Kindle books and other e-book readers

[Liviu_5]

Originally Posted by rflashman

I think what Amazon wants is a single e-Book service. Since they keep a copy of everything you buy online, they could easily support different (future) devices and seamlessly transfer your purchased content between them. So they are not locked to any single format.

Like those pdf books I bought from them and they deleted ??
Trust them at your own risk...

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by rflashman

I think what Amazon wants is a single e-Book service. Since they keep a copy of everything you buy online, they could easily support different (future) devices and seamlessly transfer your purchased content between them. So they are not locked to any single format.

There is no reason to keep a copy of everything you buy online. The books are the same. They only need to keep track of a list of what you want and then be able to redeliver it. It would be a real waste of resources to actually keep a copy of every single book that every single person bought.

Dale

[rflashman]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

There is no reason to keep a copy of everything you buy online. The books are the same. They only need to keep track of a list of what you want and then be able to redeliver it. It would be a real waste of resources to actually keep a copy of every single book that every single person bought. Dale

I meant 'copy' as the end result, not the actual technology behind the scenes. You are right that the easiest way to do this is just to keep the list and 'master' formats behind the scenes and then reformat/delivery the file as requested.

[EatingPie]

Originally Posted by rflashman

I think what Amazon wants is a single e-Book service. Since they keep a copy of everything you buy online, they could easily support different (future) devices and seamlessly transfer your purchased content between them. So they are not locked to any single format.

Amazon's format instantly became the most likely to accomplish this holy grail of single e-book format. Sure Amazon could supply other formats like .lit and LRF, but that means the publishers must generated the books in these formats also. From their perspective, why on earth would they want to? Why set up an LRF, LIT and a Kindle format book when you can just pump out a Kindle version and be done with it -- and (presumably) make as much sales?

Publishers are having a hard enough time embracing e-books as it is, and the plethora of piñatas.... er formats!... is just one more stopgap in the adoption process. I see one format-- preferably made by the guys that sell the most of your (publishers) books -- being key to publishers accepting this whole e-book "thing."

Amazon licensing their format (hopefully it's as good as LRF!) to other companies -- and said companies like Sony buying in -- is something I desperately want to see.

-Pie

[tompe]

From what I have read the publishers will generate .epub.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by EatingPie

From their perspective, why on earth would they want to? Why set up an LRF, LIT and a Kindle format book when you can just pump out a Kindle version and be done with it -- and (presumably) make as much sales?

Well, one reason is that the Kindle is only available to 5% of the world's population - those who live in the US. Perhaps publishers might like to also sell to the other 95%?

[rflashman]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Well, one reason is that the Kindle is only available to 5% of the world's population - those who live in the US. Perhaps publishers might like to also sell to the other 95%?

Yeah, but we consume 25% of the resources. :-P

[EatingPie]

Originally Posted by tompe

From what I have read the publishers will generate .epub.

What's .epub? Did the article suggest that from this format, it would be up to the e-book sellers to generate the format of their choice?

Originally Posted by HarryT

Well, one reason is that the Kindle is only available to 5% of the world's population - those who live in the US. Perhaps publishers might like to also sell to the other 95%?

I didn't realize the Kindle was US-only. I'm sure it's not going to stay that way though. Amazon sells books to Canada and the UK. Don't they also have Europe covered?

On an international note. It's interesting that the OLPC project (one laptop per child) was motivated in part by book supplies... or lack thereof. You get one OLPC into a child's hand, then CD-Roms containing hundreds of texts -- or via wireless -- is a billion times easier than shipping the actual hundreds of texts (one textbook per child times 1000 text books is a nightmare of scale).

If the OLPC accomplishes the project goal, I'm betting THEIR format of choice will be available to the far greater majority of the world's population. Though I'm somewhat skeptical of the OLPC's chosen e-book format being the one that ultimately takes off (the aforementioned 5% is far more affluent and sends a lot more money into corporate coffers), let's hope they choose a good one just in case!

-Pie

[alphasun]

Originally Posted by FixB

Even more : buy your books from stores without any DRMs (I like Baen )

I wonder would your attitude be the same if you were a living author making your living from one of those books?

[astra]

Originally Posted by alphasun

I wonder would your attitude be the same if you were a living author making your living from one of those books?

I wonder would the authors of the DRM-free content that is being offered on BAEN let it happen if they were not happy with the idea?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by wmaurer

Harcourt Publishing and Grove/Atlantic. I don't know much about how big they are, but one book is the Booker Prize winner, and the other was shortlisted. I posted the link to Mobipocket's response on the 'Potentially very disappointed' thread.

Can you please repost the link here? Thanks!

[FixB]

Originally Posted by alphasun

I wonder would your attitude be the same if you were a living author making your living from one of those books?

It definitively would.
But this hypothesis is highly improbable as the texts I write (even if they were to be published) are French SFF texts, and there is no way a French author of those subgenres could live from his books (even pbooks).

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by alphasun

I wonder would your attitude be the same if you were a living author making your living from one of those books?

Author's get paid the same for an e-book with or without DRM. The question about DRM from an author's point of view should be: do I sell more books (e-books, and p-books by the way) if the e-book has DRM or not. What seems to maximize an author's income is low cost DRM-free e-books (perhaps only available when the paperback comes out, but an e-book can sell more hardbacks). Note that if you have many once popular titles that are now out of print or not selling well, then e-books are a new way to make money and DRM-free e-books are particularly good here. A substantial fraction of your "new" readers will already have the title in hardback or paperback - why do you want to annoy them with DRM.

Some authors seem to equate DRM-free with easily stolen. I don't think this is true, but the real question is why do you care? It does not matter how many people download a bootlegged copy. What matters is how many people pay for a legal copy. Even a bootlegged e-book can lead to a p-book sale.

If Amazon comes to dominates the e-book market, and requires DRM, then authors may indeed need to allow DRM (although it isn't usually their choice anyway). I think Amazon is making a strategic (long term) mistake not allowing other e-book sellers access to the Kindle with DRMed e-books. Most of their customers would buy from Amazon anyway, but now the only way for others to access the Kindle market is with DRM-free e-books.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by EatingPie

I didn't realize the Kindle was US-only. I'm sure it's not going to stay that way though. Amazon sells books to Canada and the UK. Don't they also have Europe covered?

Amazon are very big throughout Europe; that's what makes their decision to go with EVDO as a wireless solution so puzzling. Had they gone with EDGE, as Apple did with the iPhone, the Kindle could have easily been rolled out internationally. As it is, the hardware will need to be redesigned for the European market.

[EatingPie]

Originally Posted by alphasun

I wonder would your attitude be the same if you were a living author making your living from one of those books?

I think iTunes has proven that people are fine with paying for downloadable content if it's available, and at a reasonable price. Yeah it's DRMed, but the main thing it showed was that Kazaa wasn't only people stealing music, it was people who wanted downloadable music and would gladly pay for it if available.

And for me that hits the nail on the head with e-books. It's not about DRM vs. non-DRM. It's about content being available. Between Amazon and the Sony store, there's still hardly anything I want to purchase because the selection is so sparse (by my tastes anyway). I go off the beaten path to find e-books for one simple reason: that's the only way I can find them!

-Pie