07:00 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Week in Review

If you've been absent and are keen to find out what MobileRead was up to this week, check out the links below:

E-books - News

• "Friction" is why e-books adoption is slow
• Jon Evans wants to release award-winning novel for free
• Is the e-book threatening the future of our literary culture?

E-book Devices - Sony Portable Reader

• New PDF to LRF Tool (for DJVU and CBZ files too)
• Sony e-books credit expiry reminder

Mobile Devices - Handhelds and Smartphones

• Palm Addicts has a summary of this week's Palm news

09:44 AM by Patricia in E-Book Readers | Sony Reader

Just to remind anyone who bought a Sony Reader a few months ago: the $50 credit in the Connect store expires on August 31st, so you may want to spend any remaining balance quickly.

Also, I believe that the Sony Classics offer may expire as well.

09:19 AM by TadW in E-Book General | News

The September edition of The Writer has an article on how copyright piracy grows with the emergence of e-books. Chuck Leddy writes:

With file-sharing becoming so popular, some have sounded the death knell of copyright and the book itself. Fortunately for writers, reading a book through a digital format remains a pretty dismal experience. Still, companies like Sony are working on creating an accessible format for reading on-screen, though the reviews of early products (like the Sony Reader) have been mixed.

So, according to him, authors - for their own sakes - have to hope that e-books will never succeed for everyone who reads an e-book is a potential file-sharer (how else could it be "fortunate" for writers that the digital format has not yet picked up?).

He concludes:

What's at stake in these copyright battles is the future of our literary culture. If authors can't pay their rent, what incentive will they have for creating literary works? While authors write to express their artistic vision and make their voices public, they also have a right to protect their work and profit from it. But in the ever-changing electronic landscape, file-sharing is often just a mouse-click away. The tension between an author's rights and the increasing ease of accessing anything anytime online will continue to mount. And the scene where the valiant naval officer sails in to restore order has yet to be written.

Compare this with Jon Evan's recent coming out who joined the crowd of authors who want to publish their best works online for free.

Related: "Friction" is why e-books adoption is slow

04:42 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

Thanks to the anonymous tipster who pointed us to a fascinating editorial by Canadian novelist Jon Evans, appearing in the September edition of the Walrus magazine. It starts with:

A few years ago, my first novel was published. It did pretty well, won an award, was translated and sold around the world; the movie rights were even optioned. Now I want to put it online - no charge, no hook, no catch. My motivation is simple: greed.

Mr. Evans goes on by explaining why publishers have been so slow to commit to the digital medium, how the Sony Reader marks the beginning of a new era for e-books, and why the author's middleman, the publishing industry, might be already past the tipping point.

Btw, it was Mr. Evan's debut novel, Dark Places, which won the Arthur Ellis Award in 2005.

Link to the full editorial: here

02:13 PM by RWood in E-Book Readers | Sony Reader

There is a new gun in town for converting PDF files to LRF for reading on the Sony Reader. cacapee has recently released pdflrf – a converter for PDF, DJVU, and CBZ files. Given the recent problems surrounding RasterFarian that have caused MobileRead to withdraw that tool from distribution on this site, pdflrf fills a vital need.

pdflrf is a great tool that more than fulfills its promise – letter and A4 sized PDFs can be split and viewed on the Reader, DJVU files can be used, and CBZ files can now do more than just take up space. In a recent test a 26 MB CBZ file was converted to a 8 MB LRF file and displayed on the Reader beautifully.

In the past week pdflrf has grown from version 0.2 to 0.4 and gone from a command line interface only to a GUI. Currently for the Windows only platform, cacapee has indicated that he has written it in a way that he can migrate pdflrf to other platforms such as Linux and OSX when it becomes more mature.

Click here for the downloads and discussion.

