TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

Archive for the ‘David Rothman’ Category

By Chris Meadows

A few days ago, I mentioned the WordPress plug-in PadPressed, which makes blogs resemble Wordpad documents when read on the iPad. Now our founder and editor emeritus David Rothman has put that plug-in into use on his own blog about his book, The Solomon Scandals, with an emphasis on the availability of sample chapters and other material from the book in that format.

Visit it from a desktop web browser and it looks perfectly ordinary. But go there via the iPad’s Mobile Safari, and the interface becomes essentially the same as an iPad app. You can even tap the “+” in the status bar to add an icon for it to your desktop, and thus pretend that it’s “just another iPad app”—only the presence of Safari’s status bar gives away that it’s still a webpage.

When reading ordinary blog entries, you can swipe the screen from left to right or right to left to move to previous or next entries (though it does take a second or two to load the new entry). About the only thing you can’t do is widen, pinch, or double-tap to zoom in or out.

David writes that the plug-in may be a little rough now, “but look, in effect, I’m giving you a preview not just of the book but also of the future. To think that I wrote the first draft of Scandals on an electric typewriter.”

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By Chris Meadows

And speaking of school libraries, NPR reported a few days ago that they are increasingly becoming seen as a luxury where school budgets are concerned. Since there are few laws mandating that schools must have libraries, they are beginning to go by the wayside as budgets dwindle.

But librarians do far more than just check out books. They help students with research and information technology, such as the Internet—or even e-books. Students, especially those from low-income families may not have access to the resources they need to do their schoolwork at home.

[Rosemarie Bernier, president of the California School Library Association and librarian at Hamilton High School in Los Angeles,] spoke of a student with a first period English class who came to her in tears because she didn’t have enough time to transfer and reformat the essay she had written on her cell phone. Since she doesn’t have a computer at home, the student’s cell phone is her only hope of completing assignments that need to be typed.

But increasingly, school libraries are being closed, or being staffed with people who only know how to check out books. This is especially worrying given how much more important Internet literacy is becoming as the world becomes ever more computerized.

One of the core principles behind the “Teleread” philosophy expressed by our founder, David Rothman, was the importance of using information technology to further education. But information technology by itself falls short without people who can help kids learn how to use it.

Thanks to the One Laptop Per Child program, kids in poorer parts of the world that had teachers are beginning to get the technology. How ironic it would be if kids in the USA keep the technology but lose the librarians who teach them how to use it.

By Paul Biba

TeleRead founder, David Rothman, the cover of whose latest book is pictured here, has a 4 page article with the above title in The Atlantic as a guest post in James Fallows’ column.

David’s article is far too long to quote, but here is what Fallows has to say about the:

… guest essay by David Rothman, of the Teleread site and the DC roman-a-clef The Solomon Scandals. David was one of the journalism world’s earliest adopters of computers and related technology. Since 1992, when many people (including me) could barely imagine what a Kindle/Nook/iPad-style “e-reader” might be, he has been analyzing these devices and their social, economic, and political implications on his site. Previously on this site about such implications here and here. By the way, he is running a nice Fake Tony Hayward diary on his site.

In this essay, he proposes ways that radically speeded-up adoption of the iPad-style devices could serve economic-stimulus and social-equality needs at the same time. Although he doesn’t put it this way, it’s his counterpart to a post-Sputnik technology-promotion plan. …

By Chris Meadows

It’s been just over a year since Amazon bought Lexcycle, makers of Stanza, and as I reviewed Stanza the other day I glanced back over some of the old blog entries TeleRead writers made back then. I thought it would be interesting to look at a couple of those predictions or opinions in light of how the past year has gone.

David Rothman wanted Washington to see the acquisition as a signal to investigate the e-book industry for possible monopoly practices:

Washington often bungles things, but at least we can vote the bastards out of office. No one elected Jeff Bezos to boss the book business. Significantly, Stanza includes not just e-book-reading capabilities, but also online cataloging ones, which could well be weakened eventually to thwart Jeff’s competition, regardless of any promises to the contrary that Amazon may have made to Lexcycle, Stanza’s developers. Amazon is trying to become the Comcast of the e-book business, the gateway to most everything, and books could become more TVish as a result if, wittingly or not, the company doesn’t give a fair shake to the more adventurous smallfry.

While David’s hoped-for investigation hasn’t happened yet, the danger of Amazon “bossing” the e-book field has at least been lessened since then by first Barnes & Noble and then Apple getting into the game. On the other hand, this has led to some of the acquired smaller fry (most notably Fictionwise and, yes, Lexcycle) showing signs of being stifled.

