Epub is Not Universal So Stop the BS

[GeoffC]

Originally Posted by starapple

If Kindle owners can use their device to access their library's e-collection and it can't accommodate the file format, it suggests that the user should own multiple (expensive) e-readers to access each file format. What is so silly then in people who frequently use their library system saying it'd be good that Kindle - or any other device - be compatible with the format most used by them?

Welcome to mobileread ....

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by starapple

If Kindle owners can use their device to access their library's e-collection and it can't accommodate the file format, it suggests that the user should own multiple (expensive) e-readers to access each file format. What is so silly then in people who frequently use their library system saying it'd be good that Kindle - or any other device - be compatible with the format most used by them?

The Kindle is a poor choice if you want to access library eBooks as they are not compatible. Sure you can strip the DRM and convert, but for people that do not do that, it's not a good fit.

[Nathanael]

Originally Posted by Anarel

Found this, liked it. Kinda tired of hearing people go, yeah, the Kindle's nice, but because there's no EPUB, it's destined to failure.

Cane's rant is a pretty typical echo of one current of thought floating around the blogosphere -- the "Amazon has won -- deal with it" crowd. I think he's wrong. Or at least very premature.

[Here's an alternative view.]

Keep in mind three things:

1) The Kindle rode to its current level of success in a relative competitive vacuum. When it was released in 2007, there just was no serious alternative. The landscape has changed dramatically since then. The Nook is outselling the Kindle, the iPad has sold more units in three months than the Kindle hopes to sell in a year, and many analysts are predicting a sea-change when Google Editions debuts. And at least one analyst (Credit Suisse) has already predicted Amazon's share of the ebook market will eventually fall to 35%, with Apple and Google splitting the lion's share of the rest (and that was before B&N entered the ring).

2) The Kindle depends heavily on the Amazon ecosphere. Separated from that, it's really a rather mediocre reading machine.

3) The international market, which collectively dwarfs the US, and lies outside the Amazon ecosystem. Kindle is late to the party in the EU, and so far is a complete no-show here in China, where ePub and PDF dominate. And remember, Amazon can't even hope to sell the Kindle before it has its ecosphere in place. But even in a best-case scenario (assuming Amazon manages it at all), that will take several years -- an eternity in techno-years. Amazon is to be credited with lighting a fire under the ebook market. But I think that explosive growth is now outpacing even Amazon's ability to control.

Methinks predictions of Amazon's triumph are greatly exaggerated.

Other arguments:

ePub has collapsed into a variety of mutually incompatible formats

Rubbish, even on the face of it. Cane's reasoning here is sloppy. He knows the incompatibilities actually belong to the DRM layer, but he argues in practice it makes little difference whose fault it is, therefore he's free to blame ePub. His argument smells more than a bit like arguing, "My W3C-validated website doesn't render properly in IE6. Yeah, technically it's IE's fault, but since it's all the same in the end, I'll just blame the standards: HTML is crap."

But in conflating the content and the DRM layers, Cane glosses over some important issues. For one thing, not all ePubs are DRM-encumbered (Google has about a half million of them, Gutenberg and B&N have tens of thousands more).

For another, the primary beneficiary of standardization has almost never been the consumer, but industry. Which brings us to Cane's next argument.

Users don't care about formats, they care about experience. And Amazon pwns the experience.

Here Cane gets it right. Most ebook consumers do care much more about the experience than formats -- even those who are aware of them. And as far as that goes, yes Amazon does pwn the user experience (in the US).

Problem is, I don't think Cane's argument is worth as much as he thinks it is, because most standards are determined by industries (or government) for the primary benefit (reduced costs, increased efficiencies) of the industries themselves, not consumers. Whether it be the Reconstruction-era rail industry standardizing rail gauges, or the tech industry developing the plethora of open standards that underpin the Internet, industries set standards primarily to make their own lives easier, not to benefit consumers who, when it comes to determining standards, are generally not even in the loop. (Not that they don't ultimately benefit as well, but only secondarily.)

Any reason why the publishing industry should be any different? It's not like they're strangers to standardization.

And since, as Cane argued, consumers don't care about format, the industry is free to choose whatever format will maximize its own benefits. But that the industry standardizes is far more important than which standard it settles on. I personally don't much care, as I'm not a big fan of any particular format (ePub included). But I do think the day of proprietary solutions has come and gone and whatever the standard ultimately turns out to be (even AZW, if Amazon decides to open it), it won't be proprietary.

--Nathanael

[thinkpad]

Originally Posted by Nathanael

1) The Kindle rode to its current level of success in a relative competitive vacuum. When it was released in 2007, there just was no serious alternative. The landscape has changed dramatically since then. The Nook is outselling the Kindle, the iPad has sold more units in three months than the Kindle hopes to sell in a year, and many analysts are predicting a sea-change when Google Editions debuts. And at least one analyst (Credit Suisse) has already predicted Amazon's share of the ebook market will eventually fall to 35%, with Apple and Google splitting the lion's share of the rest (and that was before B&N entered the ring).

