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50 benefits of ebooks—as listed by Michael Pastore at Epublishers Weekly
March 9, 2009 | 11:06 pm
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By Paul Biba
Michael Pastore, who has been a frequent source of posts on TeleRead, has just published his 50 Benefits of Ebooks. The ebook price is $1, and the paper edition is $20. Here’s what Michael’s Epublishers Weekly has to say:
The Ebook Version is 1/20th the Price of the Paperback
This book is being published in paperback, and as an e-book, in the formats PDF and ePub.
The book’s companion blog and web site (EpublishersWeekly.net) urges readers not to buy the pocket-sized 320-page paperback, which costs $20. The e-book version costs one dollar, saves trees, and contains all the same content as the paperback – except the paper! 
Read It As Loudly As You Like
And here’s a bonus: You, and all the reading devices in the world, are perfectly welcome to read this work aloud.
21 Chapters :: 5 Sections :: 40,000 Words
The book’s 21 chapters are divided into five sections:
A. Benefits of Ebooks and Paper Books
B. Reading Ebooks
C. Ebooks for Authors and Publishers
D. The Value of Reading
E. The Education of an Ebooklover
Ebook newcomers will find the basics here. Scholars and mothers, concerned about the dumbing effects of technology, will be gripped by the essay “The Monster Reads!” And e-book professionals can debate and debunk the author’s wild predictions for the rosy and thorny future of ebooks, by devouring the essay: “Publishing Ebooks – Ten Tremendous Trends in 2009."
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Comments:
I’ll buy THAT for a dollar! (In fact, I just did!)
Paul and Chris —
Thank you so much for your support here. It’s a new world of publishing for all of us. The old world was “a war of all against all” — and that’s one reason that the print publishing industry is struggling these days.In the new world we work together to nourish one another, to promote paperbooks and ebooks, to encourage a cottage industry of small presses, and to make us once again a nation of readers.
You may not have known (unless you’ve read my 40,000-word book very quickly this morning) that both you and your blogs are mentioned in the book — in the chapter about essential resources for learning more about ebooks. I’m counting on Teleread.org and Gutenberg.com to keep me apprised of the latest breaking news — and informed opinions — in the world of ebooks.
Thanks again …
Michael Pastore
Ithaca, New York
Unfortunately, PDF and epub are not compatible with my reading device. I’ll have to pass for now.
The format of their epub is pretty terrible. It looks like it was all copy and pasted from a TXT document and the TOC doesn’t even have links. I know it was only $1 but still… I feel kind of jipped.
Greg, the ebooks don’t have DRM and epub is pretty easy to convert.
Spider,
I find it very interesting that you feel ‘jipped’ even after only spending $1. I can’t speak specifically because I have not seen the formatting of the epub file, but what do you expect for $1? What dollar amount would you be willing to pay for a ‘properly formatted’ version? I’m all for lower prices in general, but IMO, this race-to-the-bottom in regards to pricing is part of the problem with producing quality digital content.
Greg … You can read any ePub ebook online, using BookWorm,for example — you don’t need a reading device at all.
Spider (and others) … My first priority was to create a “valid” ePub document. That is done. Now I’m interested in improving the look of the ePub ebook. You can contact me by email and let me know how to make it look better. I would appreciate that input, because I can’t possibly test all the possible reading devices and reading options.
Email me here: ebook AT care2.com
I will make the aesthetic changes and then send a free copy to you.
Thanks very much … Michael Pastore
OK, we do listen. Spider’s comments above inspired us to add links from the Contents page to each of the 21 chapters, and to some chapters of supplemental material.
I disagree with Spider’s opinion about the way the book looks.
I’ve just looked at the book using the online ePub reader BookWorm,
http://bookworm.oreilly.com/library/
The design looks clean and easy to read. (And I think that’s what book design is for.) The book contains larger fonts, colors, bold and italics — beyond the capabilities of a mere text file.
Of course, you can’t expect to get the precise typographic control in an ePub ebook– using XHTML and CSS — as you can with book design software and PDF. However, ePub is still the most flexible format, and my personal favorite.
Your feedback is important to me.
Thank you, TeleRead, for making this kind of dialogue possible.
–Michael Pastore
“Greg … You can read any ePub ebook online, using BookWorm,for example — you don’t need a reading device at all.”
Reading whole books online doesn’t really work for me. As for converting ePub to a different format, well, I’d have to experiment with public domain works first. I’ve had no problem converting HTML or RTF documents, the PDF format is almost always complete trash, and I just don’t know about ePub.
I find it ironic that a ebook about about the benefits of ebooks should present such difficulties. And I’ve read more than a hundred ebooks in various formats on a few different devices.
Greg, what is your reading device? … Maybe we can either find some ePub reading software for it, or create a format that works for you.
Kindle. It doesn’t take ePub and converted PDF looks awful on it. HMTL, RTF, and PRC all work great without DRM. Supposedly TXT works too but I’ve never tried it.
Thanks, Greg. That’s good news: I was hoping that you did not own some ancient or obscure ebook reading device.
Let me think about the best way to do this. I made a bunch of .PRC ebooks way back in 2001, but I’m a little rusty right now.
Michael
ebook
AT
care2.com