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By Chris Meadows

On the Music Machinery music technology blog, Paul Lamere takes a moment to reflect on e-book technology—particularly the Kindle and its Whispersync. Whispersync is the system for tracking where you are in a book so your Kindle or Kindle device or app can synchronize with any other Kindle devices or apps you own.

Lamere points out something that most Kindle users probably do not think about very often: with this system, Amazon knows not only what you are reading, but how you read it. Did you start a book and never finish it? Is there a particular passage you reread most often? Depending on how closely Whispersync tracks your interaction with the books, Amazon might be in a position to know these things and more.

It might be interesting, Lamere points out, if Amazon were to aggregate the data in the form of a number of charts. Which books are most abandoned, which books keep people reading the longest per reading session, and so on. He has a number of interesting ideas, and I must confess that I wouldn’t mind seeing charts like that myself.

“I’d rather not turn to the New York Times Best Seller list to decide what to read,” Lamere writes. “I want to see the Amazon Most Frequently Finished book list instead.”

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By Chris Meadows

On TeleRead founder David Rothman’s The Solomon Scandals blog, Rothman links to a love song to printed newspapers by journalist Danny Bloom, “I Just Can’t Live (Without My Daily Snailpaper)”.  It’s a remarkable song, full of nostalgia about various newspapers and personalities associated with them. It definitely grows on you over its 6-minute length.

But at the other end of the spectrum is the TechCrunch piece in which Erick Schonfeld talks about a recent conversation with Netscape-founder Marc Andreesen.

Bringing up the legend that Cortez ordered his ships burned upon arrival in the New World to make sure there would be no going back, Andreesen says that this is also his advice to old-media companies such as newspapers and magazines when it comes to trying to adapt to the Internet: shut down the print version altogether and focus all their efforts on the web.

“You gotta burn the boats,” he told me, “you gotta commit.” His point is that if traditional media companies don’t burn their own boats, somebody else will.

Andreesen observes that with the coming of the iPad, various print papers and magazines are coming out with “tablet versions” or looking into paywalls, while web publications such as TechCrunch itself are not. He notes that the audience size of the iPad, even if it sells millions of units, will still be dwarfed by the two billion people currently on the web.

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By Paul Biba

On le savait depuis un petit moment, et même que durant quelque temps, David Rothman nous avait proposé de devenir acquéreur de TeleRead (c’est très sérieux comme info, j’ai les mails à votre disposition, pour les sceptiques…). Car voilà, TeleRead n’est pas simplement une mine précieuse de renseignements, c’est avant tout un travail quotidien lourd et qu’à un moment, David préfère se consacrer à l’écriture plutôt qu’à la veille sur internet. Et personne n’y trouvera à redire. (more…)

By Paul Biba

Well, that’s quite a bit of news posted below. David has been an icon in the ebook industry and will be a pretty tough act for me to follow. Now on to a few matters you may be concerned about.

When discussing the ownership transfer, and my position position as Editor, with NAPCO over the past few weeks, one thing became abundantly clear. NAPCO values the way TeleRead has been written and its journalistic integrity and has no intention of changing this. If I thought they would then it wouldn’t be me writing this. I expect the future TeleRead to be just as outspoken and controversial as it has been in the past and all shades of opinion are not only welcome, but solicited. The more the merrier!

TeleRead has been, essentially, a non-profit enterprise and has been financed mainly out of David’s and my own pockets. I mention this because this has severely limited what we could do with the site. No in-person coverage of CES, for example. Even covering Digital Book World meant that I had to pay for my own hotel accommodations. Now, as part of a commercial enterprise, TeleRead has the possibility to grow in new directions. We will have access to a real IT department, for example, and so may be able to initiate some changes and expansions that David and I have talked about, but could never afford to implement.

As to the future, things will look the same here for some time, but changes will come as we all settle in. If you have any suggestions for the future let me know, either by sending me an email or posting here. I’ll also be happy to answer any questions in the comments section below.

By David Rothman

TeleRead, the oldest English-language site devoted to general e-book news and views, is now owned by the Gadgetell subsidiary of North American Publishing Company (NAPCO). We closed the deal today.

I’m leaving as editor-publisher, but Co-Editor Paul Biba (left photo) will remain—as full editor. What’s more, Senior Writer Chris Meadows (right), the second most frequent contributor, will stay. Both Paul and Chris have been e-book-lovers for eons, and publications ranging from the New York Times to the Guardian have quoted Paul over the years. Under Paul, who has supplied most of TeleRead’s posts since September 2008 and managed it day to day, you’ll continue to be able to speak up for or against DRM and share your thoughts on e-book formats or the Macmillan-Amazon controversy.

