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$3-$5 Wowio e-books with customizable dust jackets: Gifts—maybe even for yourself?
February 23, 2008 | 5:08 pm
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By David Rothman
For $3-$5, you can buy a Wowio e-book and send it—with a customized dust jacket—to a friend or family member. Or maybe to yourself? “The recipient will receive an e-mail invitation to download your gift,” Wowio’s gift page says. “No account registration is required and no sponsorship messages are included in the book.” So would this be a way for us Wowio fans to legally strip away the ads, which, by the way, don’t seem to be that intrusive?
I love Wowio. The collection isn’t necessarily the most current but offers books from heavy-hitters like Styron and Vonnegut as well as interesting fare from not-so-well-known writers such as Emily Schultz, I can keep what I download, forever, and there is no DRM. The format is a horrid PDF, which is an anathema to handheld users, who must cope with hassles such as slow scrolling, left-to-right scrolling or both. But as I keep noting, it’s easy to use Mobipocket Desktop to capture Wowio books’ basic formatting in Mobi, at least if you have a PC.
Let’s hope that Wowio can get the .epub religion soon. Gerry Manacha, Wowio senior designer and author of a first-rate e-book blog, says he is waiting for .epub to “mature.” Perhaps the solution is for Wowio to join the IDPF and make sure that .epub is done just so.
The big thing spoiling the party for TeleBlog readers outside the States is that the company limits access to “U.S. residents or members of the U.S. military or government serving abroad.” So American citizens abroad and not in the military can’t enjoy the books? The good news is that Wowio hopes to expand its services “to our international friends in the near future.”
Related: Gerry Manacha on the new gift option.
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Comments:
I’ve stopped bothering with WOWIO. There are books I would like to read and I certainly am willing to support sponsors, but it is a headache to get WOWIO offerings readable on my Sony Reader. Truthfully, I would rather pay for the book I want to read that is already formatted for my Sony — or at least easily convertible from, for example, Microsoft .LIT format — than bother with free PDF. I’m having the same problem with Tor’s offerings — great idea, poor execution.
I know that there are programs available for reformatting but they just don’t work the magic correctly for me, besides which why should I have to bother when the idea is to get me to patronize a sponsor. It’s like being told you can have a free cell phone and make free phone calls as long as you first enter a 35-digit alphanumeric code that changes daily.
Anyway, I’ve scratched WOWIO from my list of recommended places for ebooks unless you ask for a place that requires you to use your computer rather than your dedicated reader.