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Links: B&N e-reader photos, Jane Friedman’s new e-publishing company, and territorial rights
October 14, 2009 | 9:13 am
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By David Rothman
Barnes and Noble’s forthcoming rival to the Kindle will feature an E Ink screen as expected. But it will be monochrome only.
Gizmodo is running all kinds of photos but does not reveal the price of the unit expected to be unveiled officially this month.
Intriguing detail: There’ll be “a multitouch display like an iPhone underneath.” What do you think of that, folks? Wish we had more details on the uses of the multitouch display. Perhaps even for some non-e-book apps? And in color? Yes, if you go by the photo to the left.
Just as B&N’s e-book software allows, the new hardware will let you read thousands of public domain books from Google.
I’m curious what’s ahead from B&N next spring. B&N denied that it would sell a color E Inker from Plastic Logic, but could something else be in store for us? I’m also curious about B&N’s possible use of the ePub format, with or without DRM. The company’s Fictionwise subsidiary is plans to unveil an ePub-capable version of eReader, although the format will come wrapped in proprietary DRM, at least when publishers insist on it.
Other links of interest today:
–Former HarperCollins CEO Jane Friedman’s new e-publisher has unveiled more details, according to the New York Times. Among the authors included: William Styron, Iris Murdoch, Joseph Heller and Pat Conroy. Hooray!
–The territorial rights controversy rages on. As reported in PW via booktrade.info, an Amazon spokesman “said the e-tailer has worked with publishers to build a database that knows the correct territory where each of the 200,000 English-language titles available for sale through the international Kindle can be sold.” Robert Gottlieb, however, a powerful literary, is still concerned.
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Comments:
I finally got around to commenting on a post here at Teleread!
I’ve been reading and purchasing Ebooks for 9 years. My preferred reading method is on my Palm TX.
The B&N Ereader will be a nice addition to the Ereader market if for no other reason then providing competition.
The concerns and irritations I have as a reader and buyer of ebooks:
1. I don’t care one bit at this point about E-ink or whatever it’s called. I believe is is misplaced interest. Trying to replicate a paper format is limiting the potential of ebooks. Ebooks are a different way to read. They have different capabilities that won’t be exploited if this old mentality is kept.
2. The big publishers at this time do not appear to be grasping the potential at all. In fact, I am feeling a bit ripped off. Example, a couple of ebooks I purchased around 2002 in the Ereader format were hyperlinked quite well for chapters, footnotes, etc. My latest purchases of the same author on the continuation of his stories have no such links. All they are is just higher priced text. The books I refer to are from the “The Case for…” series from Lee Strobel.
3. Publishers are making it very difficult to justify the purchase of Ebooks with the ridiculous DRM. Just now I have trouble opening one of the Lee Strobel’s books because I couldn’t remember the password. I OWN this book!
Well, enough for now.
I don’t think we can take these photos too seriously, considering the denials of both Plastic Logic AND Barnes & Noble about the release of a COLOR screen.
Fictionwise is making its own DRM for ePub now? Yet another DRM scheme that needs to be cracked before I’ll buy anything using it.
Spider, we can always hope that they are simply utilizing their existing encryption (which some might call “good enough to keep people honest”) so that we may quickly get past this DRM hurdle.