Started to advocate well-stocked national digital library systems, a cause still dear to me, TeleRead has been online in one form or another since 1992, when I was posting the library plan on CompuServe. Nowadays we draw close to 100,000 unique visitors a month and are among the world’s primary sources of e-book news for readers, writers, editors, agents and publishers. Among other things, TeleRead prodded the main trade group, the International Digital Publishing Forum, into finally going ahead with a consumer-level standard for e-books; and today the Sony Reader, the new Apple iPad and countless other machines can read files formatted in ePub.

To our current mix of news and views, Paul will be able to add hot tech items picked up from the Gadgetell tech blog and NAPCO’s other online and offline publications. Based in Philadelphia and founded by the philanthropist Irvin Borowsky, a commercial printer at the age of 12, NAPCO dates back to 1958, and some 150 people work there. The company runs 16 magazines in addition to such online enterprises as email newsletters and the Gagetell blog. Among the Borowsky family’s past holdings was the magazine that became TV Guide. What’s more, according to Wikipedia, NAPCO pioneered magazine marketing at supermarket checkout counters. Now it can join in the coverage and popularization of e-books.

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By Chris Meadows

Especially since 9/11, the FBI has long been interested in being able to check up on the reading habits of ordinary people. In 2002, we covered a librarian’s concern about a provision of the Patriot Act that would allow the FBI to request information from libraries. In 2005, we covered an actual use of that provision.

In 2008, David Rothman discussed FBI director Robert Mueller suggesting “that the bureau should have a broad ‘omnibus’ authority to conduct monitoring and surveillance of private-sector networks.” Since the Kindle uses wireless networks, David was concerned that it meant the FBI might take an interest in e-book reading habits as well as paper ones.

Now Mueller is at it again. At a federal task force meeting today, an attorney for the FBI said that Mueller would like ISPs to keep records of web users’ “origin and destination information.” In other words, the FBI wants to be able to find out what web sites users visit, just as it can get call information from phone companies.

A number of ISP representatives are cited in the story saying that it would currently be very difficult, and perhaps a violation of wiretapping law, to keep track of that information. Whether possible or not, it could certainly have the potential to be a major violation of privacy.

Almost everybody visits web sites that might be viewed as subversive or undesirable by authorities, or that they otherwise do not want other people to know about. (Some are unfortunate enough to do so while on national television.) On the e-book side, this might include politically-sensitive reading matter, or even sexual fetish art and fiction sites.

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By Paul Biba

That’s the title of an article by TeleRead site founder David Rothman which has just appeared in the Huffington Post.

David discusses his proposal for a national digital library system, which he has been calling for since 1992. 

Take a look at his article, and if you feel it has merit, why not send a copy to your Senator or Representative?  With a new Administration, perhaps we can get the ball rolling.

By Evan Leibovitch

I guess David and I aren’t going to completely see eye-to-eye on this, but I didn’t see much that was wrong — or inaccurate, for that matter — in the New York Times article on the recent Sony press release. In fact, to me it appeared to be all good news.

Upon reading the original article, my first reaction was to celebrate the effective demise of Sony’s LRF format; I still think that was the main purpose of the announcement. The Reader’s continued support of LRF always allowed the possibility that Sony could be keeping its own proprietary-format options open. Now the field of supported e-book formats is now officially smaller by one, and that can’t be a bad thing for publishers or consumers.

I understand David’s point about DRM’d ePub not being an open format, but to me it’s not quite that bad. DRM is optional in ePub, it’s a third-party feature that is bolted on, not built in. The format is still "open" in that Adobe does not have a contractual monopoly on providing copy-protection for ePub. Once the numbers rise enough other DRM methods and vendors will step forward, all — like Adobe’s — required to stay outside of the ePub core.

I certainly am on David’s side about the evils of DRM, but a benign NYT article — which helps solidify ePub’s position as the definitive Kindle-alternative format — is not the place to fight this battle. We should be cheering that DRM is optional and about all of the Project Gutenberg (and other) existing ePubs that stay away from it. Advocates should be taking the opportunity to remind the public that the standard ePub spec doesn’t allow the kind of remote-takedown scanario that recently affected many Kindle users.

To me, Adobe DRM is to ePub what Macrovision is to DVDs — a non-excludive tool that is allowed by the spec but clearly outside of it. And a DRM ePub is still ePub — it will still play on all readers that support that particular DRM, and its content is still assembled the same way as DRM-free books. All the ePub format advantages to publishers are still in play when making DRM’d documents.

If Sony wants to sell DRM’d books to Reader owners, they’re welcome to do so. Maybe the titles they sell this way would not be available at all if DRM were not available to the publisher. Here in a standards-based world, a Reader owner has the option of going to any other online bookstores and publishers that might have a different approach to DRM. In the proprietary world that level of choice simply doesn’t exist.

By David Rothman

The Writing Show’s e-book interview with me is now online.

