Can JK Rowling bring on e-book standardization?

[stonetools]

Wow, the battle of the format geeks continues apace!! Hey, guys keep going- the most important thing about the Pottermore venture really is whether Hagrid's letter can be rendered in a handwriting-like font!!

[ApK]

Originally Posted by stonetools

Wow, the battle of the format geeks continues apace!! Hey, guys keep going- the most important thing about the Pottermore venture really is whether Hagrid's letter can be rendered in a handwriting-like font!!

Perhaps take a look at the title of the thread. Try to stay on topic.

[CleverClothe]

Originally Posted by ApK

And Amazon COULD sell their DRM to anyone, but neither thing is happening, so same same.
They both have some degree of locking potential, and no users seem to care either way. Same same.

The only PRACTICAL difference is you and those like you seem to like one and dislike the other.

One is actually happening (B&N and Adobe working together), the other shows no signs of happening. What is your point? Throw out all the theoretical alternative futures you want, it doesn't change the present.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

80% of e-books are sold in the US. Of the 10% sold in Europe, most are sold in the UK, where the Kindle is even more dominant than it is in the US.

Again, wrong. So why are you bothering to try to tell me that AZW/Mobipocket is #1 world wide. It's not. It's ePub.

[CleverClothe]

Originally Posted by ApK

Heck, this is a bunch who considers two or three ADE/epub stores to represent a "everyone else in the world" aside from Amazon, representing a world standard, so apparently even a teensy bit of data should be adequate evidence for them.

That is an easily falsifiable statement. How about providing some facts instead of wild accusations.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by CleverClothe

One is actually happening (B&N and Adobe working together), the other shows no signs of happening. What is your point? Throw out all the theoretical alternative futures you want, it doesn't change the present.

The theoretical alternative future is any significant number of customers actually getting any more than momentarily inconvenienced by vendor lock in from Amazon OR B&N. Let me know when that happens. Till then it's a non issue. See the dozen other threads on the topic.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

You may be projecting.

This is pretty well-known if you follow global e-book sales at all. http://dhdeans.blogspot.com/2011/02/...ew-by-200.html

That article only speaks of the US. That in no way is global. There are more readers sold outside that us that support ePub then Kindles. So given all the readers world wide that support ePub, that would make ePub the format.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ApK

The theoretical alternative future is any significant number of customers actually getting any more than momentarily inconvenienced by vendor lock in from Amazon OR B&N. Let me know when that happens. Till then it's a non issue. See the dozen other threads on the topic.

You don't have to be vendor locked in with a nook. The solution is to not buy DRMed eBooks from B&N.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by CleverClothe

That is an easily falsifiable statement. How about providing some facts instead of wild accusations.

Oh, please, take a minute and search every other thread on this topic. The anti-Amazon set refers to B&N, Sony, Kobo and Google as "everyone else."


Even if we limit the discussion general mass market bookstores, their combined market share doesn't yet equal Amazon, so if anything, Amazon has the "world standard" and those four little ADEPT/epub guys are the odd men out.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

You don't have to be vendor locked in with a nook. The solution is to not buy DRMed eBooks from B&N.

You don't HAVE to have vendor lock in with anything.

And even if you don't take measures to avoid it, be those measure shopping off the device and learning to side load as you suggest for the nook, or stripping DRM, I am still not aware of anyone actually suffering from lock in.

Even if we assume for the sake of argument that "most" Kindle users don't have the ability technically avoid lock in, they do it practically, by simply having no reason to leave the Kindle environment.

What will happen to them in the future? There's that unknown future again...I predict it will never be an issue.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ApK

Oh, please, take a minute and search every other thread on this topic. The anti-Amazon set refers to B&N, Sony, Kobo and Google as "everyone else."


Even if we limit the discussion general mass market bookstores, their combined market share doesn't yet equal Amazon, so if anything, Amazon has the "world standard" and those four little ADEPT/epub guys are the odd men out.

Wake up and see that all you are doing is looking just inside the US. If you took into account the entire world, you would see that ePub is the format outside the US. That combined with the US makes ePub overall the #1 format. Why do you persist in thinking eBooks don't exist outside the US?

Everyone else is the entire world that's not Amazon.

[kjk]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Wake up and see that all you are doing is looking just inside the US. If you took into account the entire world, you would see that ePub is the format outside the US. That combined with the US makes ePub overall the #1 format.

What I find fascinating about this debate about formats is really how little hard data exists about eBooks: sales/downloads of the eBooks themselves, sales by format, and sales by hardware device. There is only one company that even consistently reports actual hardware device sales and downloads-and they aren't even considered a major player by many. The other numbers tend to be from 3rd party analysts, or suppliers who can only say what has been shipped, not sold.

I think it is very difficult come to any definitive conclusions about the whole industry right now. I wonder if the industry (read: Amazon, B&N, and Sony, for starters) will ever open up and actually report sales at some point.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

If you took into account the entire world, you would see that ePub is the format outside the US. That combined with the US makes ePub overall the #1 format

I let myself get sidetracked (again) on the whole DRM/vendor lock-in non-issue. It's not really related to format and off topic, i realize.

But back to formats...
On what are you basing the claim the epub is #1 worldwide?
I don't think there is any evidence of it in terms of sales or market share, and in terms of pure distributions, most of the largest non-drm sources offer epub AND mobi so I can't see any clear indication that epub is number one.

So other than your say so...anything?

Lastly, I'll remind the room that I'd prefer that Kindle supported epub. I like universal interoperability.
I remind you of my master plan.

[CleverClothe]

Originally Posted by ApK

Oh, please, take a minute and search every other thread on this topic. The anti-Amazon set refers to B&N, Sony, Kobo and Google as "everyone else."


Even if we limit the discussion general mass market bookstores, their combined market share doesn't yet equal Amazon, so if anything, Amazon has the "world standard" and those four little ADEPT/epub guys are the odd men out.

Ah, you are still dodging the question.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by CleverClothe

You have a very strange definition of standard. Anyone can use the latest Adobe Reader SDK and support B&N books.

And yet, they don't.
So again, I say: "By %age of books sold, an overwhelming proportion of the market do not use standard Adept DRM. Even excluding Amazon and sticking just to ePub books, this is still true."
(Limited to English-speaking countries, in deference to the good point made elsewhere in the thread.)