What's happening with kindle and ePub?

[Barty]

I vaguely remember reading on MR that kindle will support ePub. What's happening with that?

[DiapDealer]

Nobody knows. Actually, all the rumors resulted from a blog post that claimed that some publishers had been contacted by Amazon and were being encouraged to submit their books in epub format.

Everything after that was/is pure speculation.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Barty

I vaguely remember reading on MR that kindle will support ePub. What's happening with that?

There's been no announcement of anything.

I think that it's likely that the next kindle will support drm-free ePub, and that some books in the Kindle ebook store when downloaded for the new kindle that supports ePubs will be in an ePub format.

Essentially, I expect Amazon to add ePub support to their existing Topaz and Mobipocket support. It will be pretty much invisible to the customer what format file they receive. It's just that newer Kindles with newer ebooks will display fancier formatting.

I don't expect that Amazon/Kindle will ever support Adobe Digital Edition encrypted ePubs.

[TimW]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

There's been no announcement of anything.

I think that it's likely that the next kindle will support drm-free ePub, and that some books in the Kindle ebook store when downloaded for the new kindle that supports ePubs will be in an ePub format.

Essentially, I expect Amazon to add ePub support to their existing Topaz and Mobipocket support. It will be pretty much invisible to the customer what format file they receive. It's just that newer Kindles with newer ebooks will display fancier formatting.

I don't expect that Amazon/Kindle will ever support Adobe Digital Edition encrypted ePubs.

Amazon ejected Adobe from their premises five years ago and that decision is unlikely to be revisited. Amazon won't pay Adobe loads of money to use their DRM. However, I would not be surprised if ePub support were added. If DRM is used, Amazon would use their own.

[Corran006]

I think Epub will come out with Kindle 4 and the kindle 3 may be updated later to also support this.

[dwig]

Originally Posted by Barty

I vaguely remember reading on MR that kindle will support ePub. What's happening with that?

As DiapDealer says, the only thing known is that Amazon appears to be moving away from the older OEB spec to ePub as a source format for their MOBI/AZW creation tools.

Whether or not any ePub support will every appear in the Kindle devices is totally unknown. If it ever does, it's a safe bet that it won't use ADE DRM.

[RainingLemur]

Nothing at present moment. In the future? Possibly support with newer models.

[JSWolf]

The only thing speculated is that Amazon may be accepting ePub submission for conversion to AZW/Mobipocket and are using these publishers as a test bed for this conversion.

[sandy33]

kindle doesn't support epub,if add an app,it does ,but the effect is not perfect,read epub on kindle ,you should convert epub to azw

[Lazybones]

I've long advocated for Kindle being as open as possible in terms of formats, but to be honest I've gotten so used to converting to mobi using Calibre and formatting my own books with the MobiCreator that it really would hardly make a difference to me now. Most of the books I buy are from Amazon anyway, or smaller sites like Smashwords that produce in multiple formats.

[trekchick]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The only thing speculated is that Amazon may be accepting ePub submission for conversion to AZW/Mobipocket and are using these publishers as a test bed for this conversion.

That makes sense to me. Converting ePub files yields more consistent results than converting from the older, looser OEB/OEBPS standard. Allowing publishers to submit ePubs could significantly reduce the occurrence of formatting errors in Kindle books, even if the Kindle never supports ePub (not that there's any incentive for Amazon to do so). Also, it's probably a good test bed/practice run for Kindle's eventual support of Overdrive loans via Whispernet (or email). The plan, as explained to me by my favorite librarian, is to send library ePubs to Amazon for conversion to AZW format as if they were personal documents.

Hmmmmm... I wonder if starting from ePub might make it easier for Amazon to create accurate .apnx files to allow the mobi/azw format to approximate page numbers.

[Barty]

Originally Posted by Lazybones

I've long advocated for Kindle being as open as possible in terms of formats, but to be honest I've gotten so used to converting to mobi using Calibre and formatting my own books with the MobiCreator that it really would hardly make a difference to me now. Most of the books I buy are from Amazon anyway, or smaller sites like Smashwords that produce in multiple formats.

Conversion usually works fine, but occasionally I get converted mobis where the indents/margins are all messed up and I have to manually edit the stylesheet or even all the *.HTML files to fix. PitA.

I want mobi to go away because I suspect right now publishers are all targeting the lowest common denominator, ie mobi, in order to simplify and save money. It'd be like all web sites were still targeting IE3. ePub ain't the be all and end all; it's just the better of the two and what we have now.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Barty

I want mobi to go away because I suspect right now publishers are all targeting the lowest common denominator, ie mobi, in order to simplify and save money. It'd be like all web sites were still targeting IE3. ePub ain't the be all and end all; it's just the better of the two and what we have now.

I agree.

[dwig]

Originally Posted by trekchick

Hmmmmm... I wonder if starting from ePub might make it easier for Amazon to create accurate .apnx files to allow the mobi/azw format to approximate page numbers.

Absolutely not.

Amazon's page numbers refer to the page in a specific print edition, identified by ISBN, and bear no direct relationship to the position in the ebook file itself. They are in absolutely no way a simulation of the ADE's display pseudo-page numbers which are actually a lower resolution (read: less precise) reference to the location in the binary file than the classic MOBI "Locations".

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Barty

Conversion usually works fine, but occasionally I get converted mobis where the indents/margins are all messed up and I have to manually edit the stylesheet or even all the *.HTML files to fix. PitA.

I want mobi to go away because I suspect right now publishers are all targeting the lowest common denominator, ie mobi, in order to simplify and save money. It'd be like all web sites were still targeting IE3. ePub ain't the be all and end all; it's just the better of the two and what we have now.

Just take a look at ePub and the internal ToC. Some even go so far as to have links to this ToC. It's not needed. It's ePub. Also, I've seen cases where the publisher doesn't use a proper blockquote because Mobipocket doesn't as well.

You are 100% correct int hat we have lower quality ePub eBooks due to Mobipocket. If Mobipocket was to just go away, I think we'd have a lot better chance to have better quality ePub eBooks.