Quote:
Originally Posted by Toxaris
I am apparently one of those 'old farts' that use an e-Ink device. I think as a reading device it is far superior to a tablet. For example it is not as heavy, very easy on the battery and I can read it in the sun without trouble. No light source (only if I want it), so also easier on the eyes. A tablet has several use cases, being a book reader is not one of them for me.
Now, I don't use a Kindle, but that is because Amazon is a very marginal player over here. The vast majority is ePUB. Same story though.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Trane
So what to proprietary formats? [...] Proprietary formats that undermine international standards work against that, and there is only one reason for it.
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I hate proprietary formats, but KF8 isn't that bad... it is pretty much an EPUB.
In some cases they even support HTML5+CSS3/EPUB3 functions better than many EPUB3 readers!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hitch
I deal with the same type of questions, tech issues, user issues, etc., all day, that they do, and I know full well what that COSTS, in terms of real capital outlay. (FYI: unpaid tech support, answering questions like, "How do I download a file from a browser," "I can't find my downloaded file," "I don't know how to open this MOBI/ePUB file," etc. is the SECOND largest expense category in my business, coming in a very close second--2nd--to what I pay my bookmakers to build the books. If I didn't have to provide it, that would make a VERY nice living for someone or be very nice profits in my pocket. I am 100% sure that Amazon's costs on this are even greater, percentage-wise, than mine, simply because I've seen the questions on the forums, etc. I must see "how do I make a TOC in Word" about 100x a week.)
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It really is horrifying when you see how bad these questions are. And then soul sucking when you see how often you get them. No matter how many times you answer, the next day, you get the same question. You have to imagine how some of these people are even able to click using a mouse and type using a keyboard!
But absolutely fantastic Tools + Customer Support is one of the main reasons why Amazon is beating the pants off of the competition.
- Supporting/Updating their devices (not throwing them down the drain like B&N/Apple)
- Making it easy as pie to purchase books
- Single button press on your device/browser and magically teleports to ALL your devices
- More purchased books means happier customers/authors/publishers.
- Fantastic Customer Support
- As Hitch mentioned, what a giant pain in the neck it is to even GET A RESPONSE from some of these companies
- Tools that are so "dumbed down" that your grandma can use them
- Plop in your Word file, pops out a (decent) ebook.
- You can even take your EXISTING ebook files and do minor tweaks to them instead of having to scrap the entire thing and redo all your work (iBooks Author).
- Larger % royalties.
- Probably because they are very efficient at those other steps + allowing you to cut out a lot of the middlemen.
- As an author, larger % royalty means you can lower the book prices and still make similar amounts of money. Customers love this as well.
- Massive amounts of telemetry
- Amazon can invent completely new markets that previously didn't exist (pay-per-page).