Starting Monday I’ll be at Tools of Change in Publishing, a conference that’s a sort of brainiac party at the intersection of publishing and digital innovation. Last year I called TOC a very full-brain conference because “both left and right brain perspectives are represented and explored.”
This year, Jane Litte and I were invited to present a panel on digital reading devices from the user’s perspective. If you’re attending ToC, it’s Wednesday at 2:30 pm. We’ll be talking about all the different digital reading devices and platforms, and the reader’s reaction. As it says in the description, we’ll be discussing “what real life book readers like, dislike, want to see, and couldn’t care less about” in their digital reading experience. Jane came up with this great list of items, and I added one more – customer service. I think the divide between the major players in digital reading rests largely on who can respond to customer questions quickly and clearly, because for many, the learning curve for digital reading adoption can be very steep.
So, if you could say anything to the folks who create and sell digital reading devices and programs, what would you tell them? What’s one thing you wish for, or one feature you can’t understand why it’s still included? If you could change one thing about your digital reading experience, what would it be (aside from “More time to read,” which is what I’d want, too)?
things I couldn’t care less about: my ereader having a web browser or music player
things that are essential: having the actual cover instead of the lame text only version
things I would have in an ideal world: ability to create folders/groups on my kindle; being able to search within those folders; real page numbers; overdrive/library books on kindle
things that piss me off: books that are more than 5 years old at full price. I’ve been interested in buying several e-books I borrowed from the library in the last few months, but the trade or full mmpb pricing has kept that from happening.
You can do this on nookcolor. When inside your book, bring up the book’s tools menu (where you change the text size, etc.), and click the little blue flag to the right of the page number slider thingy. You can star-rate the book, review it, and recommend it to friends on Facebook or Twitter, or through your Contacts list. You can add a star rating on the original nook (View Item Descriptions and Options—>touch the stars).
Also for nookcolor…
If you want to read one-handed, hold the nookcolor with your left (or right) hand and use your thumb to swipe Right to Left wherever your thumb can reach on the page. Even barely flicking the page in a vaguely Right to Left motion will work. Holding the nookcolor in my left hand, I find myself basically swiping across the lower left corner (bottom to top) to turn the page.
If you mean software updates, these are available to download through your computer @ barnesandnoble.com. Your nookcolor can also use any public access wi-fi for web stuff. I have used mine at the library, Starbucks, Panera Bread, McDonalds,the airport, my friend’s house, various Barnes&Nobles;. . .and probably some other places I’ve forgotten about. I take it with me everywhere and use it for books, mags, email, googling and posting comments on my favorite blog (called SMART BITCHES in my internet bookmarks).
Also, I would love a subscription service for books, à la Netflix. I would gladly pay a monthly fee to “rent” books. I read a lot (4-8 books weekly), and I read mostly physical books. I do use OverDrive with my local library system, but the waitlists are ridiculous. And I’ll gladly pay for my own permanent copy (physical or eBook) if I love the book. But the pricing definitely has to come down before I switch to digital copies only—I’d rather spend my money on a used copy at the bookstore or go to the library—especially for authors not on my automatic buy list.
Agree. So much:) I haven’t noticed ebooks that cost as much as the physical copy of the book except in a couple of cases with ebooks that were the same price as the mass market paperbacks—which didn’t seem that bad, until you reflect on all the issues others have raised here—limited lendability (even with nook), can’t give a copy to a library or a friend to keep, can’t return it if it wasn’t what you wanted, etc. Ebooks should ALWAYS be cheaper.
On the happy side, I find myself using the library SO much more now that I can just download books for free at home and then take them with me on the nook. No more late fees! No more limited library hours! Yay!
I already got a Kindle a few months ago and love, love it. But for business purposes I also bought a black&white; Nook. Uhhh, not such a love affair, but that’s another story. All of my own books for sale are DRM-free, so I’m doing my part.
What I’d like—and it’s really a quibbling thing—is to have a top or bottom bar on the display window while I’m reading that tells me the name of the book and what time it is. This isn’t stop-the-world stuff. Just a request.
I love, love, love my sony reader but… would like the blurbs on the back of paper books included on the ebooks, would like the tittle of the book to be at the top of the page, sometimes I get a bit flakey and forget which book I’m reading. Also would like an easy way to keep track of what I’ve got, both on paper and as ebooks. The very last thing… a battery warning that says how many pages till flat would be fabulous. The other very last thing, as I live in Australia; I would like to be able to get ebooks from any site, currently I only buy from the Aussie sites and have to wait forever for some books. Well not forever, but a few months.
Enough with the Betamax vs VHS (or is it HD-DVD vs Blu ray). Just pick a format and go with it. Everyone will sell more e-readers and more e-books once the reading public quits waiting for all of the format flux to die down.