10:38 AM by Bob Russell in E-Book General | News

It's clear to fans of e-books that there are obstacles to mainstream adoption. But the issues are not really show stoppers, so they don't seem to get a lot of attention from sellers. Nor from the publishers, who seem to hold all the cards, and who are moving relatively slowly because they want to retain as much power and revenues in the new e-book world as possible. They want to be careful in setting a new paradigm, because it will determine their future, and they are starting to realize that. However, like Palm, they seem to think that they also have all the time they need or want before they move forward with abandon.

So if all the complaints are "little ones", like the annoyances of DRM, then how is a publisher to get the point? Well, one forward thinking publisher has already got the point, he just hasn't applied it to e-books yet.

Michal Hyatt, President and CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers, has written in his blog about reducing "friction" as one way for bookstores to increase their sales. Specifically, he compares the pleasant and friction free retail experience of buying at an Apple store, with the friction experienced in a couple of bookstores he visited. He faced, long waits in line at two different stores, and in both cases he dropped the books after deciding that 1-click shopping on Amazon would be much easier. That's the effect of friction.

Now, compare it to e-books. There is a lot of friction...
1) DRM controls and platform dependence
2) Format confusion and incompatibility
3) Confusion about what reading devices are out there and how to compare them
4) Dependency on using a computer to order or load books
5) Format and feature support on the devices is unclear and confusing
6) The devices are as hard to use as a VCR - you know - the ones that often had blinking clocks that the user never figured out how to set.

I'm sure there is more, but you get the idea. No wonder everyone doesn't read e-books. It's not simply that people prefer paper, it's that paper is relatively "frictionless". All you have to put up with is the occasional long line at a bookstore. Just imagine if that was the only hassle for e-books.

Friction is a great term to describe a lot of situations and bring focus to customer adoption obstacles. It applies to smart phones and UMPCs very well also. UMPCs are underpowered and the tablet style is not really supported well enough to make it seamless and easy for the average computer user. Who knows, but maybe that will take a great on screen keyboard and voice control before the average user can be efficient with one.

Smart phones are difficult to use. You really have to want their functionality. They crash too often, they are slow, web sites load slowly or not at all, streaming video is a pain in the neck, even playing MP3s is not trivial. Don't get me wrong, they are getting better and I gladly use them warts and all. But they have a lot of friction.

But the case of e-books is a perfect example of high friction. Maintaining DRM seems a lot like choosing friction over sales. There may be a place for it, and there may be a style of DRM that's not so friction imposing, but right now it's almost a show stopper. You can paint DRM up with make up, but it's still going to look like a pig. A big fat friction pig!

08:53 PM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

For a quick look at the latest Palm news, be sure to visit Palm Addicts for their review of the week.

This week's news includes:
* A sneak preview of the rumored Sprint lineup of future phones
* Expected October release of the new look Palm Centro (a.k.a. Treo 690 or Gryphon)
* The "tough love" letter from Engadget to Palm, and Palm's reply
* The Treo 800w with Windows Mobile and a 320x320 hi-res screen
* Added confirmation that the Foleo will be ready this summer
* Much more...

Note for visitors new to our site -

While I realize that MobileRead has grown into an e-book centric site with the explosion of interest in e-books and reading devices, we still try to remain faithful to our mobile computing roots, and enjoy sharing news of interest to the mobile community. We also enjoy supporting Sammy McLoughlin and the Palm Addicts site, as they are pillars of the mobile community and good friends with us here.

07:00 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Week in Review

It was the week that was. Here's what MobileRead's been talking about since last Sunday:

E-books - News

• Mobipocket DRM server meltdown
• Google Mash-Up: Earth goes Book Search
• "Stretching crystals promises flexible colour displays"
• Adobe's Digital Editions blog

E-book Devices - iRex iLiad

• Using Minimo on the iRex iLiad

E-book Devices - Sony Portable Reader

• Fictionwise adopts libprs500 for Sony LRF e-book conversion

Miscellaneous - Announcements

• What do you think of the current MobileRead logo?