which format will win?

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Pardoz

Lots of numbers. Problem is, like 87.2498% of all marketing statistics they were made up on the spot. As far as I know nobody is actually releasing real sales numbers, which makes accurate measurement tricky.

The lowest estimates I've seen of the Kindle's market share put it at around 60% of the market, with some skyrocketing as high as 90%, which seems rather excessive. I don't think there's any real doubt it's the current 800 lb gorilla, though - if you look outside the geek blogs "kindle" is becoming a generic word for "electronic book", which is usually a fair indicator of market dominance. Analysis base on anecdote isn't much help either - virtually nobody I know uses Internet Explorer, but that doesn't mean it isn't the market dominant Web browser, regardless of how well it holds up to paper standards.

But this isn't about hardware, it's about books sales in a particular format. Those are the numbers I'd be interesting in seeing to back up your statement of mobi being on top.

[Pardoz]

Originally Posted by BillSmithBooks

Yes, yes, I know, epub is an open format...but that doesn't mean ANYTHING when the epub book is shrink-wrapped in DRM to prevent the average person from using the book in the manner they see fit.

Thus why Amazon probably won't be adopting it any time soon - the CS nightmare of trying to explain to the customer why their device which "supports epub, it says so in the ad!" won't read the book they just bought from Sony, or B&N, or the Apple bookstore.

As a container design, .epub is great. As a standard file format it's a total disaster, because there isn't one, practically speaking.

[Pardoz]

Originally Posted by kennyc

But this isn't about hardware, it's about books sales in a particular format. Those are the numbers I'd be interesting in seeing to back up your statement of mobi being on top.

Again, no solid numbers to be had. Plus, people who are educated, intelligent, and good-looking enough to disinfect DRM aside, you can't really separate hardware from book sales in the current market, and I really doubt that the Sony bookstore moves more books than the Kindle store does.

[BillSmithBooks]

RTF: Actually, I personally like RTF for much of the same reason I like HTML: It can be read on a variety of word processing programs and most OSs (but not all) come equipped with a compatible word processor: Word, WordPad, AbiWord, OpenOffice, etc.

The problem with RTF is that image files embedded in RTFs are HUGE.

But RTF is great for text only books.

I also like txt (you can do formatting notes, just clarify them in introductory text, like brackets mean /italic/ and asterikseses mean *bold* ... but again, not so good for anything with illustrative matter.

I've gotten used to PDF...but the fact that PDF is generally built with a specific screen size in mind means that you often get wonky results if reading on a non-standard screen and I often have to resize to suit my screen to the point where reading a PDF is a constant combination of scrolling and clicking, scrolling and clicking...plus load times for new pages tend to be fairly slow on my PCs PDF reader. PDF is tolerable, but it really is designed to be printed out for the most part, at least in my experience.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by BillSmithBooks

I'm confused:

Do you really not understand how being unable to decrypt a DRM file (even though you can theoretically back it up) is an impediment to the book being usable?

I'm sorry that you're having difficulty understanding this. It is a very simple concept.

You can take any ebook file and back it up to any storage medium. There. You have backed it up, thus refuting your claim that "DRM prevents you from being able to back it up".

Backing up has nothing whatsoever to do with being able to use it on some future device you might own in 10 years time. It really doesn't help anyone to try to conflate these two entirely separate topics.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Pardoz

Again, no solid numbers to be had. Plus, people who are educated, intelligent, and good-looking enough to disinfect DRM aside, you can't really separate hardware from book sales in the current market, and I really doubt that the Sony bookstore moves more books than the Kindle store does.

I don't doubt that either, but overall sales world-wide (which amazon only recently entered) is more what I'm interested in. Overall sales (by all bookstores) of ebup (or other formats) vs mobi.

[BillSmithBooks]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I'm sorry that you're having difficulty understanding this. It is a very simple concept.

You can take any ebook file and back it up to any storage medium. There. You have backed it up, thus refuting your claim that "DRM prevents you from being able to back it up".

Backing up has nothing whatsoever to do with being able to use it on some future device you might own in 10 years time. It really doesn't help anyone to try to conflate these two entirely separate topics.

Um, no, I'm not having difficulty understanding your point.

I was trying to, erm, politely point out it seems to me that this argument is spurious.

It seems similar to when cereal manufacturers promote sugar-laden breakfast cereals as "healthy" because they have extra calcium...so, sure, in theory you'll have strong bones if the diabetes doesn't get you first. But in today's marketplace, you don't have the option of getting one without the other.

I'm not trying to be a troll, really, and I understand we disagree on the significance of this point. I respect that you disagree with me.

But right now and for the foreseeable future, the two issues CANNOT be separated and I think my argument is much more in line with the views the average consumer will have as they get more familiar with ebooks. Already there are lots of grumblings about being "locked in" with specific hardware and vendors because they cannot port their "open format" epub books over to other devices.

