If you think that pdf is the really, really bad format for an e-book wait till you see this:
http://www.harpercollins.ca/invisiblearmies/

HarperCollin has published a new fast-paced thriller by
Jon Evans "Invisible Armies" and is making it available online for your
... aehm ... Pleasure.

Yes. There *IS* a catch.

You will not be able to read this book on any portable ebook reader. Forget about your PRS, Kindle, cybook, Illiad and position yourself in front of your big monitor.
You wil not be able to read this book offline.
You will not be able to read this book on systems without the latest flash installed.

The book is displayed using an incredibly *awfull* flash reading application.
In single pages. You have to click on a stupid navigation button to see the next page. The page can not be reformated, the font size can not be adjusted.
... and for those that grumble about the page turning experience on e-ink readers, just try this little gem. You click on the "next page" button and the text "Loading" and a kind of progressbar appers and you just patiently wait until the next page sloooooowly downloades to the reader flash application.

Sigh.

I very much hope that this is NOT how the future digital publishing is going to work.

This is the second time they've done this-- they tried it with Neil Gaiman's "American Gods." It's easily the worst format I've ever seen.

Technically, this isn't an ebook, and they don't say it is. This is HarperCollins' 'Browse Inside' flash-based widget, which is their answer to Amazon's Look Inside. You're not supposed to download and read elsewhere, you're supposed to be trapped on their site, and as stupid and ridiculous as this sounds to the rest of us, it is what HC intended it to be.

They use the same system across all their sites, including the US and the UK (although you'll have a hard time tracking down examples on the UK site). Their new UK site is truly awful. If you want a laugh, check out the tags on this page:

http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/Content/Title/Default.aspx?id=38093

ridiculous format

How long is the book ?

Iphone version of Browse inside is at mobile.harpercollins.com (http://mobile.harpercollins.com) Granted its not the whole books or this particular one, only the first couple chapters, but it would be readable, you can zoom and landscape.

I thought it was fairly neat.