News flash! Barnes & Noble buys Fictionwise for $15.7 million

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

i've tried it out on the sony 700. it's definitely worlds better than a non-reflowable one, but it's a far cry from a properly formatted truly reflowable ebook. you lose all page layout and all the different parts of the book just run into each other. i don't find it pleasant to read at all, although if you've got no other options it's workable. but the visual aspect of reading (i like my books to be "beautiful") is very important to me, so others who put more importance on the content regardless of display (or who have no choice, in some cases) may think differently.

Thanks for the info I had an idea that it wouldn't be that good, and probably bloat the sizes of each book used in that way. ePub all the way! Now if only I could get a decent workflow going that produced acceptable results at the end

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

It will be the (hopefully) demise of PDF as an eBook format.

Not a chance.

PDF, as a simple "press here to create" from most word processing programs, is going to stay very common, esp. for authors who want to release their ebooks for free without a publisher.

And since people are used to reading PDFs (from work, from friends, from legacy free ebook sites that aren't going to go away), they'll continue to request new ebooks in that format. They'll be readable on any computer; other ebook formats may not be.

EPub may become the standard for mobile devices, but it's not going to replace PDF on computers, because too many non-ebook PDFs exist, and will continue to be used.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

Thanks for the info I had an idea that it wouldn't be that good, and probably bloat the sizes of each book used in that way. ePub all the way! Now if only I could get a decent workflow going that produced acceptable results at the end

yeah baby !

you're welcome for the info. as i said, sometimes you don't have a choice, and it's definitely far better than non-reflowable pdf, but it's not optimal for a satisfactory reading experience. i don't actually know how it affects file size : i've never had the same file in both versions of pdf to compare.

as to the problem of creation tools... keep an eye on this thread where a few of our local talented developpers are working on just that. i hope we'll see some results soon !

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Not a chance.

PDF, as a simple "press here to create" from most word processing programs, is going to stay very common, esp. for authors who want to release their ebooks for free without a publisher.

And since people are used to reading PDFs (from work, from friends, from legacy free ebook sites that aren't going to go away), they'll continue to request new ebooks in that format. They'll be readable on any computer; other ebook formats may not be.

EPub may become the standard for mobile devices, but it's not going to replace PDF on computers, because too many non-ebook PDFs exist, and will continue to be used.

What we need is that 'press here to create' simplicity for ePub. My html/css skills are rusty, but I know my way around, still I find myself thinking "If I could just load up a properly formated word-processing document and have ePub as an output format, life would be so much simpler."

Anybody know if OpenOffice or one of the others has any plans to support ePub as an output format?

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

yeah baby !

you're welcome for the info. as i said, sometimes you don't have a choice, and it's definitely far better than non-reflowable pdf, but it's not optimal for a satisfactory reading experience. i don't actually know how it affects file size : i've never had the same file in both versions of pdf to compare.

as to the problem of creation tools... keep an eye on this thread where a few of our local talented developpers are working on just that. i hope we'll see some results soon !

Thanks Zelda I'd not visited that thread properly before now I will

[Donnageddon]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

i do hope it won't just disappear (they specifically mention all three sites both in the TeleRead article and in the B&N faq on the fictionwise site ; follow the link in the banner on the home page), simply because i love the device and would hate for all the other 1150

What I quoted was from the B&N FAQ on the fictionwise site. No mention of ebookwise there.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

What we need is that 'press here to create' simplicity for ePub. My html/css skills are rusty, but I know my way around, still I find myself thinking "If I could just load up a properly formated word-processing document and have ePub as an output format, life would be so much simpler."

Anybody know if OpenOffice or one of the others has any plans to support ePub as an output format?

you may be interested in looking into eScape, which is a free (for personal use) OpenOffice to epub converter. i've not tried it myself but it was created because someone asked precisely that question. possibly not yet the perfect "press here to create" solution but it could work for your needs.

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

you may be interested in looking into eScape, which is a free (for personal use) OpenOffice to epub converter. i've not tried it myself but it was created because someone asked precisely that question. possibly not yet the perfect "press here to create" solution but it could work for your needs.

I don't know if it's changed, but the last time I looked it was windows only and I'm on a Mac. Plus there seems to be some question about producing 'commercial' epubs from the took and inserted advertising. I'm going to check it out again, right now

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

Thanks Zelda I'd not visited that thread properly before now I will

no worries. it's a good read, for those who are interested, and opens up some very exciting prospects.

Originally Posted by Donnageddon

What I quoted was from the B&N FAQ on the fictionwise site. No mention of ebookwise there.

oups, you're right, my mistake. i was confusing the faq with the teleread article ; that one *did* mention ebookwise by name.

surprising though that it should be left out of the faq on fw's site. i wonder if that's just an oversight ?