I want color e-ink. No, a color Nook is not the answer. I sit all day in front of brightly-lit computer screens at work, come home and spend half my free time staring at another brightly-lit computer screen to write. When I settle down to read, my eyes hurt too much to use anything but paper or eink. Bring on the color, already, so that I can get away from the stacks of magazines and kids picture books that are together plotting a coup in my living room.
And don’t forget the stylus. Why is Sony the only one who offers that? I have a Sony, and use that stylus a lot (hello, author, could you please sign my ebook). My old palm pilot used to have one. My kids game systems (a DS and a Leapster) have them. E-reader manufacturers and tablet manufacturers take note. My fingertip is NOT a replacement for a pen (and neither is a keyboard), and YES, I MIGHT WANT TO WRITE IN THAT EBOOK (Ever go to college? Ever take notes in the margins?). There is a reason that humans have been using pointy sticks for millenia.
Some of these will be concurs to others comments, some my own input…
– Buy the next book link would be awesome.
– No territorial limitations.
– Fix some way to easier study, research, and notetaking.
– Better care when inputting the meta data. Or give me the ability to correct their half-assed job on the device itself. Tired of miss sorts or titles that are mysterious jumbles of letters and numbers.
– Sort by genre, as well as title, author, most recent.
– Book Blurb/Description with cover.
– Lending available to ALL the books I’ve purchased. Publishers don’t control who I lend PB’s to. Why should they meddle with who I lend my digital to.
You can do this on the Kindle3 (not sure about previous models) if the book has been formatted with a table of contents denoting the beginning of each chapter. You just use the left/right buttons on the 5-way to jump forward or backward.
I love nearly everything about my Kindle except for the fact that I cannot reread a book and re-set anything so that I can sync my stopping place across all my devices. I use both my Kindle and my Android phone and I re-read a lot of my favorite books, so if I want to pick up my phone and read the book I was reading on the Kindle earlier, I have to remember or note the location where I stopped. Apparently you can have books “re-set” by Amazon, but you have to call them and ask them to do it, which is too big a pain in the ass, especially when I am re-reading books that only take me two days, tops, to finish.
Hate DRM. I crack it without a twinge of conscience. Hate territorial rights that keep me from the books I want. More books in eform please.
And if an ebook costs too much I just don’t buy it, no matter how much I want it. I will find a used copy some day. Then I will trade it back in or sell it online when I’m finished so someone else will have a shot at a cheap copy.
Also it would be nice to be able to use a stylus with an ereader. That is the thing I really love about my Edge. I need to break down and buy a new stylus though—one more like a real pen than an orange stick.
I love my Kindle, but I still buy about half of my books in print, and here is why:
1. Inconsistent and sometimes unfair pricing of ebooks. I wanted to buy a Malcolm Gladwell book on the Kindle, but it was split into 3 ebooks at $5 each, for a total of $15. The paperback was $10 for the whole thing. Well, I don’t want to be ripped off. I bought the paperback. Another example, I wanted to buy a Laura Lippman mystery. The ebook was priced higher than the paperback. In this case, I wasn’t in a hurry, so I threw the book on my wish list and waited 6 months. Then I checked again, and the ebook was priced at 99 cents!! So I bought it. Yay, a bargain! But they would have gotten a higher price from me if they’d priced it fairly 6 months ago.
2. If there is any possibility that I might want to share the book with a friend or family member, I buy paper instead of ebook. And I share a lot of books, so this represents a lot of missed ebook sales (though they are all paper sales instead, so maybe the publishers don’t mind).
3. If the book is nonfiction and I am going to use it for research, I always buy paper. It is so hard to use an ebook for research—flipping back and forth and searching for stuff is just a huge pain. I would love to see ebook companies find a way to make these tasks easy.
4. If the book has a gorgeous cover, I will probably buy paper. For example, recently I went to buy the YA novel Rampart. I was originally going to buy the ebook, and it was reasonably priced at a dollar less than the paper book. But it was remotely possible I might share it with my kids when they were older. And I loved, loved, loved the cover. So I decided to spend the extra dollar and get the paper version. If the cover art is being produced anyway, I’d love to have it on the ebook version. Preferably in color.
I am reading on my iPod Touch.
I have started using Bluefire which lets me read adobe drm books without breaking the drm – great. But I still have the borders app, the kindle app, the kobo app, a barnes and noble app, and stanza.
Some of these let you turn pages in a number of ways, some only have one way. – I would rather be able to pick what i want and if one programmer can do it, they should all be able to do it.
Most of these can be set so that the entire page doesn’t change justification portrait v. landscape over and over. But not all and definitely not bluefire. I hate having to not tip the iPod while I read because the page will turn 90 degrees from what I can read. HATE.