Not only that, a print library can last decades. Will anyone have that same Sony or Nook reader more than 4-5 years down the road? So being concerned about compatibility a decade or so down the road is a VERY significant issue.

Now, if tomorrow, B&N, Sony, Apple, or Amazon announce they are going DRM-free, well then my primary point is rendered moot overnight (and I will be the first to rejoice at this).

But until then, this is a significant obstacle.

[Pardoz]

Originally Posted by kennyc

I don't doubt that either, but overall sales world-wide (which amazon only recently entered) is more what I'm interested in. Overall sales (by all bookstores) of ebup (or other formats) vs mobi.

Well, it's really only recently that e-reading devices have taken off world-wide - this is a pure guess, but I'd suspect the US is still the market leader, in terms of e-reader adoption, by a large enough margin that the global numbers won't look too different from the US numbers. That's subject to rapid change, of course.

"Standard" aside, .epub is probably a decent solution for long-term viability, since even if the format itself continues to splinter to the point of unusability, once you disinfect it you can pull out the source XHTML, and that will still be useful long after the various container formats have gone the way of .lzh.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I'm sorry that you're having difficulty understanding this. It is a very simple concept.

You can take any ebook file and back it up to any storage medium. There. You have backed it up, thus refuting your claim that "DRM prevents you from being able to back it up".

Backing up has nothing whatsoever to do with being able to use it on some future device you might own in 10 years time. It really doesn't help anyone to try to conflate these two entirely separate topics.

It's not backed up if it's not readable. An unreadable "backed up" file is a lot like "storing" a car by squishing it into a 4' cube... sure, the parts are all there, but nobody sane thinks it's still a car.

The backup problems aren't limited to a future device. A hard disc crash can result in a need to re-install the OS and other software--which makes the books not readable, even on the same device.

Ebooks are often sold with a notice that "you need to install our software to read this ebook." They are often *not* sold with a notice that says, "if we shut down our servers, which we may do at any point we decide it's financially useful, you will no longer be able to acquire the software-verification you need to read this book."

(Would love to see a lawsuit insisting that DRM removal is legal on the grounds that companies with DRM servers retain the right to shut them off at any time, and removing DRM before that point is the only way to secure access to one's data.)

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

...

(Would love to see a lawsuit insisting that DRM removal is legal on the grounds that companies with DRM servers retain the right to shut them off at any time, and removing DRM before that point is the only way to secure access to one's data.)

[cmdahler]

Originally Posted by K-Thom

@ frabjous & cmdahler:

You both still don't get it, do you? Stick to books, really. Honestly. Do yourself that favor.

Right, because expecting improvement has never benefited anyone. Tell you what. I'll keep reading my books on my reader in the best possible way available to me at any given time. You go read your ebooks in the format that exists today and never change, ok? Since today's tech is obviously acceptable to you, if the rendering engine behind your epub is improved at some point to produce better output, you personally will have zero interest in upgrading, right? Because you have no interest in improvement, right? Right, that's what I thought.

[Kevin2960]

Originally Posted by GhostHawk

Kevin as much as I truly hate to say it, I agree with you.

*.rtf is my preferred choice.

Hey why so difficult to agree with me ???

But semi-seriously, i realy do think RTF wold be best !!!

[K-Thom]

Don't fret. RTF really is a fine format for storage. And the most versatile to convert into all different kinds of eBooks formats.

Maybe RTF is more of a "proto-format" than an eBook format itself.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by frabjous

Good typography and readability are the same thing. The key to good typography is to make the eyes flow, and eliminate distracting inconsistent whitespaces, and so on.

Compare this (mobi on a Kindle):



To this (ePub in ADE):



To this (PDF):



If you're telling me that you prefer one of the former two, and think it is more "readable", I can only think you're being disingenuous.

And the source used to create that PDF could be used to produce multiple PDFs of various sizes formatted for various devices. In fact, I made that PDF, and made six different versions, for different sized paper/devices.

What I want is an ePub rendered that can make shot #2 look like shot #3 on the fly, which is certainly possible.

Now take a look at this which is ePub and it looks better then all three of your samples.



This shows that ePub can do it if you bother to do it.

[JSWolf]

Personally, I will not buy an eBook with DRM if I cannot strip the DRM. I find a lot of eBooks are rather poorly formatted. And all it takes to clean them up is some work with the CSS (for ePub). And once I have a well formatted ePub, I could then take the eBook and convert to MS Reade or Mobipocket for good looking versions. I'm not sure if eReader has been fixed up yet in Calibre. The one time I tried it, it looked like a standard eReader format which to me was nasty and would not be a good reading experience.

So really, there is no reason not to make good looking eBooks except for laziness and/or stupidity or both.