Comments on: How real people buy, read and use e-books—and how freebies can help

By: Mike Cane

Mike Cane — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 19:51:58 +0000

@ Aaron: Yes, I know that. But as I said, the UI is important to me. Until I see what their “iPhoned” version looks and runs like, they’re still just one of several contestants. If the best UI comes from a program that can’t do DRMed books, then that DRM has to come off! So that’s a major factor for me too.

By: Aaron J. Walker

Aaron J. Walker — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:41:50 +0000

@Mike;

eReader is currently at work for a version that will work on the iPhone (I think I read it here).

They said all they need is to finish up the port since they already have a version for the Apple desktop and get Apple’s approval.

In fact, they said there would probably be an iPhone version before there is a BlackBerry version.

By: Mike Cane

Mike Cane — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:36:24 +0000

AFAIK, there is no way to strip the DRM from eReader. At least nothing I’ve ever come across. That might speak well to the company’s value.

I was just recently musing about what I’ll do when I finally get an iPhone and want ebooks. I really dread the idea of multiple readers and file formats.

Maybe the fact eReader text can’t be, um, exported is actually a strike against them?

For me, the most important part is the reader program UI. That will determine the file format I ultimately use. I’d rather flick pages than scroll scroll scroll. (Someone at Sony is now smiling!)

By: Aaron J. Walker

Aaron J. Walker — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:24:22 +0000

Ficbot;

I completely agree with you about the apparent disconnect between eBookwise and Fictionwise.

If I were the same company, I’d be negotioating the rights for all formats I carry at my company, not letting them pick and choose. I’d explain it how it helps THEIR bottom line to have it available site wide. Seems like a no-brainer to me.

And about the ST:Voyager book. I purchased it through eReader and was a little miffed that Part 1 was not clearly identified in the purchasing decision. As I was getting to the end of the book I started to suspect something was not right.

I would have bought the sequel anyway (which I did) but I wish they would have informed me of that when I purchased Part 1 so I could have gotten them at the same time.

By: Lee

Lee — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:11:57 +0000

Ficbot, I’d also like to see us become true competitors, though not necessarily in a financial sense. One writer’s plot holes can be another’s intention, but of course it depends on the skill and talent of the writer.

My intention is ultimately to offer good quality, even literary, fiction online. It may take me many more years to get there … if at all! One problem, of course, is that many online readers prefer a different sort of writing to the kind I do.

By: ficbot

ficbot — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:01:51 +0000

I would love to know how to strip the DRM and convert eReader files into a format I can use. I have googled to no avail. I have a few ‘protected’ ereader titles I would love to move to my eBookwise. And it continues to baffle me that Fictionwise carries slightly different title selections than eBookwise does. I know it is not their ‘fault’ and the publishers set the permissions, but would the publishers not want to get the books into as many hands as possible? Why offer it on the one and not the other? It makes no logical sense to me.

At the same time, I would love to see the indie e-book people step things up a little to be true competitors. I’ve read two more ebooks since I wrote this article, and one had major plot holes and would never have seen the light of day as a print book. The other was a good story (by a Teleread regular, which in part influenced my purchase), but had a few typos that suggest to me it would have benefited from one more pass by a good editor.

By: Lee

Lee — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 13:30:10 +0000

And here’s another one to try: my YA fantasy MORTAL GHOST, with YA SF/F hybrid CORVUS soon to be serialised online.

By: Dan Jackson

Dan Jackson — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 10:35:22 +0000

It seems basically like the core problem here is that format-shifting for personal use needs to be explicitly permitted as a fair use right. The tools are already out there to convert the books you wanted into the format you needed, but using them is currently illegal because they strip the DRM in order to do the conversion.

On the other hand, of course, legitimizing format-shifting would remove most of the impetus for the industry to do anything about the eBabel issue.