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Originally Posted by seajewel
With all due respect.. I didn't say we have a worldwide standard in epub. and I'm not asking for uniform formatting in epubs. I get that you're frustrated that different readers display things differently or don't give us enough customization, etc. There is the problem that Nook uses a different DRM system as well. But when it comes down to it, I was clearly complaining about the fact that I can't buy an Amazon book and load it onto my Sony Reader. Of course as pointed out before this is true of epub on Kindle as well, but for the most part the major ebook sellers other than Amazon appear to me to have adopted epub. This means that the holdout is Amazon, not epub-using companies. If Amazon went with epub, then we would have at least, a fairly world-wide standard format.
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When I think about how if Amazon didn't go the way it did, epub would likely be the worldwide standard, and we could buy books at any store and use them on any of our readers.. it really makes me a little sad.
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My response was simply this: that we don't have a world-wide ePUB standard NOW that is being respected by the retailers. I don't think Amazon has anything to do with that. In fact, at least Amazon picked a format (bought a format, whatever)
that is designed to deliver text--not the next flashy-thingie. It's become increasingly clear that the larger retailers are deliberately veering away from the standard(s) of ePUB in an attempt to force users to read THEIR books on THEIR platforms. B&N doesn't want you reading NookBooks on your iPad or Smartphone, and (to a much lesser extent, because Apple doesn't give a rat's ass what you do once you've bought their device[s]), Apple knows that its so-called "enhanced ePubs" (those mutant cross-bred ePUBs with video and audio) can't be used on other platforms.
The fact that the retailers have, to my eye, very deliberately introduced "quirks" (to put it politely) that render the books less-enjoyable on other devices is no accident. The idea that ePUB will ever be a "worldwide standard" to which Apple or the others will adhere is, as I said, wishful thinking. I understand what you're saying; you can put up with the formatting quirks as you move from one device to the other...but my point was that those "quirks" will become an ever-widening gap (and have, increasingly, over the past year alone) until they essentially become proprietary-ish ("Apple ePUB" "Nook ePUB" "Sony WHATEVER").
Most authors, whether DIY or pay-for-play, generally find a way to put their books up on some type of ePUB platform, whether it is NOOK's PubIt!, or Smashwords. It's not a perfect solution, but generally speaking, you can find a lot of books that are available on Amazon elsewhere in other formats. If you can't, I strenuously recommend that you write the author (...and then send them to ME!!!,
bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha).
Seriously, though--when we make a book, we make it in both formats (and sometimes, as mentioned, 3, or even 4), so that the author can reach out across format lines and make their books available. Many don't avail themselves of the publishing opportunites for ePUB,
not due to formatting issues, per se, but because getting their ePUBs on platforms other than Nook (Barnes & Noble) is a nightmare. To get on Diesel, Kobo (alleged to be changing at year's end), Apple, Books on Board, etc., generally requires a publisher or a distributor; they don't take single-book authors or self-pubbing or Indy Authors. Not to mention needing a $125 ISBN (here in the US). UK and CAN authors can't publish to Nook, because they don't have social security numbers and US bank accounts.
So their alternative is to a) buy an ISBN and b) use the services of a distributor, which at the cheapest is $50 plus 5% of the ups. If you can't find a book you want on your device/platform/retailer, I'd recommend that you investigate their distro and intake practices, and email THEM to accept self-published authors, because that's where Amazon rewrote the book, regardless of format; making worldwide distribution REAL for the self-published author on a platform that had millions upon milions of visitors, unlike SW.
Just my $.02, and worth what you paid for it.