MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Essay: The Future of E-Books

peterg22 · 11-10-2004, 06:08 AM

I have to admit that I'm a very big fan of e-books. I currently have a "queue" of about 12 books waiting to be read, and I invariably read these on the train going to and from work. I should mention right now that these are nearly all from Project Gutenberg and similar libraries and they're all free. I've also paid for short story e-books on Memoware and have enjoyed these immensely. I'm happy with the situation. My weapon of choice is Plucker, which is a very good application indeed.

So what's the barrier to wider acceptance and use of e-books ? To my mind it's partly the cost of the hardware, but this is becoming less of an issue, especially as I'm now able to read some of Chairman Mao's "On New Democracy" on my Nokia 6600 thanks to Handybook/the PDB format. Definitely a step in the right direction and potentially one less device to carry.

The bigger issue though is the plethora of file formats. There are just way too many. Also I find it really annoying that many publishers are choosing PDF format: this is fine on a laptop, but on my Sony Clie TJ37 that means I invariably have to use Picsel. This is a handy tool to have but I find it impractical to read a book with. Quite apart from having to scroll and resize it's just not the right thing to use.

I feel that if the number of formats could be reduced, perhaps combining the best features of many into one, then we'd stand a better chance of having more e-books. With a clearly-defined format to work from, manufacturers of hand-held/mobile devices might be able to bundle reader software in with their devices and this would benefit everyone.

11-10-2004, 06:08 AM	#2
peterg22 Mobile Advocate Posts: 3 Karma: 10 Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Alton, Hampshire, UK Device: Sony Clie TJ37,Nokia 6600	What's the barrier ? I have to admit that I'm a very big fan of e-books. I currently have a "queue" of about 12 books waiting to be read, and I invariably read these on the train going to and from work. I should mention right now that these are nearly all from Project Gutenberg and similar libraries and they're all free. I've also paid for short story e-books on Memoware and have enjoyed these immensely. I'm happy with the situation. My weapon of choice is Plucker, which is a very good application indeed. So what's the barrier to wider acceptance and use of e-books ? To my mind it's partly the cost of the hardware, but this is becoming less of an issue, especially as I'm now able to read some of Chairman Mao's "On New Democracy" on my Nokia 6600 thanks to Handybook/the PDB format. Definitely a step in the right direction and potentially one less device to carry. The bigger issue though is the plethora of file formats. There are just way too many. Also I find it really annoying that many publishers are choosing PDF format: this is fine on a laptop, but on my Sony Clie TJ37 that means I invariably have to use Picsel. This is a handy tool to have but I find it impractical to read a book with. Quite apart from having to scroll and resize it's just not the right thing to use. I feel that if the number of formats could be reduced, perhaps combining the best features of many into one, then we'd stand a better chance of having more e-books. With a clearly-defined format to work from, manufacturers of hand-held/mobile devices might be able to bundle reader software in with their devices and this would benefit everyone.