Is the Digital Era creating New Life for P-Books?

After a very long weekend of too much food, too many relatives and too little sleep, I woke up yesterday, poured a cup of coffee and started reading the New York Times.  The first article to catch my attention was How to Publish Without Perishing.

In this piece James Gleick opines that there is a bright future for printed, bound books:

I think, on the contrary, we’ve reached a shining moment for this ancient technology. Publishers may or may not figure out how to make money again (it was never a good way to get rich), but their product has a chance for new life: as a physical object, and as an idea, and as a set of literary forms. . . .

Go back to an old-fashioned idea: that a book, printed in ink on durable paper, acid-free for longevity, is a thing of beauty. Make it as well as you can. People want to cherish it.

Really?!

While I find this an interesting view, I wonder if Mr. Gleick has been out and about in the real world lately.  Has he been to his local bookstore?  Does he have any contact at all with "the younger generation"?

Later in the day I found myself inside the local Barnes and Noble.  In our town, they have the best selection of CDs and it is Christmas time. 

The store was moderately busy.  A few people in the coffee shop, a few people sitting in the oversize chairs (mostly they looked like they were waiting for someone), a bustling staff and a handful of customers. 

I took a seat and did some intense people watching over the next half hour.  Anything was better than facing the chaos in my house!

I found the demographics very telling.  I saw children (approximately 5-13) accompanied by parents; I saw middle aged women, and I saw old men and women.  Aside from the staff, I did not see one person between the age of about 13 and 30.  None!

I was willing to chalk it up to a very unscientific survey and leave it at that.  I decided I better quite procrastinating.  So I started gathering my stuff and getting ready to go clean up my house.  And then I saw her.  A real life teenage girl.  She just appeared before my eyes. I was so intrigued by the sight I just stared.

She looked around for a moment, and then she threw herself into a chair with a big sigh.  She routed around in her jean's pocket and pulled out a cell phone.  Within seconds she was texting away.  Totally ignoring all the beautifully bound books along with everyone in the store.

I for one, am unwilling to bet that she will someday wake up and find a book a thing of beauty; something to cherish.  I doubt that she will see a book as an idea or a set of literary forms.

She may see it as furniture (a great way to warm up a room and give it a little class).  Kind of like the antique rolltop desk I inherited from my grandmother.  Beautiful but with very limited usability.   

del.icio.us Tags: ebook,e-books,digital reading,publsihing,books,p-books

The Sony eReader, DRM and Literacy

eBooks have been a hot topic this week. Much news about the Sony change in strategy and what it means for the Kindle. I have had a hard time getting this piece together. . . for some reason (probably the heat), I am having a difficult time thinking, much less getting inspired or passionate. But here goes. . .

The Sony eBook Reader now reads Adobe Digital editions eBooks!

Last week Sony announced a new way of thinking. It came in the form of a software (firmware) release. In what appears to be a direct challenge to the Amazon Kindle, Sony opened up the Sony eBook Reader so that their owners can buy from other retail outlets.

Until now, the only way to read a copy protected (DRM) eBook on the Sony was to buy a book in the Sony store. Not true anymore. The latest update allows the Sony reader to handled protected Adobe files and any of the ePub formatted files.

For those who wonder, the ePub format is the new standard proposed by the International Digital Publishing Forum. The IDPF has spent a lot of time developing this "universal" standard as a way to eliminate the confusion caused by many proprietary formats.

I am thrilled that to be able to welcome Sony eBook owners to the eBooks About Everything store!

A few words about DRM

In the beginning, Sony and Amazon created their eBooks with proprietary reading software. If you owned a Sony you could only buy books from Sony. If you own a Kindle you can only buy a book from Amazon.

The lack of a standard eBook format has been even more hampered by the way publishers think about copy protection and their decision to use Digital Right Management.

Make no mistake, I am NOT a fan of DRM, but as a bookseller I am more or less forced into selling DRM protected books. The publishers insist that it will protect their intellectual property and prevent piracy. SO if I want to sell the latest titles from the big publishers like Random House, Simon & Schuster or Harper Collins I have no choice.

Most books in the eBooks About Everything store are offered in four formats -- adobe digital editions, palm eReader, MSReader and Mobipocket. Very cumbersome!

