catalog books for $1 - $2?

After having gotten burned in the VHS/Beta debacle, Sony bought Columbia Pictures so that they would have a ready-made library of content for the CD and DVD markets.

I'm surprised they didn't buy a publisher, or at least strike a deal with one of the big publishers for access to content, so they have to negotiate a lot of little individual-book deals.

Must be in the works somewhere, they have very good lawyers.

if they own the books they can also mine the content for new movies, tv shows and doughnuts

Mmmmm, do-nuts.

How is this in any way in the interest of the rights holder ? they make absolutely no cash on the sale of second-hand books.
This is how it has always been with with paper books. The rights holder gets nothing from secondhand sales. In the case of paper books rights holders have always accepted this and we are allowed to sell on the books we purchase with few restrictions. Similar is the case with normal music CDs, which have always been unprotected - the publishers don't like it, but they still get copied. Another way of thinking of this is that the rights owner is getting a "Mechanical Copyright" payment for every legitimate physical copy of the product pressed under the agreement with the publisher, regardless of whether that copy is sold on, copied or whatever. This is the way that the media distribution market has always worked up to now, simply because there was no other option.

The DRM brigade, not content with simply copying the market model of paper books, is trying to rein in our rights as much as possible. IMO this is a retrograde step and instead of stimulating uptake of the technology motivates people to find ways of breaking the copyright protection.

They just don't get it - offer a cheap, flexible service which gives people what they are used to, and everyone will buy it without question. Try to screw people into the ground and you'll just get their backs up. Just because you CAN control things more with DRM doesn't necessarily mean that you SHOULD do so.

In a capitalist society, isn't it the goal of every company to monopolise its market sector and discourage competition? A company's goal - in fact its legal obligation - is to make money for its shareholders, not to be "nice" to its customers! If being "nice" helps to win it business, then that may be a part of its business strategy, but one should never make the mistake of thinking that a large company exists to "make the world a better place".
That is exactly my point. If I were a Sony shareholder, I'd be wondering about the effectiveness of their policy. You gain more revenue by having hordes of happy customers making repeat purchases than you do by driving them away with high prices and restrictive controls on the product. The knock-on effect is that if you have customers bad-mouthing you and accusing you of being greedy, it doesn't help your other product areas either.

Then there is the issue of motivation to crack the copyright protection - all it takes is a few p*ssed-off tech-savvy users with enough resources and you end up like Microsoft have with the breaking of their protected .LIT format. Once all your released catalogue gets pushed out illegally into the public domain you start to lose a lot of potential sales, so better try to avoid that problem by a more enlightened approach.

I'm advocating the kind of model that offers excellent value, wide range, good quality and flexibility - like the extremely successful "Gourmet Chinese Buffet" concept, rather than trying to sell "The Ivy" to people who can't afford to eat lunch there every day.

That is exactly my point. If I were a Sony shareholder, I'd be wondering about the effectiveness of their policy. You gain more revenue by having hordes of happy customers making repeat purchases than you do by driving them away with high prices and restrictive controls on the product. The knock-on effect is that if you have customers bad-mouthing you and accusing you of being greedy, it doesn't help your other product areas either.

Sorry - I really don't agree with you that prices are high. The typical price of a book in the Connect store is something like half, or even less, what it would cost me to buy that same paper book here in the UK.

Then there is the issue of motivation to crack the copyright protection - all it takes is a few p*ssed-off tech-savvy users with enough resources and you end up like Microsoft have with the breaking of their protected .LIT format. Once all your released catalogue gets pushed out illegally into the public domain you start to lose a lot of potential sales, so better try to avoid that problem by a more enlightened approach.

I must respectfully disagree with you again. I think you're doing most users an injustice by saying that they will obtain illegal copies of copyrighted material rather than buy it. I still buy music CDs even though I could trivially download the same music from the Internet "free". Why? Because I'm honest, and I believe that most other users are honest too. BTW, one minor point - releasing illegal copies of copyrighted material onto the Internet certainly does not place it into the "public domain". That is a phrase which has a specific legal meaning, and illegally copied material certainly isn't included in it.

I'm advocating the kind of model that offers excellent value, wide range, good quality and flexibility - like the extremely successful "Gourmet Chinese Buffet" concept, rather than trying to sell "The Ivy" to people who can't afford to eat lunch there every day.