I also don’t like most of the ways to read adobe pdf formats, they show up with tiny print and you have to be gentle as you scroll or you lose your place on the page.
I tried a dedicated reader before I bought the iPod (replacing my palm) and was very frustrated as someone with 100’s of books. Scrolling down to a title sucks if you have many books, but it seemed like the reader was designed for people who only had 20 books at a time. What person who doesn’t ravenously devour books will get a dedicated reader?
The iPod is mostly doing what I want, but I still have 400 titles on the palm that can’t be transferred. The only reason I like the iPod is all of the new apps constantly being added. It feels like someone may solve any individual problem I have even if corporate leadership can’t be bothered.
ps- re barnes and noble not playing on a barnes and noble approved device. I had a download that didn’t work that should have worked. They refunded that one. Their customer service email was good.
I think we’re all beginning to repeat each other and could use a list. Lack of a consistent format and DRM bug us all seemingly. I’m pretty techie and it frustrates the hell out of me at times. As for price, it infuriates me that I’m paying more for a digital book than the paperback price—absolutely outrageous since I can’t give it to a friend, donate it to the library or get credit for it at a half-price store. To argue for a full hardback book price—you know who you are Publishers!!—just makes me NEVER buy your book and put my name on the hold list at the library. You just lost a hardback, paperback and a digital sale from me. And don’t try to con me into believing that printing, shipping, and distribution only costs a measely amount so you can only discount about 10% off the hardback price. I don’t buy it—literally!
Finally, I have a new Kindle3 and while being able to add subject headings to book titles is fine, what about incorrect authors. How about being able to list books by series, by type of book and by more than one author. When you’ve got over 250 digital titles getting to the Ws on your list can take a lot of clicks. How about a search feature?
Wish list:
1. A single format to rule them all. Start with ePub.
2. All books should be treated equally on any one device. None of this “we won’t show you the covers unless you bought it directly from us” crap.
3. Standard highlighting and annotation tools (to go with the one format to rule them all).
4. Listen up hardware mfrs: I’m tired of the “must buy every new ereader that comes along” lifestyle. Really… I don’t need a Kindle and a Nook and a Sony Pocket and an iPhone and an iPad… But I have them all. I want one lightweight color device with the best features of my iPad (size, color, annotation), the weight of my Kindle, and with the format flexibility to handle legacy formats out of the box (Nook classic).
5. UIs MUST be efficient, and not remind me that the processor may be playing catch-up with any input interface (@Android).
We’ve been told that color eInk isn’t ready for primetime for 3-4 years running. Enough already. Get it out there, make it lightweight, and stop messing around with the hybrids and also ran technologies. There’s a reason people keep going back to LCDs: color. Fix this problem in eInk, and I’ll never buy another dedicated ereader with an LCD. Seriously.
I don’t care that much about color. It would be nice to see a color cover, but I’d settle for even just a b&w cover. Since most of my reading is fiction, there are no illustrations, and so no need for color – my paperback romances are all printed in black and white, after all.
but I do want to *own* the books I buy – if the button says “buy this now” I want to be purchasing the book, not just a license to read it on a very few devices.
I only purchase from amazon, even though I own a Sony (I use it for my drm-free books), because I don’t want to deal with the horror that is Adobe Digital Editions. And I heard that Adobe has no intention of updating ADE because it’s a free program. Shame on you, Adobe!
I have a kindle 3 and love it; but I’d like more levels of folders – it would allow me to have fewer folders on my home page, but still have the same amount of organization. Oh, and once color e-Ink is offered, I’ll be all over it 🙂
This may be more for publishers than e-readers, but like others said a. DRM, b. geographical restrictions, c. price, and d. I want to either be able to return an e-book or sell it if I don’t like it. Half the time I’m buying a new author, and sometimes I get real duds and don’t get past page 50. Yet I can’t return it like a regular book or re-sell it, so I’m out $5-8 (and for those who buy “hardcovers” its even more) for a crappy e-book that just sits there, wasting space, mocking me for wasting my money. And – here’s the part that interests them – I am a lot less likely to buy another book after that, because I feel like I just got screwed and don’t want that to happen again. Whereas when I buy a good book I immediately want to find another good book to buy. Now, its not like they can get rid of all duds (and one woman’s dud is another woman’s dream book of awesomeness), so I want the option of either returning it or selling it to that fictional woman who would love it.
Anyways, have fun at the conference!
I had an e-ink reader before my nookcolor and I don’t miss the slowness or the needing a booklight to read at night. It turned out I need not have been concerned that the backlit screen would hurt my eyes ( I am prone to migraines and sometimes computer screens and lighting issues will aggrevate the problem). Thank goodness. I read a book a week and right now I can hardly remember how I did that without an e-reader. I refuse to buy paperbacks or hardcovers anymore. Publishers can put it in ebook format or lose the sale.
