12-18-2008, 08:53 PM | #1 |
You kids get off my lawn!
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Sony Reader being marketed on Dear Author
I looked around and didn't see this posted already. Hope it's not a duplicate.
DearAuthor.com is a (mostly romance) book review and discussion site with a large and vocal group of regular visitors. Sony has donated Sony Readers for all the Dear Author reviewers! They've also donated three additional Readers for the Dear Author folks to offer for contest giveaways. Jane at Dear Author is a big advocate for ebooks (and reading, in general). I thought this was exciting, since I love my Sony, but have wondered if they had any chance against Amazon's aggressive marketing strategy. You can read about it here. |
12-18-2008, 09:06 PM | #2 |
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I think I've said this before on here, but Sony sold me when they had this big banner in the Port Authority (NYC) that said:
"Read hundreds of romance novels...and no one will see the cover." *sigh* they get me |
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12-19-2008, 09:48 AM | #3 |
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It's very exciting for us at Dear Author, obviously, but I think it makes sense because Sony definitely needs more penetration onto the reading blogs where people congregate and talk about reading. I did see demonstrators at the Denver airport last week showing the Sony Reader and I understand that there are more of these teams around the country at populated places where travelers are.
I will have an old Sony Reader and I'm thinking of sending it on tour to blog readers because I feel like once someone has the opportunity to use it, they will fall in love with ebook reading, maybe not the Sony Reader, but ebook reading in general. |
12-19-2008, 12:23 PM | #4 |
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I was happy to see the news as well.
Also because I love me my Sony, and I think it helps balance Sarah at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, and her love of the Kindle-Aid. Give me Sony-Aid any day. |
12-19-2008, 01:48 PM | #5 |
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The marketing of the Sony reader compared to the Kindle seems to be a tortoise and hare situation. I have video reviews of both the Sony 505 and the Kindle posted on YouTube, and the Sony review has been getting way more traffic. About 2,800 views for the Sony compared to about 1,100 for the Kindle. Some of this likely results from the plethora of reviews already available on Amazon, but since the Kindle tumbled into back order land during the holidays (last I knew), my Sony review has really started getting traffic again. Plus I am getting more comments and questions on the review, so people appear to be interested in the Sony.
It looks like Sony is doing mostly low key ground level marketing and Amazon is doing the old school Big Media marketing for Kindle. Sony is making up for some lost ground right now simply by being available. Plus it is slighly lower cost, accepts more formats, and is not limited to the U.S. Although I'm a Sony user, I was considering getting my husband a Kindle for Christmas so we'd have both kinds, but then I heard they were on back order, so Sony totally got my business. I think Sony has a chance against Kindle. There's room for more than one device in the world. |
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12-23-2008, 11:55 AM | #6 |
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I don't see it as an "us versus them" situation. I want to see all the ebook readers succeed so that ebooks succeed.
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12-23-2008, 12:04 PM | #7 |
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12-23-2008, 01:38 PM | #8 | |
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Quote:
I think people do consider upfront cost. But in the long run the kindle is cheaper. It only takes about 8 best sellers to break even with the sony, for the kind of books I buy it only takes 2-3 books. =X= |
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12-23-2008, 06:12 PM | #9 |
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And, since the Dear Author site is aimed at the reader of romance novels, I would think that they would want to put some pressure on Harlequin books (www.eharlequin.com) to add the Sony format to their site. "The eBook Store links to three free readers: Adobe, Microsoft and Mobipocket. We sell eBooks in each of these three formats." So, the only format from one of the most prolific publishers of romance books that can be read on the Sony reader is PDF. And, there's that the PDF pages are not formatted for the small screen of the Sony reader.
I did note that one of the reviewers posted instructions for using Convertlit to convert non-secured LIT files to HTML. Some of the comments mention using Calibre or the Amber ABC program and one commenter suggested that if anyone ran into problems, come to MobileRead. The likelihood, however, is that the majority of recently-published romance novels will be in a secured format. |
12-24-2008, 04:22 PM | #10 |
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Wow, that's neat, Jane!
How can we go about talking them into offering the folks over at TeleRead a similar deal? |
12-24-2008, 09:49 PM | #11 | |
You kids get off my lawn!
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Quote:
But yeah, I wish they'd expand their format offerings too. |
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12-25-2008, 05:18 AM | #12 | |
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12-25-2008, 05:20 AM | #13 | |
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Quote:
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12-25-2008, 07:52 PM | #14 |
You kids get off my lawn!
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12-26-2008, 04:32 AM | #15 |
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I certainly was!
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