Quote:
Originally Posted by DixieGal
One thing that could help our cause would be a standard universal format. Mobi, eReader, LRF, whatever, as long as it is one unified format.
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I don't think that matters much. Lack of DRM matters, so that people who want to can convert books... but right now, some books are not available in paperback; some books are never published in hardcover; some books are never translated from their original language. Some books are graphic novels, printed in color. And publishers (and readers) don't demand a single, universal format for all print books--there's an acknowledgment that some types of content are better suited for one format or another, and some types convert well across several formats.
A universal format isn't what's stopping publishers; they're just terrified of not correctly identifying the format their target demographic uses. Technophobia... they don't even know how to frame the questions to start the research to find out which format is better-suited for their books.
They're very much not used to thinking about "what tech devices do our customers have & use?" Book publishers (I believe) don't research their customers' choice of lamps or mass transit use to decide which books should be hardcover or paperback; they're not expecting to think about "do we market this to a business commuter crowd reading on PDAs, or a leisure crowd with dedicated ebook readers? Or students reading on laptops? Do they use Windows or MacOS or Linux?"
It's not that these are impossible questions or that companies can't find their customers' demographics--software companies ask these questions all the time. It's that book publishers have believed--and until recently, it's been true--that the technology level & methods of their customers was fairly irrelevant to them. And they want it to continue that way.