At least 95% of our customer support issues are related to DRM! That is a lot of time and energy.

As much as it might pain me, I agree with Bill Gates about piracy. It is inevitable and probably helps more than hurts:

"And as long as they're going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade. . . They'll get addicted and we will collect."

The music industry has finally given in; it will be interesting to see how long the publishing industry holds out.

The New York Times and Literacy in the Digital Age

The Sunday edition of the New York Times has an excellent piece on literacy in the Digital Age: Literacy Debate: R U Really Reading.

This is an excellent piece on the pros and cons of digital reading and the largely generational divide in attitudes about literacy and online reading. Highly recommended!

del.icio.us Tags: Sony,Kindle,ebook,e-book,ebook reader,piracy,DRM,digital reading,literacy

eBook Discount: Take an EXTRA 20% Discount on all New York Times Best Selling Fiction!

Summer is here!

For those of us in the US it is a long Independence Day holiday weekend. 

As far as I can tell, the VERY BEST holiday weekend imaginable will be spent on the beach with a good book.

So -- here is your chance to get as many of these NY Times best selling Fiction titles for 20% off.

Use Coupon Code J408 at checkout to get your discount!

New York Times Best Sellers are always discounted 10% and with coupon you will get a full 30% off on these great titles!

Happy Reading!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

del.icio.us Tags: ebooks,e-books,discounted New York Times best sellers,new york times best selling fiction,fiction

New York Times Best Sellers eBooks discounted!

This week we are doing something a little different for weekly specials. This week ALL of the New York Times Best Sellers are yours to buy for an additional 10% discount.  You get a 23% discount when you use your points to purchase these great titles! Use Coupon code MAYbest1 at checkout to get your discount on these great books. And remember that we always discount best sellers!

eBooks About Everything automatically discounts the New York Times Best Sellers.

This is your chance to stock up on some fabulous titles at an additional 10%. 

 

What about these great Fiction titles?

   Simple Genius by David Baldacci

   The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards

   Certain Girls by Jennifer Weiner

We also have informative and entertaining non fiction biographies to keep you reading for hours!

  John Adams by David McCullough

   Armageddon in Retrospect by Kurt Vonnegut

      Are You There Vodka?  It's me Chelsea by Chelsea Chandler

And finally books to inspire and motivate you.

  Harmonic Wealth by James Arthur Ray

   Gorgeously Green by Sophie Uliano

   The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Tim Ferris.

Books are the best entertainment value ever.  Where else can you get ten hours of total entertainment for less than $25?

Happy reading!

 

del.icio.us Tags: new york times best sellers,eBook discounts,e-book discounts,discounted New York Times best sellers

eBooks in the New York Times

The New York Times had a great piec about eBooks: An Entire Bookshelf, in Your Hands. Really worth a look!

Shocking news -- eBooks are going mainstream. Of course, we’ve known that for awhile which is why we started eBooks About. After all we like a market that is doubling annually: The International Digital Publishing Forum, estimates that retail sales of e-books in the 2nd quarter of 2007 was $8.1 million compared to $4 million in the same time period last year.

The author talks a lot about hardware and software and their impact on eBook reading. Certainly better reading software and hardware devices are major factors in this growth, but I believe that the greatest single factor is content. Major publishers are creating eBook versions of titles along with the hard cover release. And Harlequin who announced last week that it has started (August, 2007) to create an e-book edition of every new book it releases,

Yes, we have had content In the past. Thanks to Project Gutenberg there have always been titles available. I, however, have trouble getting excited over the idea that I can read Middlemarch on my phone. I suspect I am not alone.

New variety in title choices and major author’s books generate eBook sales. And the market is changing! Our store sales reflect the trends talked about in the article – we sell more romance and ‘chick lit’ (women’s fiction for the more politically correct) than any thing else. But we also sell a great number of non fiction and reference titles. You’d be amazed at how many manuals we sell.

As an eBook reader I got a real kick out of the article . . . it was more or less a case of preaching to the choir. Of course I would have liked to have seen eBooks About Everything mentioned, but I have to remember that we are still the new kid on the block and it all takes time.

But the best part for me was that the writer talked about my two personal favorite reasons for reading an eBook: the backlighting so I can read in bed in the dark and the fact I never feel the need to tear off an embarrassing cover.