SF novelist Charlie Stross has written an insightful commentary looking at the reasons why the commercial e-book market has not taken off, and suggesting that the threat of "piracy" is greatly overestimated. He points out that many of the reasons traditionally given for the failure of e-books (such as people not wanting to read off a screen) don't hold a lot of water. Instead, he suggests, people want books for the sake of having a "cultural artefact"—something that can be bought "in signed, slipcased, limited editions." Stross draws the following conclusions:Most current e-books are grossly overpriced relative to their utility to...

Followers of print-on-demand tech might check out this item from PC Magazine on inkjet technology. No, book-oriented inkjets won't go for $200 tomorrow. But look beyond that, and consider ordinary people being able to print out best-sellers for instant reading on paper---maybe bound, maybe not. E-book purist will hate the idea, of course, but the true judge will be the marketplace. Related: Stealth Inkjet Printer Startup Could Rock Industry. Photo: Laser-created POD books distributed in Uganda....

If you are an American used to borrowing books from libraries all over the country, or indeed all over the world, you may be surprised to know that there is a very real cost associated with Inter-Library Loans (ILL), and that the bill is usually not footed by the patron, but by the library. The Chronicle of Higher Education has published an interesting first-hand perspective on these hidden costs, and on how ILL is a democratizing influence. The e-book angle is obvious: with electronic versions of books freely available, the cost of just browsing books goes down, and people will only...

So far commercial genres---for example, romance novels---are dominating e-books even more than in the p-book world. Just what are the prospects, however, for e-books written primarily as literature, not just targeted to meet commercial formulas? Yes, the very best genre books can be literary, but I doubt that traditional small preses like David R. Godine are interested in bodice-rippers. Small press gaining influence With those distinctions made clear, small presses, including those with a literary bent, might find a little encouragement in a ...

"While most are 500 to 600 years old, many are even older, and are in danger of disintegrating. In addition, large numbers are lost to fire or other natural calamities, while others are ravaged by insects or succumb to moisture. Their only hope of preservation many lie in microfilming and digitalisation." - The Sunday Times in Sri Lanka on endangered palm-leaf manuscripts. The TeleRead take: What if the Internet Archive or Distributed Proofreaders could come to the rescue? Suppose locals got inexpensive scanners and lessons in nondestructive scanning. Ironically, Sri Lanka is home to none other than Arthur C. Clarke (photo),...

How to describe yourself if you're a bookseller with a profile on a social network such as MySpace? Publishers Weekly reports: "Powell's Books is a 35-year-old male, 8'11." The Strand is a woman; zodiac sign Aquarius. Book People is single and would like to meet "young wizards," "literary snobs" and "people into playing Mad Libs." Vroman's Bookstore insists it doesn't want to have kids."...

Bruce Lehman---probably the main architect of the DMCA---now says it's time for another approach. Good on him. This development is much more significant than my present item suggests. If time allows, I may have more to say later on today. Far from strengthening copyright, overkill like the current DMCA is actually a threat by encouraging a counter-reaction. Related: DMCAism and its Karl Marx---now obsolete. Also: ...

Warner Books, a legendary name in U.S. publishing and part of the E scene, will become Grand Central Books as a result of an ownership change....

The S.F. Chronicle might be dying, and the paper edition of InfoWorld already is at the hospice stage. As if that isn't enough, the Morton-Groves Newspaper Newsletter, hailed as "the most authoritative newsletter covering the newspaper industry," is folding. Even the New York Times faces major challenges. Print is dead P-books are not newspapers or newsletters, serve different needs and are not quite at the ICU stage. Still, I certainly agree with an observation in the Print Is Dead blog, from Jeff Gomez, an Internet market with Holtzbrinck, who says: Today's music buyer (or rather, the teenager today who doesn't buy music) could...

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"Guys, while you are phasing out your beloved hardcover books and converting them into electronic copies (either by repurchasing or OCRing them)---make sure to backup!!!! I cannot say this loud enough because I just lost my own main backup hard drive due to stupidity. Among many other things I lost all the e-books that weren't still stored on my reading device." - Alexander Turcic of MobileRead, commenting on a forum thread about p-book trashing. The TeleRead take: Our sympathy to the honest and helpful Alex. There but for the grace of God go many of us. Best of luck to him...

Moderator's note: Photo is of Maxwell Perkins, who, as an editor for Charles Scribner's Sons, added value to the works of such immortals as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe. - DR I'm as fond of free books as anyone. Project Gutenberg is a wonderful service, and I am grateful for all of the volunteers and contributors who've made this resource possible. So many great works of the past were either inaccessible or available only in high-cost collectible books until Gutenberg began its epic construction of the new universal library. The glories of the weed-out That said, I'm also a publisher. It's...