I'm afraid I'm not familiar with your examples, but personally I feel that the Connect Store does sell books at reasonable prices. Remember, most of the cost of publishing is not the process of printing the book - it's the work done by the publisher in advance of publication, the cost of which has to be re-couped in the price of the book. I say that as an author. There is a myth that eBooks should somehow be a lot cheaper than printed books. That's simply not true - all the costs other than the relatively minor costs of printing are still there.

HarryT wrote:
Sorry - I really don't agree with you that prices are high. The typical price of a book in the Connect store is something like half, or even less, what it would cost me to buy that same paper book here in the UK.

Harry:

The typical price of a book in the Connect store is within a few percent of what it would cost me to purchase the paper book from Amazon.com or bn.com, including shipping!

Beyond that, I have the example of Baen Books, who have demonstrated that they can make a handy profit on eBooks at about $6.00 per book (for singles) or with bundles of 6-8 books for $15.00 if you purchase the batch of stuff they published in a particular month. And the authors get about the same (or better) royalty payment when compared to a paper sale. And the publisher clears a bit more too. And they're not DRM-crippled either.

I'm NOT going to pay paper-book prices for bits that I won't be able to use in a few years because my reader stops working, or Sony exits the market (or just stops supporting the PRS500). Each of these has happened to me with past reader devices -- they are not straw-man scenarios!


I must respectfully disagree with you again. I think you're doing most users an injustice by saying that they will obtain illegal copies of copyrighted material rather than buy it. I still buy music CDs even though I could trivially download the same music from the Internet "free". Why? Because I'm honest, and I believe that most other users are honest too. BTW, one minor point - releasing illegal copies of copyrighted material onto the Internet certainly does not place it into the "public domain". That is a phrase which has a specific legal meaning, and illegally copied material certainly isn't included in it.

I'm with you on this part, though, especially on the meaning of "public domain" and the willingness of most users to purchase conveniently available, reasonably priced content.

Remember, most of the cost of publishing is not the process of printing the book - it's the work done by the publisher in advance of publication, the cost of which has to be re-couped in the price of the book. I say that as an author. There is a myth that eBooks should somehow be a lot cheaper than printed books. That's simply not true - all the costs other than the relatively minor costs of printing are still there.

I partly agree here. Certainly there are significant editorial costs, as well as proof-reading, copy-editing, and lots of other stuff. On the flip side, these costs are already incurred for the production of the dead-tree edition. In the Baen example above, the eBooks are paying their full share of those costs (amortized over dollar-value-to-Baen of the sales). The costs that are NOT there, however, are the distributor's markup (to cover their overhead and profit) and the retailer's markup (to cover ditto). Baen and Baen's authors do at least as well when you buy bits as they do when you buy dead-tree-in-a-store -- and sometimes a good deal better! And that's at the very reasonable price-points I gave above. With no encryption, no DRM, and no piracy problem.

Given my comparison with purchasing dead-tree editions from Amazon or BN, and my example taken from Baen, I submit that books in the connect store are over priced. And that's for less value due to the DRM, to boot.

Xenophon

In the Baen example above, the eBooks are paying their full share of those costs (amortized over dollar-value-to-Baen of the sales). The costs that are NOT there, however, are the distributor's markup (to cover their overhead and profit) and the retailer's markup (to cover ditto). Baen and Baen's authors do at least as well when you buy bits as they do when you buy dead-tree-in-a-store -- and sometimes a good deal better!

Hm, do you have a source for this info?

Hm, do you have a source for this info?
Jim Baen used to post now and then at Baen's Bar giving semi-specific information about how Webscriptions was doing. I either saw the information there, or in one of Eric Flint's missives on Copyright, DRM, and the like.

A recent guestimate posted by one of Baen's authors (I'm brain-stalling on which one) said that royalties on Webscriptions purchases work out roughly as eArc pays a royalty similar to a hardcover sale; single-book purchase pays similar to large-format paperback; monthly bundle sale similar to paperback purchase. Except that there's a fudge factor in splitting the money from bundle sales between the various authors, so that the guy with the best-seller gets more than the guy whose book went noplace.

If you want better information, go ask in person at baen's bar -- bar.baen.com.

Xenophon

Hm, do you have a source for this info?

Igorsk, I concur with Xenophon. I, too, have seen such statements on the Baen site.

EDIT: However, be careful on the Baen site. I had already finished the purchase for "Off Armageddon Reef" by David Weber before I noticed the price ($18).

I see, thanks!

Igorsk, I concur with Xenophon. I, too, have seen such statements on the Baen site.

