Quote:
Originally Posted by Bob Russell
This is great news! I have bought eReader books in the past, and have continued to buy them occasionally, but it seemed like it was a dying format. This gives me more hope for the future. We'll see what Fictionwise can do, but of course making existing purchases available in new formats probably requires approval by the publisher... good luck.
One big question now because what happens to the eReader software... will it continue to be updated? Maybe get "real" development work now? Maybe get ignored? The new free version - will it stay free? So many things that will be interesting to find out!
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eReader had lagged badly in updating the reader. After Palm sold the then Palm Digital Media division to Motricity who renamed it eReader, they released an updated version of the old PalmReader application that was essentially cosmetic: a prettier interface but no real change in underlying functionality. The enhanced "Pro" version added support for dictionaries and fonts, but the guts of the reader stayed the same, and the freeware and shareware versions were the same program. Paying a registration fee got an unlock code that would permanently enable the Pro features. The earlier PalmReader product provided as freeware with may Palm OS devices still reads current ereader content.
And the GUI content creator was a shareware product. Freeware versions existed, but were tools requiring more expertise to use and unsupported.
Mobi after Amazon bought them made the reader and the creator freeware to encourage people to create and read Mobi content.
This was part of eReader's problem as an ebook publisher. Mobi runs on a lot more more devices, and if you want to offer electronic content, you want the broadest possible market. Why submit titles to eReader when Mobi is out there? People weren't, and eReader's catalog was lagging badly.
I suspect Fictionwise bought eReader to
get the catalog, and I'd be surprised if they weren't busy talking to publishers about converting eReader content to the other formats they support. That
should be a no-brainer "Yes" decision for publishers, who want to sell ebooks to the largest possible market. We'll see.
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Dennis