Has Sony lost the e-book battle against Amazon?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by =X=

Well I can name a few. I'm very interested in the first 3 books if you find them else where please let me know

• Reminiscences of a Stock Operator
• Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits and Other Writings
• Dynamic Hedging: Managing Vanilla and Exotic Options
• How I Made $2,000,000 In The Stock Market

=X=

Er, OK, I'll take your word for it. Not the type of book I'd be likely to go for, I have to confess! Are those actually "real" published e-books, or self-published material?

[jakewastaken]

There's already a huge amount of hentai manga available that can easily be converted to lrf too.

If they sold it directly they'd corner the market of book-porn

This quote from the BBC article made me laugh:

"But they never lose their moral foundation. The heroines normally wind up reforming the sheikh." And so the alpha male is neutered and domesticated. He then slowly gains weight, becomes slower witted and learns to keep his mouth shut lest his opinion differs from that of his love. The remote control becomes his only friend. Romance is a one way street it seems. The ladies seem to be attracted to that which they cannot abide. Contrary.

[daffy4u]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Er, OK, I'll take your word for it. Not the type of book I'd be likely to go for, I have to confess! Are those actually "real" published e-books, or self-published material?

The first 3 books on =X='s list are from Wiley, which a pretty large publishing house (a friend of mine had many of his books published by them for the ESL market). The last, I'm not familiar with.

[=X=]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Er, OK, I'll take your word for it. Not the type of book I'd be likely to go for, I have to confess! Are those actually "real" published e-books, or self-published material?

Those are real published books most published are by Wiley Publishing. The first two of the books listed are considered "MUST HAVE" in the industry. The first book is a biography of Jesse Livermore (considered one of the greatest traders). The other is by Fisher written in the 60's who's investment philosophy was adopted by Buffet.
I have them in pBook, but it is hard for me to pick them up since I started reading eBooks.

Harry your bumming me out. You usually make a liar out of me c'mon do it one more time.

=X=

[lisreed]

I am pretty new at reading ebooks. So I guess I am one of those people that the kindle targets. To be sucessful to the masses you have to make it easy. Amazon has done this. The device is easy to use and requires no need to attach to the computer unless you want to or live in an area where the wireless doesn't work. No remembering PIDS or which store you bought a book at if you get a new device and want to redownload. It needs to be easy to be sucessful. Most people on this forum clearly like to play around with formats and such. The average person does not. The kindle is easy as going to a book store and starting to read a book. I don't see how any device will be sucessful without being this easy. The average person will read paperbacks rather than ebooks if they had to find an ebook store, give them PIDS, and drag a USB cord out to read a book. I looked at SONY in stores. First of all it is always banged up from overuse at Borders. So not so attractive looking at a banged up device. And then it looked like it had way too many buttons. Needing to download software to use it held no appeal to me. And I actually like the big buttons on the kindle. Its feels very natural like turning a book. Much easier than the Cybook that I also own. It also turns pages faster than the Cybook.

Romance novels- Harlequin does sell books in mobipocket and on the kindle. I am more of a mystery and sci fi reader but I do occasionally read romance novels. Harlequin novels are not the greatest but a lot of romance novels are very well written. As well written and plotted as any mystery novel I read. So this comments about romance novels being porn is insulting to romance readers and writers. Sex scenes in them are as varied as violence in other novels. From detailed to off stage. Romance makes up 70% of the publishing industry and allows publishers to publish other stuff. Without it many publishers would go under. So maybe read a few books before dismissing the entire genre as porn.

I do see books on the kindle that I can't find anywhere else. I think more and more this will happen. These names won't mean anything if you don't read mysteries but Conrad Allen, Carola DUnn (Gun Powder Plot), Peter Lovesey- and ingeneral Soho Press as far as I can see is only on the kindle. I have seen other examples. One publisher is putting out 5000 kindle books by the end of the year. I don't know if that means mobipocket also.

Kindle prices are also cheaper. NOt really when it comes out in paperback but in hardback, yes. At 9.99 a book when the other mobipocket stores have these books for $14-20 on average? I would say thats a bargain. I also have to wonder with kindle being a sucess, how long will they bother to keep mobipocket around.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by slayda

What? Steve, I'm shocked that you believe color can convey more than the printed word.

It depends on your audience. Ask a twenty-something male if he'd rather read about the attributes of Miss August.

Originally Posted by jakewastaken

I just began converting a bunch of comics to try out the other day. I'm blown away at how well this works on the 505. Manga (and I've never even gotten into it before yesterday) looks amazing on it too. I almost feel guilty abandoning my gigantic pile of books waiting to be read, but now that I've seen comics on the Sony reader I'm finding it hard to turn back

Careful on the manga. Once you find out the massive target audience differences you may find it hard to quit looking for more. (Team Medical Dragon, Mahoraba and Usagi Drop fan here.)

Just be careful about getting anything like that from the Sony store. Seems all they did was just shrink down the pages and put them in a BBeB wrapper. The text is usually quite bad compared to what most of us do with ours.

(Still waiting for the day that Viz, CMX and others look at their back catalogs, look at eink readers, look at all the money they AREN'T making from their old stock and put it all together.)

