Sent to
service@sfbc.com:
Quote:
Hi folks,
I was an SFBC member for years, but I haven't been a member for a while now. The main reason is that all your books are hardcovers, which take up a lot of space. After a while, I found I was reading hardcovers in libraries or waiting for paperbacks, rather than filling my house with Club versions of the latest books by my favorite authors.
However, there are new alternative ways to enjoy books. In particular, please see the iLiad eBook reader at http://www.irextechnologies.com/ - it has the new EInk display, which reads enough like paper to be comfortable on the eyes, but can hold dozens of books at a time in one small package. See http://www.eink.com/ for more info. (Amazon is also coming out with an EInk device, which I assume will support the Mobipocket format, and Sony has already started shipping the Reader, though they only support their own proprietary DRM format.)
I'd sign up again right away if SFBC could support books in a format readable by a device like this. The company making the iLiad, iRex, doesn't sell content itself but is apparently trying to work out DRM arrangements with other content vendors. Hopefully the format chosen would also be one that could be read on a PC or Macintosh, for those who don't want to invest in a separate reader. It seems to me that many other SFBC members, being comfortable and familiar with technology, might also like this method of subscription. Reciving new books could be as easy as subscribing to a podcast. And it would drastically lower printing and delivery costs for the Club. I hope this is something the Club can consider in the near future.
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I should also have pointed them to BAEN, but I didn't have the details on that great service at the time. I considered writing an old-fashioned letter-- you know, the kind on wood pulp-- but I decided that would be counter to my point. No response yet (and there may never be), but I figured it was worth an attempt. If others are interested in getting books this way, please follow up with your own letters. And if you think you don't care about this because you don't read SF, please see
http://booksonline.com/ - they have a club for everyone, I think.
The SF market may be the easiest to break into because we're a bunch of geeks already, always up for something new. But if we can prove that this is a working model with the SFBC, the rest of these clubs could easily follow.
(And for the record, I hate DRM as much as anyone, and if my books are only available in DRM format, I'm likely to take steps to make accessable archives for my own purposes, and never mind which country I'm in. But we've got to start somewhere if we're going to get eBooks in volume this century. Maybe after we actually
have some eBooks, and publishers view us as a valuable revenue stream, we can talk about forcing publishers to open up the DRM model. Right now we have no leverage. They'e perfectly happy selling dead trees, and other than a few very popular examples like the Harry Potter books, the pirate process isn't going to be fast enough or consistent enough to pose much of a perceived threat to paper sales.)
Anyway, that's my bit of activism for the moment. Back to writing (working on a book for teachers on how to use learning games in language classrooms -- it'll be published in open PDF).
neko