Jun 28
Read a short but effective piece here at the examiner.com in which Miriam van Veen compares digital and traditional publishing.
I agree with her conclusions (even if she offers them somewhat hesitantly), and suggest this reluctant acceptance of the eBook revolution as a viable option represents perfectly natural fear of the unknown, while offering tacit approval for the full-scale adoption of the new technologies.
Jun 27
IDW Publishing is offering the prequels to Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Sized for iPhone or Ipod Touch you can get these Transformers comics at iTunes!
Read all about it, and download samples here.
It’s this kind of thing that really gives momentum to the adoption of eBooks and digital publishing.
Jun 26
Longbox Digital Comics was developed as a comic book launch platform (an iTunes for digital comics) rumored to offer issues at .99 each for download to Mac, PC, and Linux. You can read the story here at comicbookresources.com. Individual publishers are free to price their own products, but the smart ones will keep it sensible. We talked about uclick.com doing something similar. In their case, they’re offering their own list of digital comic books sized for iPhone, also with a rumored starting price of .99 per issue.
So far Longbox has two publishers on board: Top Cow and Boom! Studios.
Comic books seem like a perfect fit for the transition to digital reading. It’s just a matter of time before the right platform is developed. Maybe this is it, yah?
Jun 25
Okay, this is hardly breaking news but Legend Press is entering the eBook market with the release of one (I know just one…) of their titles. They’re including author video among other added features. Read about it here at Bookseller.com. I think it deserves mention for two reasons.
First of all, I’m a Dr. Who fan from way back and the title they’re releasing is: Who Goes There by Nick Griffiths, a journalist and Dr. Who expert. Buy the book here.
Secondly, because Legend Press is a “small independent publisher,” embracing a relatively new technology like eBooks and eBooks readers involves greater risks. That sort of spunk deserves mention., yah?
Jun 24
A worthy contender in the Digital Reader market stands poised to capture Europe. I like the article “Beyond the Kindle…” here at ReadWriteWeb.com because it illuminates something that we in North America are often encouraged to forget. There’s a whole big world out there. (And an eBook market to match.)
The article highlights a discussion with Hans Brons (I love the name) CEO at iRex, the company that was created as a spin off from the Philips research group tasked with developing the screen tech that’s in most eBook readers on the market today. They created the iRex Digital Reader 1000  (sweet machine!). Smart people though, understood their device was too expensive for the mainstream so decided to sell and develop for the business-to-business market. This is a market of interest for Kindle DX (landlocked in the US), the Plastic Logic Reader (not due on the market until 2010) and other eReader developers.
This might be difficult ground to re-take for North American eReaders if iRex can get enough publishers to adopt its platform and consolidate its growing European presence in the eBook marketplace. The other devices are going to make the attempt likely sooner than later, but how much of the market will be left for an expensive eReader from the west?
If nothing else, it should provide healthy competition that will bring all the prices down.
Jun 23
DRM is EVIL… Remember when you could buy a book, read it and then loan it to a friend? I started buying books that way. A friend loaned me a novel, the first in a series, and I went on to buy the rest of that series, and more titles by that author. Imagine buying a book on Kindle and having a limited number of times you can access it. Imagine buying that book and being told where and how to read it. Imagine reading a book and being told you can’t loan it to a friend!
Why don’t publishers get this? You’d think the music industry’s implosion over similar controlling behavior would have taught them something. Are they so blind in their search for profits that these idiots willfully, aggressively set a course for their own destruction?
Read an excellent, but confusing set of justifications for eBook Piracy at Slashgear.com here. (Honestly, halfway through the article I wanted to go out and buy my very own Jolly Roger…)
Somebody, please talk some sense to these publishing idiots before the pirates and file sharers are distributing every book ever written!
Remove the DRM and remove an incentive to STEAL!
Jun 22
Take a look at this video. Plastic Logic’s eReader is due out on the market in 2010 to give Kindle DX a run for the money. I wish it looked a little less like Kindle, to make the comparison more exciting, but what are you going to do. We talked about this eReader earlier in the year, but more exciting details have come to light, including a faster screen refresh and 3G broadband connectivity. Check out the list of features here at Fast Company.
So what’s it going to be then? A cheaper DX with its fewer functions could grab the eReading high ground and hold it. At least Plastic Logic eReader’s extra functions might justify a higher price.
It will be fun to watch.
Jun 21
All right, I’ve put this off long enough. I suppose I was waiting for all the legal blather to pass (wishful thinking on my part). You can read about the court wrangle over Google Books at PCWorld here.
Google Books offers tons of public domain material for download, as well as sales and samples from a growing number of publishers. See their new format here. The same goes for eBooks for mobile (iPhone and Android ready) as you can see by clicking here.
They’ve got an impressive and growing collection that is eventually going to be offered in partnership with the Sony Reader among others. We covered that story before. Read it here.
Google Books is going to challenge Amazon for supremacy in the eBook sales market, yah? Nobody else could. (Oops…maybe Apple!)
Jun 20
Read a Fiction Matters story here about the eBook’s continued success. The numbers suggest a widespread and rapid adoption (despite some faltering moments) regardless of the ridiculously high prices for eBook Reading devices (Kindle & Sony almost $400) and the eBooks themselves ($9.99 and up). Can you imagine what will happen when the $99 eBook Reader hits a marketplace that offers eBooks for $2.99 a pop?
It will be like the first appearance of the paperback. That was created as a ubiquitous presence in airports, grocery stores and bus stops priced for the impulse buy. Then we’ll see the eBook Revolution at its finest. We are simply watching the first steps, yah?
Jun 19
Read this article at CNN about the ridiculous $1.9 million fine handed down to mother and internet music pirate, Jammie Thomas-Rasset.
While you do, imagine the word ‘eBooks’ in place of ‘songs,’ and substitute ‘publishers’ for ‘Recording Industry of America…’Â The high price of eBooks and attempts to control the product with DRM (locked) files will create our own eBook and digital publishing pirates. (They’re already out there…)
The piracy and file sharing wouldn’t be there if the recording industry hadn’t overcharged for music in the first place. (Do you hear me, eBook publishing industry?) Imagine blaming Thomas-Rasset’s sharing of 24 songs for the declining profits of a mismanaged (and outdated) industry. It’s shameful, and frankly encourages me to support pirates and file sharing sites. It’s hard to dislike them if Jammie Thomas-Rasset is in any way representative of their crew. (In fact it feels like I have more in common with her than these heartless corporations that feel ‘she’ has the devil to pay.)
Jammie Thomas-Rasset is going to appeal. At best, her ‘crime’ could be called petty larceny. The Recording Industry of America seems determined to further defame itself with this sort of ridiculous and unsupportable attempt at controlling digital media, yah? I’m embarrassed for the musicians and artists that the Recording Industry of America represents.
