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For e-book novices: Some leading stores for reading books in popular formats
December 30, 2007 | 3:46 pm
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By David Rothman
Oh, the fun of the Tower of eBabel—all those warring e-book formats. I know it’s Christmas, or just after, when some new e-book readers ask: “How can I find books in my format?”
Ready to tour the Tower? Below are just some of the main retail choices. Old-timers can call attention to omissions if they’d like. Also please note that I’m sticking to the most popular of the 20+ formats. The Tower is scary enough during a short tour.
May novices join the fight to popularize the IDPF‘s .epub format, the new MP3 of e-books! Then people can just worry about finding e-bookstores, period, based on genre or subject matter, as opposed to those selling titles in the right formats.
Inside the retailer area of the Tower of eBabel
Adobe Reader / PDF: BooksOnBoard, Diesel eBooks, eBooks.com, Fictionwise.
eBookwise: eBookwise.com.
eReader (or Palm): BooksOnBoard, Diesel eBooks, eReader, Fictionwise.
Kindle: Kindle Store (actually shopping is built into the machine).
Microsoft Reader: BooksOnBoard, eBooks.com, Diesel eBooks, Fictionwise.
Mobipocket: Mobipocket.com, Ubibooks.com, and all of the above stores except for the eBookwise, eReader and the Kindle stores.
Sony Reader: Sony eBook Store (built into Sony software), Fictionwise.
For books in French in Adobe, Microsoft or Mobipocket, try NumiLog. For Mobipocket, also consider Ubibooks. I’ll welcome suggestions for Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese and other languages. Yet more variables, of course. eBabel is the enemy of a multilingual approach since the emphasis is on computer tongues rather than the human variety.
No sure thing with formats
Confusingly, some of the listed formats may not be available for certain books even though I list the stores as offering the formats.
Keeping up with e-book formats is a little like studying the Talmud or lobbyist-twisted sections of a tax code—given all the nuances and other details.
The DRM factor
Also, some stories may sell both DRMed and nonDRMed versions of the formats. Try to avoid the DRMed variety if you can. The initials stand for Digital Rights Management, which, as old-timers know, is the right of all technophobic publishers to make books as hard to own as possible.
When you want to switch to another machine, DRM may keep you from reading your books unless the right e-reading software will run on your machine. Even when stores offer the new .epub standard, proprietary DRM will clutter up the works. If big publishers keep insisting on “protection,” we need interoperable DRM to go along with .epub.
Needless to say, machine-specific formats like the one for the Kindle will also limit your options.
Special strengths of certain stores
As for which store is best for what, beyond format issues, I’ll address this just briefly. BooksOnBoard, Fictionwise and the Kindle Store appear to be the most aggressive on prices, while eBooks.com seems to be the nicest for people who just want to read books without downloading them and worrying about formats. Diesel eBooks prides itself on offering books broken down into subcategories, not categories.
Another outfit, eBooks About Everything (Adobe, eReader, Microsoft, Mobipocket) has an approach somewhat similar to Diesel’s.
While you’re looking for books, don’t forget free sources, either, such as Feedbooks (already offers .epub format—a great choice for books you want to keep), Manybooks.net, Memoware (specializing in PDA-friendly books) and Project Gutenberg. These free sources offer books in HTML (format of the Web) and ASCII/TXT (a venerable format going back to the dinosaurs). Yes, HTML and ASCII have variants. But enough for now. The existing complexity here is cruel enough to novices.
Special thanks: To Darrell Bain, who inspired me to write this item after a novice wrote him asking about about finding Savage Survival in a nonDRMed format for conversion for the Sony Reader. Closest option in this case might be the DRM-free Sony Reader format (LRF) from Fictionwise. No conversion needed. But then it’s still a proprietary format and works only on the Sony Reader and a PC with the right software. Luckily the Reader format here isn’t DRMed and, via ABC Amber, can be converted to other formats such as PDF and HTML.
Related: Wikipedia list of e-book formats. Alas, even it isn’t complete. What better indication that the format mess has gotten completely out of control?
Suggestion for authors and publishers: You might want to link to this page from the one on your site telling where people can buy your books in E. That’s what Darrell tells me he’ll be doing. What’s more, he shares my hatred of eBabel mess. “Gads, I sure wish everyone would quit fussing and go to IDPF!! It would certainly make selling e-books to the public much easier. I believe the various formats and complexity of them for the average reader are really holding back e-book reading a lot!”
Technorati Tags: BooksOnBoard,Diesel eBookseBooks,eBooksAboutEverytihng,eReader,Fictionwise.com,Kindle Store,Numilog,Ubibooks,ebookstores,ebookstore,ebook novices,ebook newbies,ebook beginners
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Comments:
I think the one issue really holding ebooks back right now is the “proprietary” ebook formats that companies like Sony and Amazon continue to insist on.
Last Spring I bought the Sony Reader, and while it’s a great device, I’m limited greatly to using the Sony ebook store. While they claim the device can also be used for PDFs, the quality is so terrible that it’s a pretty useless feature.
I think many more people would be open to ebooks if their format, and the devices to read them on, weren’t tethered to just one company/website.
David, you did a great job explaining that. I was showing a friend of mine my new Cybook and trying to explain ebook formats, DRM vs non-DRM and ebooksellers. I’m afraid I didn’t do a very good job.
I find it easier to show them at the computer, but even then it is a lot of info for people to absorb. Frankly, I usually only recommend one ebookseller (usually Fictionwise) to novices just to keep it simple.
Amazon did a lot to cut through this confusion with the Kindle because they knew the Tower of eBabel would be the kiss of death for their reader. Everyone else other than Sony seems to be adopting Mobipocket as a commercial format so maybe the marketplace will eventually settle on fewer formats.
Both Fictionwise and Baen Books (for science fiction from a few publishers) have DRM-free Multi-format e-books. You don’t specify a format, you just buy the book and get to download which ever formats you want. If you get a new device later, you can download another format if necessary. Selection is limited, because many publishers (and it does mostly seem to be publishers, rather than authors) require DRM. Fictionwise sells both DRM-free e-books and e-books with DRM in several popular formats, so it is a good place to start looking for e-books.
Just to add to Alan’s comment, Fictionwise has been aggressive in adding new formats–including Kindle format–to their multi-format option.
Baen is not the only publisher who offers multiple formats directly. BooksForABuck.com supports PDF, Mobipocket, Palm DOC, Microsoft Reader and HTML (which is about as universal a format as you can get).
Rob Preece
Publisher, http://www.BooksForABuck.com
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