Mobipocket - the end of an era

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

You missed the point entirely. iBooks is not standard ePub and Amazon doesn't use any sort of ePub. So when the day comes that DRM goes away, B&N's eBooks become standard ePub with Apple and Amazon not being ePub.

No offense, JSW, but B&N's ePUBs aren't standard, EITHER, as you have to do all sorts of jimmy-rigging to get them to display anything other than plain vanilla (practically Kindle-level) ebooks properly. And whether or not DRM goes away will have nothing to do with what will or won't be a standard ePUB, IMHO. Nor do I believe that DRM will go away anytime soon--why would it? While people (particularly here) bitch and moan about it all the time, they buy books with it; and given that the most aggravating question I get, in conversion inquiries, is (a politely-worded variant on) "how do I know you won't steal my book," I don't see authors pouring into a non-DRM'ed platform.

@seajewel: My point was not intended to be condescending, nor my language, about which I am moderately precise. I believe that your logic argument is incorrectly drawn, given my own experience with ePUB, in which, in the hands of merely two retailers (Apple & B&N), never mind anyone else, you can't really use the same ePUB on two different (but purportedly compatible) reading devices and have it display properly. To me, this is (nearly) the equivalent of two different formats.

Now, you mayn't care if a title page is, for example, left-aligned on an iBooks app whilst centered on a NookColor; nor that the formatting of a heading has to be bastardized to keep Nook from hypenating it in such a way that it ought more properly be called truncated...but from where I sit, what the hell is the difference between that and having to use "start" in MOBI and "text" in ePUB? Or use html in Mobi, and xhtml in ePUB? Or having to tell a MOBI-format book to use .85ems for a header, and type it all in upper-case, while in ePUB you can use smallcaps?

If you mean, from a retail, end-user perspective, that all ePUBs look "alike" on the outside, and that you believe that had Amazon not chosen to go a different route, that now "everyone" would have ePUB as their format, and that this ties into a standardized DRM, fine, I won't argue that point--that's your opinion.

But from a technical standpoint, they're not the same "format." Yes, more or less, they are the same base code; at "heart" they are ePUBs. But while both Apple and Barnes & Noble may sell "dog" format, their dogs are respectively Collies versus Dobermans. Whether or not Amazon sells cats doesn't make a Doberman a Collie nor a Collie a Doberman, and my point was that the big retailers aren't breeding their dogs CLOSER to each other, they are breeding their dogs FURTHER from each other, so that Collies and Dobermans are more disparate daily. I don't think Amazon's decision to sell cats really affected Apple, for instance; Apple was always going to do whatever the hell it wants, as evidenced by the fact that it decided to breed funky collies in the first damn place, that ignored every command they were given.

Sorry, enough with the dog analogy...but seriously, in the guts of the books, they're not the same, and I don't think that Amazon had anything to do with that. If anything...if Amazon DOES adopt an ePUB standard, it will probably have its own foibles, just as Mobi ended up having its own weirdnesses, like two toc's.

Just my $.02, from a book-maker's perspective.

Hitch

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Now, you mayn't care if a title page is, for example, left-aligned on an iBooks app whilst centered on a NookColor; nor that the formatting of a heading has to be bastardized to keep Nook from hypenating it in such a way that it ought more properly be called truncated...but from where I sit, what the hell is the difference between that and having to use "start" in MOBI and "text" in ePUB? Or use html in Mobi, and xhtml in ePUB? Or having to tell a MOBI-format book to use .85ems for a header, and type it all in upper-case, while in ePUB you can use smallcaps?

I thought that the great thing about ebooks is the fact that we can change the way in which they are displayed.

[HPG]

Sheesh. This is all so depressing. Why is it that each succeeding sector has to take so long to learn, painfully, the benefits of standardization? If things really are diverging as Hitch is predicting, and you make a convincing case, then all we have to look forward to is a game of Russian Roulette in which we hope that the books we're buying don't get obsoleted en masse when our chosen supplier goes belly up, as they all will eventually. Indeed, that's what's going on at the moment, isn't it, with eReader and MOBI?