Amazon dropping to 35% share is very unlikely at the moment. As for Nook outselling Kindle, I very much doubt it. Amazon does not reveal their numbers for the Kindle so journalists can only make guesses. The number of iPads sold is hardly a negative thing for Amazon.

Originally Posted by Nathanael

2) The Kindle depends heavily on the Amazon ecosphere. Separated from that, it's really a rather mediocre reading machine.

I don't see a problem here. You get Amazons software on a plethora of devices including phones and tablets.

Originally Posted by Nathanael

3) The international market, which collectively dwarfs the US, and lies outside the Amazon ecosystem. Kindle is late to the party in the EU, and so far is a complete no-show here in China, where ePub and PDF dominate. And remember, Amazon can't even hope to sell the Kindle before it has its ecosphere in place. But even in a best-case scenario (assuming Amazon manages it at all), that will take several years -- an eternity in techno-years. Amazon is to be credited with lighting a fire under the ebook market. But I think that explosive growth is now outpacing even Amazon's ability to control.

Amazon is already shipping to most of Europe with a working system in place. With there new Kindle coming I don't see anyone threatening there position. Amazon looks very solid from a European perspective.

[Nathanael]

Originally Posted by thinkpadx

As for Nook outselling Kindle, I very much doubt it. Amazon does not reveal their numbers for the Kindle so journalists can only make guesses.

Amazon does not reveal its numbers, but manufacturers do. DigiTimes looked at manufacturer shipments, and found that in March 53% went to B&N. Now, granted, that doesn't necessarily reflect units sold -- for all we know, nine tenths of those Nooks are sitting in crates protecting some warehouse floor from dust. It's also possible the DigiTimes survey is fatally flawed somewhere. But it's the closest thing I've seen to hard data on Kindle vs. Nook. Got any better numbers?

The number of iPads sold is hardly a negative thing for Amazon.

Could go either way. If Jobs is right, and nobody reads any more, then the iPad is entirely irrelevant to the Kindle one way or the other. (Of course, if Jobs were right, then Amazon wouldn't be selling Kindles by the boatload, either.)

But with Apple moving a ballpark million iPads a month, if even a low percentage of iPad buyers start sucking down books out of the Apple store, Apple's going to end up with a significant (and by "significant" I mean anything north of ten percent) portion of the ebook market. Indeed, Apple's already claiming 20%, but that's just about as believable as Bezos' claims to 90.

But again, I'm simply going with what I've seen from industry watchers who are both a) significantly more knowledgeable about the epublishing industry than I (or just about anybody in this discussion?) am, and b) usually wrong anyway :-)

Again, have something better?

Originally Posted by thinkpadx

You get Amazons software on a plethora of devices including phones and tablets.

We may simply be speaking different dialects of English here, but I'd never heard five referred to as a "plethora" before. Heck, FBReader supports three times that number. And if that doesn't do it for you, there's always FBReaderJ, which should run on just about anything with a JVM.

Of the dozen or so cellphones, laptops, desktops ereaders and sundry reading-compatible devices lying around my house, the Kindle app only supports one. FBreader supports seven, and half the rest have their own built-in ePub support.

Yeah, I know. Anecdotal even and an Abe Lincoln will just about get you a latte at Starbucks.

--Nathanael

[thinkpad]

Originally Posted by Nathanael

We may simply be speaking different dialects of English here, but I'd never heard five referred to as a "plethora" before. Heck, FBReader supports three times that number. And if that doesn't do it for you, there's always FBReaderJ, which should run on just about anything with a JVM.

Of the dozen or so cellphones, laptops, desktops ereaders and sundry reading-compatible devices lying around my house, the Kindle app only supports one. FBreader supports seven, and half the rest have their own built-in ePub support.

FBReader is certainly able but to what end. It doesn't read DRM. When you buy a book from Amazon you now have the option to read it on Kindle for PC, Kindle for iPhone and Kindle for Android, this opens up a whole lot of new platforms to read on. This is why I don't think Amazon is anyway near to loose there market share. That and the fact that they're still pricing there e-books at very competitive prices.

[Dark123]

There is a reason why ePub is better.
I like ePub.
1. I can edit the HTML file anyway I like and then use Calibre to make the ePub which shows exactly as how the HTML was. I use some CSS on the Heading and the text.
2. If I break my current eBook Reader, I can move onto another one and it will show the same.
3. If later one I decide to myself, I do not want my headers centred, I just edit the stylesheet and they are all right aligned.
4. I can make the entire size of the text anything I want it to be.
All these ePubs will work the same on all ePub devices, because they all run ADE.
5. ePub is an open standard, which means, I can write a book, make it into an ePub for free to sell.

I like ePubs because, it gives me a lot of flexibility as I have seen some very badly formatted books, where the heading is small or the text is stuck together etc.
With the Amazon format, I cannot even open the damn book without the Amazon Kindle software.

Even with all I have said. I think Kindle will win the fight with their format. Only because, you buy the kindle (They're selling the Wi-Fi only version for only £109, which makes it the cheapest) from a trusted website. You buy the Kindle use Wi-Fi at home and you can buy any book and have it in few minutes.

[thinkpad]

Originally Posted by Nathanael

Amazon does not reveal its numbers, but manufacturers do. DigiTimes looked at manufacturer shipments, and found that in March 53% went to B&N. Now, granted, that doesn't necessarily reflect units sold -- for all we know, nine tenths of those Nooks are sitting in crates protecting some warehouse floor from dust. It's also possible the DigiTimes survey is fatally flawed somewhere. But it's the closest thing I've seen to hard data on Kindle vs. Nook. Got any better numbers?

I was confusing the numbers, my fault. I'm sure the Nook had no problem outselling the Kindle if we're talking about the month of Mars. I was referring to the total sale of Kindle devices regardless of month.

[Scott Nielsen]

Originally Posted by Nathanael

3) The international market, which collectively dwarfs the US,

I keep hearing this but according to what measurement? Sheer population numbers? Volume of sold books? Dollar value of sold books?

[Ben Thornton]

Originally Posted by Scott Nielsen

I keep hearing this but according to what measurement? Sheer population numbers? Volume of sold books? Dollar value of sold books?

In sheer population numbers, there are ~300m people in the US, and ~6000m people on the planet overall. In terms of DTBs, I'm sure that this 20:1 population difference outweighs the wealth difference. In terms of ebooks, I don't have the data to know whether early adoption in the US offsets the difference or not.

[Nathanael]

Originally Posted by Scott Nielsen

I keep hearing this but according to what measurement? Sheer population numbers? Volume of sold books? Dollar value of sold books?

The only hard data I have to go by are, once again, the DigiTimes survey from April. It estimated the total US ereader market for 2010 at 1.43 million units, and the global market at 11.4 million.

As to the ebook market or dollar amount, I'm clueless, except that I would expect they would rather broadly mirror the ereader market.

But that's just speculation.

--Nathanael

[Scott Nielsen]

Originally Posted by Nathanael

The only hard data I have to go by are, once again, the DigiTimes survey from April. It estimated the total US ereader market for 2010 at 1.43 million units, and the global market at 11.4 million.

As to the ebook market or dollar amount, I'm clueless, except that I would expect they would rather broadly mirror the ereader market.

But that's just speculation.

--Nathanael

Fair enough. I was genuinely curious. It just doesn't seem to me that there's much commercial traction outside of the U.S. but I have absolutely no data to back that up with.

[Nathanael]

Originally Posted by Scott Nielsen

Fair enough.

Unfortunately not. I have to retract my previous post (Note to self: you're way too old to rely on your memory. Look it up!)

After re-reading the original DigiTimes article, turns out the 1.43 million was Q1 global shipments, 11.4 million the full year. The numbers given are just too sparse to do a market-by-market comparison. (Actually, I'm sure the numbers are there, for anyone who's got $16k to buy the complete report. Me? Just not that interested.)

I've just spent the last couple of hours googling, and I haven't been able to turn up any direct comparisons. But I have turned up the following:

According to this DigiTimes update, Nook led Kindle in Q2 33% to 27%, though the K3 is expected to put Amazon back on top in Q3. And DT revised its global 2010 forecast downward to 10 million.

And here DT
1) predicts global shipments of 28 million units by '13
2) pegs Amazon and Sony as global leaders
3) prognosticates a "shakeup" with the introduction of Nook and others
4) and pegs China as the 2nd largest ebook market (again, no numbers for us cheapskates)

--Nathanael

[Baumi]

Originally Posted by Nathanael

3) The international market, which collectively dwarfs the US, and lies outside the Amazon ecosystem. Kindle is late to the party in the EU, and so far is a complete no-show here in China, where ePub and PDF dominate.

At least in Germany, they wouldn't have to fight for market share: I just had another look at the txtr store: They have roughly 3.500 German titles - which is a sad joke considering that the Frankfurt book fair features more than 100.000 new (pBook) titles every year.

The reason for that is that publishing houses here very much cling to the tried-and-true pBooks and don't really look like they *want* eBooks to succeed. So they're releasing only a select few titles at hardcover prices and can point to the German market just not accepting eBooks.

If - by some miracle - Amazon could waltz in with an iTunes-style deal and offer much more content at reasonable prices on the Kindle, the handful of early adopters who already bought ePub devices wouldn't matter. If Amazon doesn't manage that, however, publishers will probably eventually get their act together and find a business model that'll work for both them and their customers. Right now, though, the German market is still up for grabs.

From what I hear, it's different in Eastern Europe and Russia where the ePub market is already much more mature and accepted.

[JaneFancher]

Originally Posted by starrigger

Why do you say this? There are thousands of in-copyright books that are sold without DRM, including most of my own. The multiformat shop at Fictionwise is DRM-free; the Webscription list is DRM-free; Smashwords; I could go on. DRM and copyright have nothing to do with each other.

Ditto. All our Closed Circle books are DRM free and available in lots of different formats in a single download. However, speaking as someone who takes a certain amount of pride in the look and feel of her books, EPUB is by far the most preferable because it combines flowability with a highly usable TOC and embeddable fonts. Until the others can give us this same flexibility, they'll be less attractive in my own eyes, both as a consumer and a producer.