[mjh215]

Originally Posted by akira28

I would think that many want the PDF form to read documents not ebooks as I would. If I am not mistaken the two major players in the ebook market, at least prior to Amazon, were Fictionwize/eReader and Mobipocket. Both of these have not offered pdf's but their own proprietary formats, to the bain of us all.

Don't mistake me or Zelda and think we are arguing FOR PDF as an ebook format. This was an argument on semantics pertaining to an established base. The majority of books in the wild would probably be PDF by a huge margin. This includes non-fiction manuals, guides etc. For mobile readers reflowable ebook formats are definitely the norm, but the average consumer knows PDF. This has been the format most amateurs and, as Zelda points out, individual publishers choose. I know we both agree that we don't want people to use that, it was strictly directed to pointing at one format and saying, "This has the most established base so we'll call it the 'de facto standard'". Sorry for any confusion.

-MJ

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

What we need is that 'press here to create' simplicity for ePub. My html/css skills are rusty, but I know my way around, still I find myself thinking "If I could just load up a properly formated word-processing document and have ePub as an output format, life would be so much simpler."

I'm strongly in favor of this. I haven't really looked at ePub because I can't create them myself; I tried eCub and it scrambled things. I'd love to have a "push to create ePub" plugin--or even stand-alone program--that'd work with Word docs or RTFs. (Or even HTML, although my HTML creation is shaky at best.)

It'd help, but it wouldn't replace PDFs. EPub is not a print-ready format.

I work in litigation support & digital archiving. This last week & a half, a team of three of us scanned ~80,000 pages of archives for a medical firm and converted them to PDFs. They aren't being OCR'd or converted to ebook formats; they're going into a database somewhere in case the physical files are damaged. And they'll possibly be available online for some of their employees, who might need to reprint "the January '02 emails & certifications for creating the lab in Mayberry."

EPub can't replace the corporate & litigation uses of PDF, which means that PDF "ebooks" will remain simple to use for most people.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

I'm strongly in favor of this. I haven't really looked at ePub because I can't create them myself; I tried eCub and it scrambled things. I'd love to have a "push to create ePub" plugin--or even stand-alone program--that'd work with Word docs or RTFs. (Or even HTML, although my HTML creation is shaky at best.)

It'd help, but it wouldn't replace PDFs. EPub is not a print-ready format.

I work in litigation support & digital archiving. This last week & a half, a team of three of us scanned ~80,000 pages of archives for a medical firm and converted them to PDFs. They aren't being OCR'd or converted to ebook formats; they're going into a database somewhere in case the physical files are damaged. And they'll possibly be available online for some of their employees, who might need to reprint "the January '02 emails & certifications for creating the lab in Mayberry."

EPub can't replace the corporate & litigation uses of PDF, which means that PDF "ebooks" will remain simple to use for most people.

i agree with you that pdf remains the best format for a lot of specific uses, and notably for print use. when i prepare a document for a printer, i give him a pdf. i'd never give him an epub. but they're two separate (and complementary) areas. pdf is great at things epub could never do ; epub is brilliant at thinks pdf does not that well or not at all. for reading on a device, give me epub any day ; for locking down a page layout for print work, or for archives of paper documents, or for ease of use for non-tech-savvy users, pdf won't be replaced any time soon. the only time it gets tricky is that some of their uses tend to overlap (ebooks), and even for them, in some specific cases (those you named, and also some kinds of complex page layout that you specifically *don't* want to reflow (code, equations...) pdf is good. it's not good at reflowing though, but that's not what it was made to do (quite the opposite). it's very good at what it was made to do.

[bill_mchale]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Of all the obsolete formats that are reflowable, eReader is the first that needs to go. The HTML that comes from eReader is nasty stuff. And making eReader the dominant format on an eink device is going to make that device obsolete before even a single unit is sold. So basically, do we want an obsolete device before it's even sold? And if they are planning one muking about with the DRM to add eReader DRM to ePub, I hope that falls flat fast. We alread have a very good DRM on ePub from Adobe that can be removed. We don't need more DRM that has to be reverse engineered. Once eReader is available for Linux, the door will be open and we'll have to close it pretty darn fast to keep the manure that is eReader in the stable.

Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't Adobe DRM tied to the device you purchase a book on? Granted it can be removed, but frankly some of us would prefer not to circumvent DRM (we are not crazy about getting in trouble by breaking those pesky laws that prevent it). I generally avoid DRM, but if I had to buy a book with DRM on it, I would prefer to do it in with ereader's DRM than with Adobe's.

--
Bill

[moz]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

...people with liseuses which...

I'm sure that should be liseusen.

I don't know why, but it just seems right. I shall go and look it up

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

it does seem like good news that a big distributor like Barnes and Noble is jumping into ebooks at this level. . .

Just one note, Zelda, as I agree with your comments. That note is this: B&N is not a distributor; it is a retailer who buys its books either directly or through distributors such as Ingram. It does distribute its B&N Books press' books to its own stores, but it is not a distributor like Ingram. Another chain, for example, couldn't order books through B&N.