EDIT: However, be careful on the Baen site. I had already finished the purchase for "Off Armageddon Reef" by David Weber before I noticed the price ($18).
Do please note that "Off Armageddon Reef" is a Tor book being sold electronically by Baen. As such, the price was set by Tor, not Baen. My comments about pricing certainly don't apply to it. As for the deal on royalties... who knows? I intended my comments on pricing to apply to Baen's books sold through Webscriptions. Books from other publishers may or may not fall under other deals.

Xenophon

Do please note that "Off Armageddon Reef" is a Tor book being sold electronically by Baen. As such, the price was set by Tor, not Baen. My comments about pricing certainly don't apply to it. As for the deal on royalties... who knows? I intended my comments on pricing to apply to Baen's books sold through Webscriptions. Books from other publishers may or may not fall under other deals.

Xenophon


Yeah I know but that EDIT was mor a reminder to me to "Look before I leap" than anything else.

The solution to the problem is to purchase LIT format files. Then use CLIT to strip the DRM. Load it into Book Designer and you can then write out other formats as needed. If I have to pay for an ebook, I'll pay for lit format. And because I did, the ebooks I have purchased pre-sony I can read in my Sony.

It's still a great book, even for $18. How could one not buy a new David Weber? :grin:

I prefer to look at the positives and think that it's good that Tor have finally released an e-book. Now they've done do, if sales go well, hopefully they'll release more at lower prices in the future.

I finally realized that I was going to buy it (and soon), so that broke the choice down for me to two options: 1) pay $26 for a hardback that I have no place to store, and 2) pay $18 for an e-book that I could store, was the format I'd rather read, and which just might encourage Tor to pull out that stick (you know from where) they seem to have about e-books.

Once I thought about it in those terms, it was a pretty easy choice. :nice:

The solution to the problem is to purchase LIT format files. Then use CLIT to strip the DRM. Load it into Book Designer and you can then write out other formats as needed. If I have to pay for an ebook, I'll pay for lit format. And because I did, the ebooks I have purchased pre-sony I can read in my Sony.
Ah, but the 'Load it into Book Designer' step doesn't work for us non-Wintel-using folks.

Of course, all the files I purchased from Baen work just fine on the Reader -- even those I purchased 4 years before I bought the Sony Reader.

Xenophon

True. Nice thing about being able to convert to LRF is that you get the pictures that way - lots of Baen books have maps in them. Unfortunately you lose those if you use the RTF version directly on the Reader.

True. Nice thing about being able to convert to LRF is that you get the pictures that way - lots of Baen books have maps in them. Unfortunately you lose those if you use the RTF version directly on the Reader.
Yes. But see the "html2lrf released - HTML to LRF converter" thread for a solution to that problem. :happy2:

Kovid should have it built into the converter RSN.

sony was thinking that they could just make a reader and everyone would buy it 'cause it had the sony name on it. fat chance since they p****ed off a lot of their market with that root kit thing on the cds. then there was the minidisk bomb in the us and some are still mad about betamaxes.

some are still mad about betamaxes.

To be fair, betamax was technically superior to VHS - it gave a much better picture quality. Sony can hardly be held to blame for the fact that VHS was the eventual "winner" in the market, can they? :grin:

yes, they failed to market it and price it correctly. they acted as if just because it was a sony it would sell for more than a vhs. their fees to other companies were higher than vhs and the movie studios did not like making two versions of the same film. back then it cost a lot more to make a copy than it costs now for a dvd. so yes, sony is the reason that betamax failed. and it was a better picture quality.

The reason VHS beat Betamax is because there was more porn available on VHS then Betamax. Nothing to do with which was better or marketed better. It all came down to porn.

Well, porn plus many of the main-stream movie studios and distributors were coaxed into bringing out all their major pictures on VHS.

Content is king -- whichever technology has the content the public wants will win.

Which is why Sony better work harder to negotiate book deals with more publishers and authors.

Well, porn plus many of the main-stream movie studios and distributors were coaxed into bringing out all their major pictures on VHS.

Content is king -- whichever technology has the content the public wants will win.
Well, Sony, your solution is clear: You have a reader that handles images, and you need King Content to win. GO FOR THE PORN! :D

Better get that color screen, too...

Well, Sony, your solution is clear: You have a reader that handles images, and you need King Content to win. GO FOR THE PORN! :D

Better get that color screen, too...
:laugh:

But ... how would they manage the time-honored belly-button staple? :laugh4: