Epub coming to Amazon and the Kindle!!!

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

He said ePud.

*wishes there was a less extreme laughing emoticon*

Naah! It's about right.
Only way it would've been more funny would've been if the typo has read: eDud.

Contrary to what most enthusiasts and standards fetishists believe, the book-buying masses don't give a hill of beans over the format of the ebook.
All they care is whether they can buy it at a fair price, not which format has a longer specsheet.

Given that the core of the Amazon business is recreational readers the added value of the technical "superiority" of the epub spec is nil; a difference that makes no difference is no difference. Not when it comes to the folks voting with their wallets.

Also, the so-called format war isn't; it's a DRM war.
It's not Amazon vs the world as the epub fans like to pretend.

To all practical effect there are five camps:
- Amazon
- Apple
- B&N
- Adobe
- DRM-free anything.

The first four players *all* seek to lock-in customers to *their* walled gardens. The only difference between them is that Amazon is *today* more successful than all the others combined. Adobe is no more an angel than Amazon is a devil.
(shrug)

It's early in the game.
And the only ebook market that is anywhere near mainstreaming is north america (with the UK on the cusp).
All other markets are nowhere near mature enough to make any defensible statements about what matters or doesn't matter to the populace since those are markets where the bulk of sales are still going to hobbyists/enthusiast types, not the mainstream population.

Which is why I'm skeptical that the linked article reflects any imminent shift on Amazon's behalf when it comes to downstream format support.
Amazon sells mobi format because that is all they need to sell.

If the market where retail epub matters ever adds up to significant revenue for *Amazon*, they'll make whatever adjustments *they* feel appropriate, not what we might thinnk they should or shouldn't do. But don't expect any change one second before that happens.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by rogue_librarian

Practically all the non-English literature in the world, for starters. Of which there is a lot, or so I've been told. This is only beginning to change, very slowly.

The most common format for non-English e-books seems to be ePub. But that does not mean that practically all of the non-English literature is available in Epub; one of the biggest complaints by non-anglophone European countries concerning e-books is the paucity of available titles.

(And of course non-English markets are *tiny* - in 2010, more than 80% of global e-book sales were in North America, with something like 10% sold in Europe, the vast majority of which were sold in the UK.)

Originally Posted by rogue_librarian

I prefer not having to remove DRM & convert to mobi format, though...

You can just buy in un-drm'd mobi without having to convert - Smashbooks, Baen...pretty much anyplace that sells non-drm's content sells it in mobi format.

[rogue_librarian]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

But that does not mean that practically all of the non-English literature is available in Epub;

I didn't say that. I said it was not available "on Amazon for ... Kindle, [nor] ... available in a Kindle-accessible format from other sources." That does not mean that all of it is available in digital form, but the titles that are usually use DRM'ed epub, yes. The supply is increasing rapidly, though, and Amazon starts getting on board as well in some secondary markets.

You can just buy in un-drm'd mobi without having to convert ...

Is that the usual "let them eat cake" suggestion? I'm always happy to buy un-DRMed ebooks but the vast majority of titles I am interested in, alas, is not. Saying that you can use the Kindle to read such books, while technically true (in a way), is a bit, well, disingenuous.

[RockdaMan]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

He rock

Thanks. Lots of other people online and off think I rock too.

seems to dislike anything not Amazon and anything Amazon is perfect.

A little extreme an accusation there, don't you think?

[RockdaMan]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

ulterior product placement

None intended, what is ePud anyway?

[RockdaMan]

Great post. You've got karma.

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Contrary to what most enthusiasts and standards fetishists believe, the book-buying masses don't give a hill of beans over the format of the ebook.
All they care is whether they can buy it at a fair price, not which format has a longer specsheet.

Given that the core of the Amazon business is recreational readers the added value of the technical "superiority" of the epub spec is nil; a difference that makes no difference is no difference. Not when it comes to the folks voting with their wallets.

Also, the so-called format war isn't; it's a DRM war.
It's not Amazon vs the world as the epub fans like to pretend.

To all practical effect there are five camps:
- Amazon
- Apple
- B&N
- Adobe
- DRM-free anything.

The first four players *all* seek to lock-in customers to *their* walled gardens. The only difference between them is that Amazon is *today* more successful than all the others combined. Adobe is no more an angel than Amazon is a devil.
(shrug)

[RockdaMan]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

less extreme laughing emoticon*

[geertm]

[QUOTE=fjtorres;1545066]
Also, the so-called format war isn't; it's a DRM war.
It's not Amazon vs the world as the epub fans like to pretend.

To all practical effect there are five camps:
- Amazon
- Apple
- B&N
- Adobe
- DRM-free anything.

The first four players *all* seek to lock-in customers to *their* walled gardens. The only difference between them is that Amazon is *today* more successful than all the others combined. Adobe is no more an angel than Amazon is a devil.
(shrug)
/QUOTE]

Both Nook and Nook Color also support ePub with Adobe DRM. So you can buy DRM books not only from B&N but from almost every bookstore except Amazon and iBooks. Unlike the Kindle there is no lock-in to a walled garden for DRM books.

And unlike Amazon who licenses its Kindle DRM to no-one, B&N has licensed its DRM to Adobe, and anyone using the latest Adobe software can offer support for the B&N DRM. Pandigital and several software ePub readers already do.

[KenJackson]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Language changes. I got over it. You should too.

Gosh, pdurrant, I think we're on the same side here. There's no need to try to pick a fight with me.

My point was slightly whimsical, but the name of IBM's product was "Personal Computer". A lot of product names were in use before they became product names.

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

If the market where retail epub matters ever adds up to significant revenue for *Amazon*, they'll make whatever adjustments *they* feel appropriate, not what we might think they should or shouldn't do. But don't expect any change one second before that happens.

Significant profit might be a penny per epub, if enough epub's are sold. We would think the market for epubs has already gotten to the significant level for Amazon, hence the OP.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

Significant profit might be a penny per epub, if enough epub's are sold. We would think the market for epubs has already gotten to the significant level for Amazon, hence the OP.

WTF are you even talking about?

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

Significant profit might be a penny per epub, if enough epub's are sold. We would think the market for epubs has already gotten to the significant level for Amazon, hence the OP.

Uh, the cheapest ebooks sell for US$0.99, most sell for much more.
A one cent per book profit equals essentially zero margin and zero times a million is still zero.

Amazon is willing to live with low margins in the 5% range but zero (or even 1%) is no justification to go after a market they don't *need*. If the epub market is only good for 1% margin, I can guarantee Bezos will be happy to cede it to the competition.
Some customers aren't worth pursuing and *if* the epub market is only good for that much after kissing adobe's...ring... Amazon is better off without it.

And I still think epub has a better chance of prospering without Amazon so be careful what you wish for; the law of unintended consequences is very real.

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Amazon is willing to live with low margins in the 5% range but zero (or even 1%) is no justification to go after a market they don't *need*. If the epub market is only good for 1% margin, I can guarantee Bezos will be happy to cede it to the competition.

So a nickel per epub would be okay? I was actually going to use that term in my post but thought the penny was a more wide reaching reference value. They are both meaningless though as all prices will eventually approach zero.

[Salgueiros]

If that means i will be able to buy Amazon books to read in my Sony, that is great news, if not, i don't care. I will not buy a Kindle.

[silasgreenback]

Originally Posted by KenJackson

This would be GREAT NEWS, if it weren't a step in the WRONG DIRECTION.

But if they keep refusing to sell books to non-Kindle ereaders and swallowing more and more of this market, they will invite government intervention to bust the monopoly (at least in the US). That's always less than ideal.

Or they could just become too big to fail.