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rupescissa · 08-14-2007, 04:39 PM

nekokami, in a thought experiment, the sceptic's role is to press the experiment and check the thought for weak spots, not to propose alternatives. (It's good to be the sceptic!)

My argument here is 1.) that the analogy that compares the e-book market to early tv is not a good one; 2.) that advertising and book-reading don't go together; 3.) that it is wishful thinking to believe that advertisers could ever somehow force book publishers--who do not now rely on advertising revenue--to come to terms on the confused mess that is e-book publishing. To imply that my arguments are invalid because I do not make alternative proposals is not a refutation.

Authors can continue to get paid in the usual way: by having books printed and sold. Authors are in no danger just because the e-book market is virtually non-existent. E-book readers, of which I am one, are mainly enthusiasts and hobbyists, or people who travel a lot, or people who live away from their home countries and desire convenient access to familiar reading material. Outside of those niche markets there is virtually no clamor for e-books.

I think the future growth of the e-book market depends on the ability of book publishers and e-book manufacturers to better identify exactly which segments of the reading public they want to reach. The term "books" covers a lot of territory. Do publishers want to sell fiction/journalism/how-to bestsellers, text books, comics, scholarly works, art books? Each type of book has different characteristics, and works best presented in a different type of format. (For example the Sony PRS-500 is useless for reading footnoted material.) Just saying "I want" this and that and quibbling about where the page-advance buttons are located isn't going to create a market. There isn't going to be a killer app. No iPod-analog is going to save the day. This is way bigger than the file format question.

Books are one of the oldest media and have developed an enormously complex variety of types and uses and users. Just because they all have covers, pages and spines doesn't mean they're all alike. One size ain't gonna fit all.

08-14-2007, 04:39 PM	#46
rupescissa Rupescissa Posts: 5 Karma: 244 Join Date: Jun 2007 Device: Nokia 770	nekokami, in a thought experiment, the sceptic's role is to press the experiment and check the thought for weak spots, not to propose alternatives. (It's good to be the sceptic!) My argument here is 1.) that the analogy that compares the e-book market to early tv is not a good one; 2.) that advertising and book-reading don't go together; 3.) that it is wishful thinking to believe that advertisers could ever somehow force book publishers--who do not now rely on advertising revenue--to come to terms on the confused mess that is e-book publishing. To imply that my arguments are invalid because I do not make alternative proposals is not a refutation. Authors can continue to get paid in the usual way: by having books printed and sold. Authors are in no danger just because the e-book market is virtually non-existent. E-book readers, of which I am one, are mainly enthusiasts and hobbyists, or people who travel a lot, or people who live away from their home countries and desire convenient access to familiar reading material. Outside of those niche markets there is virtually no clamor for e-books. I think the future growth of the e-book market depends on the ability of book publishers and e-book manufacturers to better identify exactly which segments of the reading public they want to reach. The term "books" covers a lot of territory. Do publishers want to sell fiction/journalism/how-to bestsellers, text books, comics, scholarly works, art books? Each type of book has different characteristics, and works best presented in a different type of format. (For example the Sony PRS-500 is useless for reading footnoted material.) Just saying "I want" this and that and quibbling about where the page-advance buttons are located isn't going to create a market. There isn't going to be a killer app. No iPod-analog is going to save the day. This is way bigger than the file format question. Books are one of the oldest media and have developed an enormously complex variety of types and uses and users. Just because they all have covers, pages and spines doesn't mean they're all alike. One size ain't gonna fit all.