08-02-2011, 04:54 AM | #1 |
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why the fuss over epub?
i've tried to find some large repositories of epub and drawn a blank.
why are people so keen on this format when it seems so scarce online? |
08-02-2011, 05:06 AM | #2 | |
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Quote:
http://www.kobobooks.com/ http://ebookstore.sony.com/ Pretty much everybody in the US except Amazon sell in ePub format, they don't bother mentioning it because it is so common. |
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08-02-2011, 05:08 AM | #3 |
monkey on the fringe
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What kind of ePub are you looking for? It's all over the place. There's DRM stuff and non-DRM stuff; free stuff and paid stuff; old stuff and new stuff.
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08-02-2011, 07:33 AM | #4 |
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It's also worth mentioning, in case you haven't read some of the other threads, that there are rumors floating around about Amazon changing to the ePub format as well. To my knowledge, these rumors began spreading around after some authors or puplishers were contacted and asked by Amazon to send their books in ePub format.
But there's very little, if not none, information about this yet. |
08-02-2011, 11:36 AM | #5 |
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Why the fuss? Because some people are bound and determined that everyone should know that the ebook format they have chosen is the best.
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08-02-2011, 11:52 AM | #6 |
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08-02-2011, 12:42 PM | #7 |
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08-02-2011, 12:49 PM | #8 |
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drm
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08-02-2011, 12:53 PM | #9 |
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We are so keen on this format because it is open, meaning that it is standard, meaning that anyone can easily make an ebook, meaning that the information can more readily flow.
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08-02-2011, 01:14 PM | #10 | |
Nameless Being
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Quote:
@max99, The ePub format is more versatile and certainly renders better in some cases. Even though ePub is used my almost all the reader manufacturers and stores other than Amazon, Amazon still sells appx. 67% of the eBooks in the USA market. You don't have to be a math wizard to see that that means more books are sold in mobi (or Amazon's version of mobi) than in ePub in the USA market. (I'm not sure about the world-wide market. I suspect ePub does much better there.) Last edited by jswinden; 08-02-2011 at 01:17 PM. |
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08-02-2011, 04:53 PM | #11 |
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08-02-2011, 05:15 PM | #12 |
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Other than a set of people who like to nitpick over the technical differences - most digital book buyers really don't care that much about format as long as their books load nicely and are readable.
ePub isn't really the issue. The issue is standardization such as the often asked question "Can I put the my Kindle books on a Sony Reader" (or whatever iteration of that you can imagine). All these different formats and different DRM schemes hamper buyers. It's a little like if the food industry forced you into choosing a kind of dinnerware and then being required to shop only at the grocery store that supplies the food for that kind of plate. Customers like having options. They like knowing that the files they buy today will be readable on the device they own 2 years from now. They like having the choice of shopping at whatever store pleases them the most at that moment. Suppliers on the other hand - like locking their customers in to their own store environment and putting up barriers to switching. So ... that's the debate. |
08-02-2011, 11:30 PM | #13 |
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I've long been curious if epub is even any better. Are there any particular features in epub that mobi doesn't have?
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08-02-2011, 11:44 PM | #14 |
Captain Penguin
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Mobi is based on HTML3, whereas ePub is based on HTML4, which supports CSS, so allows for richer formatting. Among other features, ePub supports drop caps, embedded fonts and pictures with text that flow around them, to name but a few.
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08-03-2011, 11:31 AM | #15 |
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I am quite sure they will introduce Epub with kindle 4.
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