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RWood · 05-25-2007, 06:40 PM

None of us can speak for Sony so what we say in response to your questions is, at best, our views alone.

Many of the books available in other formats on other sites for other readers have been produced over a number of years. Some of them may have sold well at the time they were produced and now just remain in the catalog since the cost to keep them around is very low. Sony and the BBeB format is quite new compared to the PDB, MOBI, or LIT format. The PDB (for Palm) is almost unformatted and most of what I have seen is in it is little more than a text file. These are very quick and easy to produce. The BBeB for the Sony Reader is far more complex and difficult to produce and many publishers may be reluctant to spend money for poor selling back catalog items that may not show good sales potential. Of current releases since the Sony Reader has been introduced to the US market, the CONNECT store has a very good selection. Not as extensive as Amazon has in paper versions but equal to most other ebook vendors.

Sony has recently introduced a line of low priced classics that start to fill the gap between the current releases and the books available at MobileRead, Gutenberg, FeedBooks, Munsey's, or ManyBooks.

Sony makes money (the reason they are in business) by selling the Reader and by selling ebooks for the Reader. As I have said elsewhere, I do not think that adding additional DRM formats to the Reader is in the future plans for Sony as this will remove a future income stream from them. The current BBeB DRM is a passive scheme that registers a Reader to an account and restricts the DRM ebook to a single account. Since most other DRM ebook schemes rely on either the credit card number of the user or a password, these would not work on the Sony Reader as it has no user input ability.

Sony is currently selling the Reader in the US only and (although I am not sure where you are) they may have rights for the US distribution only. We do not know any more about this part of Sony's operation. They seem to have plans for introducing the Reader in Canada from the rumors we have heard and perhaps next year to the UK and even other parts of the EU. Since they already have some books by Australian writers that market may also be in their plans. Given Sony's past support of their products I feel that there is an excellent chance that the Reader will be supported for many years to come.

I do not know and you do not state what you like to read. Many here have found satisfaction with the classics or with the great DRM free SciFi offerings from Baen or Steve Jordan. Munsey's pulp and Asian collections are wonderful. A lot is also available in HTML that can be quickly converted to LRF for the Sony Reader through such programs as HTML2LRF of BookDesigner.

I find that I have more selection for what to read than I have ever had before. There is more available for the Sony Reader today than I even dreamed about when I bought mine.

05-25-2007, 06:40 PM	#2
RWood Technogeezer Posts: 7,233 Karma: 1601464 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Virginia, USA Device: Sony PRS-500	None of us can speak for Sony so what we say in response to your questions is, at best, our views alone. Many of the books available in other formats on other sites for other readers have been produced over a number of years. Some of them may have sold well at the time they were produced and now just remain in the catalog since the cost to keep them around is very low. Sony and the BBeB format is quite new compared to the PDB, MOBI, or LIT format. The PDB (for Palm) is almost unformatted and most of what I have seen is in it is little more than a text file. These are very quick and easy to produce. The BBeB for the Sony Reader is far more complex and difficult to produce and many publishers may be reluctant to spend money for poor selling back catalog items that may not show good sales potential. Of current releases since the Sony Reader has been introduced to the US market, the CONNECT store has a very good selection. Not as extensive as Amazon has in paper versions but equal to most other ebook vendors. Sony has recently introduced a line of low priced classics that start to fill the gap between the current releases and the books available at MobileRead, Gutenberg, FeedBooks, Munsey's, or ManyBooks. Sony makes money (the reason they are in business) by selling the Reader and by selling ebooks for the Reader. As I have said elsewhere, I do not think that adding additional DRM formats to the Reader is in the future plans for Sony as this will remove a future income stream from them. The current BBeB DRM is a passive scheme that registers a Reader to an account and restricts the DRM ebook to a single account. Since most other DRM ebook schemes rely on either the credit card number of the user or a password, these would not work on the Sony Reader as it has no user input ability. Sony is currently selling the Reader in the US only and (although I am not sure where you are) they may have rights for the US distribution only. We do not know any more about this part of Sony's operation. They seem to have plans for introducing the Reader in Canada from the rumors we have heard and perhaps next year to the UK and even other parts of the EU. Since they already have some books by Australian writers that market may also be in their plans. Given Sony's past support of their products I feel that there is an excellent chance that the Reader will be supported for many years to come. I do not know and you do not state what you like to read. Many here have found satisfaction with the classics or with the great DRM free SciFi offerings from Baen or Steve Jordan. Munsey's pulp and Asian collections are wonderful. A lot is also available in HTML that can be quickly converted to LRF for the Sony Reader through such programs as HTML2LRF of BookDesigner. I find that I have more selection for what to read than I have ever had before. There is more available for the Sony Reader today than I even dreamed about when I bought mine.