New to the Forum and ranting already!

[sweenm]

Hi All,

I’m new to this forum so do excuse me if this topic has been raised before.

I love my Sony ebook – it was bought for me as a present otherwise I would have stayed with the good old paperback.

Having had some 8 months using it – today I finally got really annoyed! I’ve been simmering for some months – and today I’m thinking of going back to reading paperbacks.

Why? The simple reason is I can read current books. I’m quite hacked off with looking at all the new and not so new releases in the book stores only to find that they are not available and probably never will be in ebook format.

Surely all books are in electronic format! So why don’t they get published this way?

Sorry rant over but needed to air that.

Thanks

[pdurrant]

Hopefully as time goes on, a greater proportion of books will be similtaneously released as ebooks.

Meanwhile, why not read the numerous slightly older books that are available, which are often a lot cheaper than new releases...

Just add any new releases you want to a list you check for every few months.

Originally Posted by sweenm

Hi All,

I’m new to this forum so do excuse me if this topic has been raised before.

I love my Sony ebook – it was bought for me as a present otherwise I would have stayed with the good old paperback.

Having had some 8 months using it – today I finally got really annoyed! I’ve been simmering for some months – and today I’m thinking of going back to reading paperbacks.

Why? The simple reason is I can read current books. I’m quite hacked off with looking at all the new and not so new releases in the book stores only to find that they are not available and probably never will be in ebook format.

Surely all books are in electronic format! So why don’t they get published this way?

Sorry rant over but needed to air that.

Thanks

[BlackVoid]

Yes, availability is a huge problem. But there is no reason why not have both ebooks and paper books at the same time. Buy new releases that you like in printed form and use the reader to read free content from the net.

Ebook prices are unjustifiedly high anyway, paying $10 for a DRM crippled ebook is a bad idea if you can have the paper version for the same price.

[sweenm]

Thanks for the advise - Trouble is as mentioned Blackvoid, the ebooks are not cheap - in my books stores the discount on paperbacks is far more than the ebook.

[NormHart]

Remember that ebooks are considered a niche market by publishers and that publishers are, by and large, very conservative. Once there are more people purchasing ebooks, and this is where Amazon has done a great service to the community, the prices should come down.

The state of the art in ebooks reminds me of the early days of video distribution where we had competing, mutually exclusive, players, formats, and media. Things have, more or less, settled down and everybody's making money in that venue. It is likely as manufactures of ebook readers and publishers settle down to either support multiple formats or standardize on a single format we will see prices come into line with typical paperback book prices and probably with congruent release dates.

Just my humble opinion.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by sweenm

Surely all books are in electronic format! So why don’t they get published this way?

A lot of publishers seem to believe every ebook sale is a lost hardcover sale. And if they don't quite believe that, they think every ebook sale is two dozen lost paperback sales, as "of course" their customers will release free bootleg versions of the book online.

Several authors, and possibly some publishers, believe that ebooks are inherently "wrong"--that books should be read on paper, that you should feel the weight of the book and enjoy the riffling of the pages and all that, and refuse to release books in other formats.

And while pretty much all books produced in the last 25+ years have had an electronic version, not all of those versions were kept, and not all are convertible to ebook formats. So any publisher wanting to convert a 1995 bestseller to ebook format probably has to start from scratch--scan & OCR & proofread from the printed version, and then pick one or more ebook formats and do the formatting for that/those.

There are a lot of potential reasons why any particular book isn't available as a legal ebook; most of them boil down to paranoia or anti-technology philosophies. A few are just short-sightedness, not knowing the market demand.

[DixieGal]

Which bookstores have you shopped at?

[MichaelFStewart]

Hey Sweenm, try some small and micro presses. Almost all of them FOCUS on ebooks as that's their best chance to break through with all the big publishers ignoring the market, particularly in multiformat. Depending on your genre of interest I can point you to some good publishers. Apex - Horror, Scifi. Nightshade - horror, dark thriller. Samhain - Romance and paranormal romance. Drollerie for Fantasy, Horror, Romance, supernatural thriller, etc. They also tend to be cheaper by half.