[jakewastaken]

Originally Posted by lisreed

I looked at SONY in stores [...] And then it looked like it had way too many buttons.

You should write comedy.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by lisreed

Romance novels- Harlequin does sell books in mobipocket and on the kindle.

And there you have it: The largest e-book reading segment of the public can get their romance novels, as fast as they can download 'em, from the Kindle. Romance readers are also known for their penchant for sharing books and resources, and probably have managed a massive behind-the-scenes demo-fest of Kindles with their friends, resulting in serious sales. Therefore has Kindle outstripped the Sony Reader in popularity.

Mystery solved!

[lisreed]

Well I see from the replys on list list is is ok to insult and mock people. Excuse me for posting. I didn't know romance readers had no right to read books and not be laughed at. I have read a lot of sci fi and fantasy that isn't all that well written but thats ok.

And ecuse THE HELL OUT OF ME for saying the SONY had too many buttons, I see buttons numbered all along plus 2 sets of controls plus installing software. Yeah the average paperback reader is going to give up reading paperbooks for that.

[jakewastaken]

Originally Posted by lisreed

Well I see from the replys on list list is is ok to insult and mock people. Excuse me for posting. I didn't know romance readers had no right to read books and not be laughed at. I have read a lot of sci fi and fantasy that isn't all that well written but thats ok.

And ecuse THE HELL OUT OF ME for saying the SONY had too many buttons, I see buttons numbered all along plus 2 sets of controls plus installing software. Yeah the average paperback reader is going to give up reading paperbooks for that.

I'm a kidder. I kid. I keed. I josh. I didn't mean to offend you! The Kindle has a shitload more buttons so it was just a funny observation. I understand you like those buttons more, but from a standpoint of sheer number of buttons, the Kindle clearly has more.

[nekokami]

Originally Posted by lisreed

Well I see from the replys on list list is is ok to insult and mock people. Excuse me for posting. I didn't know romance readers had no right to read books and not be laughed at. I have read a lot of sci fi and fantasy that isn't all that well written but thats ok.

No, it's not ok for people to insult others on this list (regardless of what people do elsewhere on the 'net). In this case, the poster meant to be funny, and has responded with an apology, but it's a good reminder to everyone that sometimes humor doesn't come across in writing.

It's also a good reminder to all of us that sometimes what we read wasn't written with the intent we think it was... so maybe we could step back a bit and say, "Hm... I'm surprised so-and-so wrote that... maybe they meant something milder, like [insert alternate interpretation here]."

Just saying... we can avoid receiving as well as giving insult.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by lisreed

Well I see from the replys on list list is is ok to insult and mock people. Excuse me for posting. I didn't know romance readers had no right to read books and not be laughed at. I have read a lot of sci fi and fantasy that isn't all that well written but thats ok.

In case you're referring to my post... I'm being completely serious. Romance readers manage to fall under the radar of so many literary segments, that their contribution to the rise of the Kindle could easily have been overlooked by many of us.

I always doubted that so many people could buy an expensive device like the Kindle sight-unseen, and I expected that most Kindle buyers probably were introduced to the device by another owner instead. I can easily believe romance readers could have been an "underground" promotional force for the Kindle, which has had no other public demo venue available, showing the reader to their friends and family and driving sales. Makes sense to me.

[Alisa]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

In case you're referring to my post... I'm being completely serious. Romance readers manage to fall under the radar of so many literary segments, that their contribution to the rise of the Kindle could easily have been overlooked by many of us.

I always doubted that so many people could buy an expensive device like the Kindle sight-unseen, and I expected that most Kindle buyers probably were introduced to the device by another owner instead. I can easily believe romance readers could have been an "underground" promotional force for the Kindle, which has had no other public demo venue available, showing the reader to their friends and family and driving sales. Makes sense to me.

"Genre fiction" readers get overlooked way too much IMO. The biggest book buyers I know are the SciFi, Fantasy and Romance readers. Some of these folks buy books almost daily. I know Baen's webscriptions are quite popular. Is there something similar for Romance readers? If not there should be. Either that, of maybe something Netflix-like: a monthly fee for all the romance novels you can read. There may be less revenue per book that way, but the store ensures that they get virtually all that customer's purchases.

One of the criticisms of the viability of reading devices and ebook stores is that there's not necessarily a lot of growth in the market. People aren't going to start reading a ton more. From the perspective of an individual store, it's more important that they buy more from them regardless of how much they buy in general. That's my concern for Sony in this business. Their store doesn't seem that popular. Maybe it's just the audience here but when you ask Sony owners where they buy books, it's Baen's, Fictionwise, Books on Board, etc. The Kindle owners I talk to have been buying most if not all of their books from Amazon because Whispernet delivery is just too darned easy. Maybe Sony would do well to get a lock on customers some other way. I wonder if they could make a go of romance subscriptions.

[nekokami]

Seems to me the book clubs ought to be getting into this, but when I wrote to Science Fiction Book Club a year ago, they didn't seem interested. That might be a good avenue for Sony or another vendor, though. (Astak, maybe?)