Ebooks, eBooks nom nom nom

If you get your books digital…

Gimme an E or I’ll…

OK, clearly my cold-medicine addled brain is not going to come up with something clever, but a recent kerfuffle online has revealed a rather interesting facet of the eBook revolution: once a devoted, glomming reader (such as myself) is introduced to the power and ease of the eBook, going back to paper is not as satisfactory.

It’s true. I know there are some die-hard paper-lovin’ folks out there, and I’m not knocking your preference, but I know that once I got hooked on having the Kindle-Ade with me all the time, with unlimited books at my fingertips, to say nothing of the wirelessly connected bookstore, carrying around a paper book seems so… heavy. And limiting.

Seems I’m not the only one who got herself hooked on the savvy, sexy ease of the e and wants more more more: Chris Meadows at the Teleread blog gives a synopsis of a kerfuffle at Tor‘s site/blog. Tor hyped the launch of their upcoming site with free ebooks. Oh, delicious free ebooks, how I love thee.

Trouble is, when Tor launched their new site, there weren’t ebooks for sale. Some are available for the Kindle, but not all. The free books Tor had offered were often the first of a series, and there were a few vocal readers who were upset because they’d had a gulp of the sexy, sultry beverage that is ebooks, and they wanted to read the rest of the series in digital form. Tor doesn’t have much in the way of ebook offerings for those series, and folks are much disgruntled. Meadows’ gripe with Tor rests partially on frustration with Tor’s decision to pimp the ebooks without having the follow up novels ready in digital form, and partially on his personal frustration with Tor’s response to the online complaints.

It looks like Tor generated a heaping pile of interest in its ebooks, and at present isn’t able to fulfill the demand of that interest. Tor gave away ebooks to generate interest in their site and while plenty of the comments at that thread are thankful and giddy over the new books and new authors and new reading material oh glee, plenty more are not as into the idea of a new site as they are into the idea of the next book in the series in digital form… which isn’t necessarily available. So customers who sampled the series and are content with paper are happy. Customers who sampled the series and are curious about the publisher’s blog-format website are happy. But customers who sampled a series as an ebook and want to continue reading digitally are not happy. Commence comment flaming, general use of exclamation points and italics, requests that folks get thicker skin, and rogue flouncing.

Kerfuffle aside, I’m curious as to whether it’s a relatively small phenomenon, this cracktastic element to the ebook. Have you made the switch? Do you want all publishers to issue ebooks (oh, behold the wisdom of the Harlequin. Tor, seriously, take a look at the Harlequin. Take a goooood loooooong digital look. All books digital = MAJOR YUM of AWESOME SAUCE. Srsly.) and are they your preferred media for reading material?

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  1. Anon76 says:

    I saw a Sunday post on the Tor blog linked to above and it made a lot of sense. Their parent company is converting titles to ebook format (including backlists) to which they hold the digital rights.

    So while this situation is understandably frustrating to readers, I doubt there will be an immediate rush to renegotiate all current contracts. Most often authors hold onto as many rights as they can, and digital happens to be one of them. In fact, most agents push to keep those rights when dealing with, what was in the past, a print only pub.

    That could also be why the conversion of certain authors’ backlists are spotty—each book has its own separate contract negotiations.

  2. Carol Powell says:

    Short answer… I love the digital format and read everything I can as such.

    Long answer…
    I have the eBookwise ereader, plus Mobipocket on my AT&T;Tilt phone… so lots of opportunity to read ebooks.  I love having the digital format as well as the ability to have dozens of books with me at a time.  I also LOVE being able to read in bed without a light on with the adjustable backlit screens… just turn down the backlight and it can be comfortable reading and not bother the significant other. 

    I find the eBookwise reader easier to hold and read because of the bigger screen real estate, the Tilt’s screen is just a bit too small so I feel like I’m continually scrolling as fast as I read… but I always have my phone with me… so therefore I always have a handy library. 

    My biggest complaint with the eBook format is the digital rights management.  With technology the way it is, no format is going to last forever and no hard drive is going to last.  I also don’t trust some company to store my purchases forever.  So, I want to be able to have the right to change the format of my purchases to usable formats throughout time, and hold my own copy of backups, without having to repurchase the same book in a different format.  If that issue was solved, I wouldn’t mind shelling out $400 for a Kindle… but right now, I’ll stick with the cheaper solutions until they work out DRM such that it doesn’t feel like a temporary purchase.

  3. Jen says:

    ::points up:: what Carol said about DRM.  I’ve not drunk kindle-aid because I just don’t quite trust ‘em with the recent kerfluffle about Lightning Source-printed books not being instantly available to purchase just because Amazon wants everyone to use BookSurge.  So if Amazon is limiting their print books, I don’t trust ‘em not to limit their ebooks and I’m not willing to let 400 clams go and still risk a proprietary-tech hissy fit.

    I want ebooks—I was one of the ones hooked into John C Wright’s series and damn I wanted an instant download to books 2 and 3 and was really, honestly baffled when I couldn’t find an e-edition right there on tor’s site.

    But the only way I want the ebooks there is if the authors are getting e-industry standard royalties on ‘em.  When e-industry standard is in the 25-50% range, it’s criminal to allow any publisher to get away with 6-8% “same as print” because you can be sure that when critical mass is reached, nobody will actually willingly raise royalty rates.

  4. Chicklet says:

    I saw a Sunday post on the Tor blog linked to above and it made a lot of sense. Their parent company is converting titles to ebook format (including backlists) to which they hold the digital rights.