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by HPG

Sheesh. This is all so depressing. Why is it that each succeeding sector has to take so long to learn, painfully, the benefits of standardization? If things really are diverging as Hitch is predicting, and you make a convincing case, then all we have to look forward to is a game of Russian Roulette in which we hope that the books we're buying don't get obsoleted en masse when our chosen supplier goes belly up, as they all will eventually. Indeed, that's what's going on at the moment, isn't it, with eReader and MOBI?

Luckily, if DRM is not an issue, converting from eReader or Mobi to ePub is a relatively lossless process.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Luckily, if DRM is not an issue, converting from eReader or Mobi to ePub is a relatively lossless process.

While a lossless process, it's not a totally painless process. I've converted eReader and Mobipocket and have had to go into the ePub code and fix things and the code can be a bit sloppy.

[DiapDealer]

Why is it that each succeeding sector has to take so long to learn, painfully, the benefits of standardization?

In this case, the publishing sector has very little need to "learn" anything. If a lack of standardization hasn't cost them anything, why should they even pursue it? Authors write it/the public buys it... regardless of the medium/format. One single standard format won't cause more books to be sold than is sold under the current schizophrenic publishing landscape.

I understand the benefits for readers, certainly, but until a mega-selling author's latest ebook release flops utterly (in one particular format) ... there's just no reason for the industry to standardize.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

If a lack of standardization hasn't cost them anything, why should they even pursue it?

Needing to generate multiple versions of the ebook costs money. I think at the moment it's more the ebook retailers than the publishers that are perpetuating the multiple ebook formats.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Needing to generate multiple versions of the ebook costs money. I think at the moment it's more the ebook retailers than the publishers that are perpetuating the multiple ebook formats.

A lot of the time, they cannot get even one format correct. They then convert to another format with the same glitches, blotches, and goofs.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Needing to generate multiple versions of the ebook costs money. I think at the moment it's more the ebook retailers than the publishers that are perpetuating the multiple ebook formats.

Granted. But what would convince Amazon that it was in their best interest to adopt ePub? Even if you could convince them to, the incompatible DRM they would inevitably apply would still keep the Sony, Nook and other device owners from purchasing ebooks from them. They'd gain nothing. Even if the publishers drew a line in the sand and forced Amazon to sell ePubs, the different DRM would still prevent non-Kindle owners from using/buying their ePubs.

My point is that DRM, not format is the hurdle here. An epub-only ebook world wouldn't be any less divided than the current ebook world is now... not with four different DRM schemes (and multiple epub standards) still hampering interoperability.

Just my two-cents.

[vaughnmr]

Just out of curiousity, which of the "standard" epubs versions would be best used for conversion to mobi for my Kindle? From what I'm hearing, each vendor makes a different "standard" epub ebook, and evidently Apple strays from the "standard" more than others.

Assuming, of course, that there is no drm involved...

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by vaughnmr

Just out of curiousity, which of the "standard" epubs versions would be best used for conversion to mobi for my Kindle? From what I'm hearing, each vendor makes a different "standard" epub ebook, and evidently Apple strays from the "standard" more than others.

Assuming, of course, that there is no drm involved...

Apple is non-standard and the DRM has yet to be cracked. Every other ePub is the same standard ePub. The only difference is B&N's DRM. But the DRM for B&N has been cracked. So really, the only ePub that's not standard is Apple. So as long as you can strip the DRM from the ePub, it will be standard ePub. (Adept or B&N DRM)

[Hellmark]

Originally Posted by vaughnmr

Just out of curiousity, which of the "standard" epubs versions would be best used for conversion to mobi for my Kindle? From what I'm hearing, each vendor makes a different "standard" epub ebook, and evidently Apple strays from the "standard" more than others.

Assuming, of course, that there is no drm involved...

There is the ePub standard, and then there is the DRM put on top of it. From my understanding of things, many of the books in the iBookstore don't adhere very closely to the ePub standard (uncracked DRM aside, speaking strictly about what people have done to get their books looking nice on iBooks). The books I've got have mostly been DRM free from Smashwords and the like, or with Adobe ADEPT DRM, and when stripping things back to look at the code, both have varied wildly in regards to the ePub spec. The DRM makes no different. It all boils down to how much attention people pay to the specification of the ePub Standard when making their ebooks. Most people have a "ehh, its good enough" philosphy, that just because there aren't apparent issues, they don't work harder to get it fully in compliance with the spec. The problem with this is, sometimes it causes issues between readers, if they use different rendering engines.