There's also another issue. It's still nearly impossible for writers to get
published by the major publishers - they like their few big sellers and
apart from that they're not very interested in new writing.
For small publishers who want to publish stuff it's very expensive to
publish in paperback, but more to the point, almost impossible to get
distribution into bookshops of paperback titles. Believe me, I've tried. So
small publishers largely get locked out of bookshops (both big and small,
independent and chain). Or hawk round their books from the back of their
station wagon and get half a dozen bookshops to take 2 copies of two titles.
To a lot of writers and independent publishers e-books and e-publishing
seems to be a way to circumvent the power of big publishers and the
distributors and to make more good books, more interesting writing, more
available to more people (who of course have to have one of the e-reader
versions in which the book is produced).
The e-reader/e-book standards are a problem and will continue to be - video
suffered the same problem, as does DVD currently - and it won't go away in
the short term. It will only go away when one is agreed on by all the
producers.
I too prefer paper objects to reading on screen, would rather curl up with a
paperback than an e-reader, but unless the economics of publishing and the
attitudes of publishers and distributors change, it could mean that we end
up reading the same dozen author franchises published by one of a dozen
imprints of the one global industry giant and distributed into the bookshops
of another global franchise.
e-books do seem to me to be cheaper (once you've paid the overhead for the
reader).
Jen
> From: Craig Sanders <cas@taz.net.au>
> Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2001 10:44:49 +1000
> To: "Chirgwin, Richard" <Richard.Chirgwin@informa.com.au>
> Cc: link@www.anu.edu.au
> Subject: Re: [LINK] E-books said to be "utterly unneeded"
>
> On Wed, Aug 08, 2001 at 08:51:44AM +1000, Chirgwin, Richard wrote:
>>> the pricing of product is ridiculously expensive compared to paper
>>> product (it should be so much cheaper.)
>>
>> The price difference is even greater when you take into account the
>> restriction of purchaser's rights ... ie, you don't buy an e-book, you
>> license it;
>
>> you can't resell it to a second-hand bookshop;
>
> that limitation is hard to avoid. unless you have an original
> publisher's CD containing the e-book, there's no way to distinguish a
> copy from an original.
>
>
>> it's probably illegal to give it away or lend it to a friend;
>
> probably true, but unenforcable.
>
>> and you can't guarantee that an e-book you own and read today will
>> still be on your shelf and available to your children in 20 years'
>> time.
>
> because proprietary file formats generally don't last more than a few
> years.
>
> fortunately, for any given proprietary format it is almost inevitable
> that someone will figure out a method for converting it to an open
> format.
>
>
>> Publishers are keen on e-books *because* they offer the chance to
>> ratchet up the revenue streams - the idea of a pay-per-view, for
>> example.
>
> fortunately, that idea is as doomed as any other idea based on digital
> content protection. there is no such thing as security when the users
> have physical access to the media and the player.
>
> copy protection schemes don't stop anyone from copying anything.
> digital watermarking is nothing but high-tech snake oil.
> "content-scrambling system" is a cryptographic joke.
> etc.
>
>
>> As for usability ... for some reason, both e-books and their advocates
>> consistently gloss over research which consistently rates print ahead
>> of screen for readability and comprehension. (Empirical evidence:
>> how many times do we see Link debates get overheated because someone
>> misread or misunderstood something?)
>
> that's an important point. reading a paper book using reflected light
> is so much easier on the eyes than reading a screen with emitted
> light...especially if the ebook readers do the standard-but-stupid thing
> of using black text on a white background (this is one of the main
> reasons i don't like using GUI applications - too much white glare).
>
>
>> But for me, the big issue remains the curtailment of my rights. I
>> don't want to claim some unfettered right to copy everything, nor do I
>> advocate the abandonment of copyright. But I do want to OWN the things
>> I purchase...
>
> precisely. i would quite happily download & purchase an e-book in the
> morning before i got on the tram to work IFF i had the same rights to
> it as i do with a printed book, and if the purchase price reflected the
> difference in publishing costs (i.e. without expensive printing and
> distribution costs, the price should be much lower than for a real book).
>
> $3 to $5 would be perfectly reasonable for tram-fodder. one book would
> probably last 2 to 4 half-hour tram trips, adding about $1 per day to my
> transport costs.
>
> (and if there were ebook terminals on trams, i could buy another book
> when i finished the current one saving me from staring at the same
> boring view out the window :)
>
>
> i'd store all my purchased e-books on my computer (backing them up to
> tape along with all my other data as a safeguard against disaster) and
> transfer them to an e-book player as i needed them....or sometimes i'd
> read them on my computer because my monitor will undoubtedly be better
> than an ebook display.
>
>
> i wouldn't want to buy a dedicated ebook player, though. i'd prefer
> to have something like a palm pilot which happened to be capable of
> displaying ebooks (as well as an mp3 player module, and a mobile phone
> module).
>
>
> in short, the idea/technology itself isn't a dud - it's the business
> model which dooms it to failure.
>
>
> as for "copyright", it's either dead or mortally wounded. i'd like to
> see the whole intellectual property system either scrapped or reinvented
> from scratch. it doesn't work any more, it doesn't serve the need it was
> created for (i.e. to encourage creativity by granting a limited term
> monopoly to creators) and it is subject to enormous abuse (e.g. software
> patents in the US, perpetual extension of copyright by adding 15 years
> to it every 10 years or so, theft/conversion of the english language to
> private property by trademarking every word and phrase).
>
>
> craig
>
> --
> craig sanders <cas@taz.net.au>
>
> Fabricati Diem, PVNC.
> -- motto of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.1 : Fri Aug 31 2001 - 03:10:03 EST