    It seems to me Tor should not have posted ebook teasers for series in which they don’t have digital rights (and ready-to-sell files) for every book in the series. They have to know that SF/F readers glom onto series like whoa and should have been prepared with entire series available in ebook. If they didn’t hold digital rights to an entire series, they shouldn’t have made the first one available through the ebook promotion. It comes off like a classic bait-and-switch and engenders bad feelings from readers unnecessarily.

  5. Anna says:

    I saw a Sony eReader for the first time in person at my local Border’s this last weekend. 

    My first impression?  WOW is that thing slim.  And light.  Then I spent a good 30 min monopolizing it. 

    Second impression?  I like it.  The navigation is a little clunky, and the screen refresh between page turns is somewhat annoying, but I’ve heard you get used to that quickly.  As for the navigation, now that I know how it works, it wouldn’t bother me too much.  Mostly what bothered me was the device was set on landscape mode and only showed half a page at a time.  It took me a few min to work my way around to figuring out how to put it in portrait mode.  I don’t think I would ever use it in landscape mode.

    Anyway, I like it.  A LOT.  Enough that if my husband bought it for me for our anniversary or Christmas, I wouldn’t complain and would figure out how to convert books to be read on it.  Even though I have a Mac and would have to only use it under my Windows Parallel instance.  And I hate the DRM issues. 

    Purchasing it for myself though…..see the DRM issues.  And the backlight issue.  And the price point.  All things that I would either deal with or work around, but right now there enough that it’s keeping me from purchasing it myself.  That plus the budget.  BUT – I’m a LOT closer to buying it now that I’ve seen the device in person.  And I read a LOT.  🙂

  6. RfP says:

    KimberlyD: I wonder how long it will take before public libraries are all digital. Or will that make it too hard to preserve copyright rights?

    I don’t see why it would.  I check out e-books from the library.  Some books are on a traditional check-out scheme where only one patron can have the book at a time, and some books are available to unlimited patrons.  Both types work on my Sony Reader, and both expire automatically when the check-out period ends.

    Kaite: I can hardly take the screen at work for the full 8 hours I have to, why would I want to go stare at some backlit nonsense when I got home?

    Kaite, I’m the same way, so I don’t read e-books on the computer or on a small phone screen.  But the Sony Reader (e-ink like the Kindle) is paperlike enough to make me happy, and I like the new cover with the nightlight.  I also want to try a Cybook and an iLiad.

  7. Tamradc says:

    No Kindle for me – I’ll stay with my iPaq!  I like reading in multiple formats, but I really like being able to listen to my audiobooks, take notes with Microsoft Office Mobile, or check my e-mail all on one device 😉

  8. ev says:

    Sandia- thanks for the link. When I get some time, I am going to join and then peruse the comments to see what will really work for me.

    I know I have said before hubby has the Sony, but I want to also look at titles and costs of those along with ease of downloading. The format thing is above my head, but I guess I would want something that uses more than one, just for added availability of titles.

    I really don’t want a small screen, such as my ipod, because I read fast and i think I would find it annoying to constantly have to click the page turning buttons or keep my finger on the scroller. Or how the heck ever you do it.

    this is not going to be pretty. Why can’t they put them all in one place where I can go and physically play with them??

  9. Saw this link in the linkback for the TeleRead blog. Thanks for the link, and the interesting discussion!

    In re the Tor thing, I really think what they were hoping would happen was 1) people would come to their new blog website and 2) people would read some or all of the e-book, think, “This is a neat story but the e-book form factor sucks so I’m gonna go out and get me some o’ that old-time dead-tree stuff!” (After all, that’s what most of the people who buy or get Baen e-books do, which is why they give so many of them away for free in their Library or on pack-in CDROMs.)

    They didn’t count on all the people who 3) went, “Give me e-books, you cheating gits.” pnh seemed genuinely surprised by the level and intensity of demand.

    For those who wonder what to do with print books after you read them and find them filling up your space, can I suggest Bookcrossing.com?

    Also, I’ve just written a very lengthy entry looking at the currently-available e-book reading software for the iPhone/iTouch. If you’re wondering how well the iPhone would do as a reader, please check it out.

  10. voodoo chile says:

    I like both.  Sometimes I just get tired of looking at an electronic screen and want to have a real book in my hands.  I dig the technology, but like having the option to go either way.

  11. I bought a Kindle last April and if I could I would read everything on it.  I can make the text any size I want!  It’s driving me nuts right now because I have a paperback novel that I really want to read but the print is teeny tiny.  I was all set to buy the ebook and donate the paperback to my library, but no e-edition.  🙁  I honestly don’t know if I’m going to get through the book now.  My eyes are spoiled.

    So yeah, apart from reading in the bath, it’s e all the way for me.

  12. GoneNova says:

    Jessica- There may be a way to use your Kindle in the bath. I have a Cybook and I bought an Aquapac Large PDA case. My Gen3 fits in really nice without it’s case. You’d have to check out the dimensions to see if the Kindle would fit- it might be larger than the Cybook. If it doesn’t, Aquapac has other sizes. I’ve never used it in the bath- I’m a shower person- but even though it’s waterproof, I don’t think I’d submerge it in hot water. I use mine for reading on the beach.  It’s great for keeping water, sand, and sunscreen off the device. 

    And I agree- It really is nice to be able to change Fonts and print size.

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