[PennyPie]

Don't forget your public library...loads of eBooks available at a number of libraries thruout the country.

[LDBoblo]

Nothing wrong with returning to paper books. I'm doing it myself for all the books I want to enjoy. I'm not a big fan of the way e-ink handles or looks at all, and the only hard part about owning an ebook reader while still buying paper books is justifying owning an ergonomically poor $200+ device for reading ugly HTML files in low contrast monochrome with extremely slow response times.

When you toss in the availability issues, DRM issues, price issues, and everything else...it's really rather amazing that this market is getting stronger.

[Superlucky]

Originally Posted by LDBoblo

When you toss in the availability issues, DRM issues, price issues, and everything else...it's really rather amazing that this market is getting stronger.

I think it's the ability to carry a couple of thousand books on your person combined with the gigantic number of free books.

Waiting (e.g. at the doctor, for a late friend, getting an oil change, etc.) is now simply an opportunity to choose from a vast library of books and relax and read a while. I often stay in hotels for extended periods of time and it's nice to have so many books with me. While new books are overpriced, most of my library I got for free (the book I'm currently reading is a free one from Google Books). All the classics, plus tons of new material from up-and-coming authors are freely available.

[PennyPie]

Waiting (e.g. at the doctor, for a late friend, getting an oil change, etc.) is now simply an opportunity to choose from a vast library of books and relax and read a while. I often stay in hotels for extended periods of time and it's nice to have so many books with me. While new books are overpriced, most of my library I got for free (the book I'm currently reading is a free one from Google Books). All the classics, plus tons of new material from up-and-coming authors are freely available

Yep...what Superlucky says!

[BlackVoid]

Originally Posted by LDBoblo

Nothing wrong with returning to paper books. I'm doing it myself for all the books I want to enjoy. I'm not a big fan of the way e-ink handles or looks at all, and the only hard part about owning an ebook reader while still buying paper books is justifying owning an ergonomically poor $200+ device for reading ugly HTML files in low contrast monochrome with extremely slow response times.

When you toss in the availability issues, DRM issues, price issues, and everything else...it's really rather amazing that this market is getting stronger.

"ugly HTML files" - so convert it, it takes about 2 minutes

"low contrast monochrome" - I do not know what you are referring to. The PRS-700? Because other readers are high contrast.

"extremely slow response times" -- ?? Page turning on my PRS-505 is faster than turning a paper page.


"availability issues, DRM issues, price issues" - that, I agree with. Add to that eBabel and poor software from the manufacturers. Oh my. Some basic conversion tools to native formats should be included with any eReader.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by sweenm

Hi All,

I’m new to this forum so do excuse me if this topic has been raised before.

I love my Sony ebook – it was bought for me as a present otherwise I would have stayed with the good old paperback.

Having had some 8 months using it – today I finally got really annoyed! I’ve been simmering for some months – and today I’m thinking of going back to reading paperbacks.

Why? The simple reason is I can read current books. I’m quite hacked off with looking at all the new and not so new releases in the book stores only to find that they are not available and probably never will be in ebook format.

Surely all books are in electronic format! So why don’t they get published this way?

Sorry rant over but needed to air that.

Thanks

I'm with you on that and am hoping we get there (all books are available in both hardcopy and ebook) at some point in the near future.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by LDBoblo

Nothing wrong with returning to paper books. I'm doing it myself for all the books I want to enjoy. I'm not a big fan of the way e-ink handles or looks at all, and the only hard part about owning an ebook reader while still buying paper books is justifying owning an ergonomically poor $200+ device for reading ugly HTML files in low contrast monochrome with extremely slow response times.

When you toss in the availability issues, DRM issues, price issues, and everything else...it's really rather amazing that this market is getting stronger.

Sheesh, why bother.

My primary motivators for purchasing my first reader a couple of weeks ago is that VAST amount of public domain CLASSIC LITERATURE available and the ability to check out new releases from the library.

That's enough for me.