Among other things, I reminded Paula Berinstein, the show’s stellar host and producer, that you can’t own DRMed books for real.

I’m sorry that Amazon unwittingly vindicated us DRM skeptics—she’s one, too—several weeks after we recorded the show.

Just put yourself in the place of students like Justin Gawronski, 17, a high school student in Michigan who lost access to his notes, not just to the Orwell novels that Amazon zapped (1984).

By David Rothman

The Solomon Scandals, my Washington novel published by Twilight Times Books as a paperback and e-book, will be discussed 8 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday, July 28, a week later than scheduled earlier.

Tom Peters, a trained academic librarian, will interview me for  Online Programming for All Libraries and also accept questions from others. Anyone can participate. See a quick description of the book (obsolete date listed) and how-to details for the chat.

The latest Scandals review is from Brad’s Reader.

If you’d like to mention your own book in the comments section of this post, be my guest. Links welcome, including purchasing info. All I ask is that the book be suitable for public libraries here in the States. Meanwhile, I’ll remind people of SF writings by Steve Jordan, a regular TeleRead contributor. His latest book is The Lens, shown here.

And speaking of Solomons: You can download PDF freebies of Japan in a Nutshell, Coney Island, How to Make the Most of a Flying Saucer Experience and The Book of King Solomon and How to Find Lost Objects, by a Harvard grad who uses Prof. Solomon as a pen name.

By David Rothman

Again and again I’ve warned that Amazon may be poison for publishers. We’re not just talking about brick-and-mortar bookstores like the Trover Shop, the beloved indie in D.C. that’s going out of business partly because of Jeff B.

But what about Amazon as a threat to publishers?

We already know that Amazon will compete again them to some extent, such as through the AmazonEncore program, which will offer Legacy.

And now, from Bloomberg, comes this analysis on Amazon as a threat to publishers’ margins:

Amazon.com Inc.’s Kindle, which accelerated the adoption of electronic books, may shrink publishers’ profit margins if the online retailer gets tougher about prices it pays for digital titles.

Publishers typically earn about $2.15 per digital book versus 26 cents for a print copy, according to Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. While publishers see digital books as the future, the market is dominated by the Kindle, leaving them vulnerable to Amazon.com’s bargaining power.

Now, before it’s too bloody late, publishers need to stand up to this goliath before it’s too late. A good start would be to threaten to withdraw e-books unless Amazon agrees to make the Kindle able to read ePub, the industry standard. What’s more, publishers should insist that Amazon not use extensions to turn ePub into a proprietary format. Also, publishers should enjoy the right to opt out of Amazon’s DRM without hassles. So far the small house publishing my novel can’t get rid of the DRMed edition.

I’d also suggest that publishers encourage the U.S. Justice Department to maintain ongoing monitoring of Amazon’s policies and practices. The Bloomberg analysis is yet more indication of the need for vigilance. Remember, Amazon may not only shaft publishers but also consumers as its power keeps growing.

Some hope: Amazon’s openness to nonAmazon formats—well, just so they don’t have nasty proprietary extensions. ePub included? Meanwhile for a different perspective on Amazon, see Joe Esposito’s analysis.

By Chris Meadows

“rise of the ebook session … hopefully this turns out better for us than rise of the terminators” —@trovebooks on Twitter

A full report on the Tools of Change conference will likely have to wait until Paul Biba and David Rothman get back to their computers. But here are a few tidbits I picked up from following #TOC on Twitter:

Andrew Savikas (pictured at left, photo by James Duncan Davidson) revealed that the Bookworm on-line ePub reader is now part of O’Reilly Labs.

According to Tim O’Reilly, an informal audience poll in the Jeff Jarvis panel indicated that about 10% of the audience read on Kindles, but 70% on iPhones.

The Rise of the E-Book

At the “Rise of the E-Book” panel, it was revealed that Buzzword, Adobe’s free on-line word processor, will gain the ability to export in ePub form.

It was also mentioned that, while e-book sales now make up 10% of Amazon’s sales volume for books that are available in both print and Kindle formats, e-book sales are only 1/2 of 1% of the overall book market.

Occasional TeleRead commenter Pablo Defendini tweeted, “E-Ink 2009: next with E Ink:new sizes: smaller and larger; new countries; touch and pen interfaces; flexible displays like PlasticLogic.” Panelist Russell Wilcox from E-Ink also promised that the speed of e-ink was increasing at the rate of Moore’s Law, and that there would be usable color screens in 2010.

Some of the “Rise of E-Books” panel audience looked askance at panelist David Rothman’s use of the term “p-books” to differentiate print books from e-books. The consensus seemed to be that it might look all right on paper, but it sounded silly spoken aloud. (I prefer to say “tree-books,” myself.)

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