Also, this sounds like an interesting idea:
*jaw-drops, eyes bug out of head
Lately it seems that about half of the e-books I want to read are either totelly unavailable to non-Americans or available only as a pirate edition. Guys, I don’t WANT to pirate, but if that is the only thing available to me for a book I really want to read, do you think I hesitate?
Nope.
And get of the DRM. It sucks having to jump through extra hoops before I read a book. And right now the reason why I hate and detest DRM is painfully obvious – my PC has crashed and is currently waiting for service. Hopefully I won’t need to replace the hard drive, but if it is necessary, and I had not de-crapified those of my e-books that needed it, at least half the backup copies of my many, many, many e-books would be so much electronic junk now.
And the publishers who are reasonable about the above are the ones that get my $$$
cent32 – My 2 cents’ worth – though I spend lots more than that on ebooks
Well, I have a mac and it is really incredibly frustrating that I can’t open all files. Like .lit because holy bajesus. Windows specific files? Guys that’s just not legit at all. I really don’t enjoy having to try to code a file to open as, say, .epub, and honestly, I’m really bad at it.
Like nearly everyone else who read eBooks I say down with DRM! I’d also love to see a universal format. As another commenter said they are getting there with pub buy why does a pub I buy from Carina Press look different from the pub I get from AllRomance? I shouldn’t have to go into the settings of each of my damn eBooks to change the fonts and crap. Very annoying.
I have a Nook – got it within months of it coming out and I love it with an unholy love. I also got the NookColor within a month of it coming out and after playing with it for a few weeks I returned it. It had way more features than I’d ever use. For me that’s a waste.
What I would love is for Nook and NookColor to marry and have pretty little babies.
I want a color ereading device that runs on either WiFi or 3G or both. I don’t have a problem buying just a WiFi version as I very rarely am anywhere that doesn’t have a WiFi connection. I want to be able to get onto the internet but ONLY to buy books. While I *heart” my Twitter and Facebook I don’t want to do that while I’m reading. I thought I might like to send snippets of books to either FB or Twitter (as you are able to do with the NookColor) but never did. If I wanted to I have my cell phone within reach all the time anyway.
I don’t want my color ereader to have games, music, or pictures. I want books damnit. I want books. I would also get magazines on my color device.
I love having a touch screen but I also want easy forward and back buttons on both the left and the right side of my frame. I want my keyboard to be solely on my touch screen.
I got the Nook cause I thought I’d love the cover flow. Never use it. Let’s lose it. I love the color covers and organization on the NookColor though.
Once upon a time I had a Sony eReader and I was tempted by the new touch version but man, they are expensive. And no onboard internet connection? While I love that they are stripped down to being simply an ereader I do want a bit more bling. See WiFi and color above!
Totally agree with getting rid of regional restrictions. If I can walk into a store and buy a book in any country I should be able to do the same with my ereader. Being able to select a ‘buy next book in series’ link would be very cool to have as well.
Also please grant unto me the ability to edit my meta data on my ereader. I have Calibre and also love that with an unholy love.
Speaking of meta data, let’s get some universal format there too. I should never have to edit to clarify which number of a series any given book is.
I’m gonna shout this cause it’s nearly as important to me as getting rid of DRM. GET STABLE EBOOK PRICES! It’s absolutely insane that an eBooks EVER costs more than a print copy. Base the prices on the number of words in the book – not who publishes it, not who writes it. My consumption of eBooks from big name publishers has gone way down because indie publishers have better prices and amazingly good quality as well. The big guys are losing my business big time!
P.S. I’d love my charging port to be on the top of my ereader as opposed to the bottom or the sides. It would be out of the way up there.
After years of using an HP iPaq, and for the last year an iPod Touch to read e-books, here are the basics.
1. Do not make anything on your device require Wi-Fi to work. That means do not make the user’s manual only available on the internet. When I click on the help button, it should go directly to the help screen, not to an internet browser.
2. Give me a way to easily add memory to my device. SD card reader built in is the easiest. Do not make me boot up my computer, and then sync my device to load a book, let me keep my entire 1000+ book library on a card, that I can slide into my device and put only the books I want to read into the library.
3. Do not assume that your customers have Wi-Fi available at all times. I work in IT, and I do not have internet service at home. Don’t really want it, don’t want it on my phone. To buy a book, I go to the Library, boot up, log in, download, and sync to my iPod Touch. That is my choice, but please make it easy to buy and transfer to my device of choice, see #2 above.
4. Make the interface between computer and device easy, and simple to use.
5. Give me a way to restore my device. If it breaks, can I move all my settings and library to a new device/model?
6. is more software related, when I enlarge the Font, please allow me to remove all but 1/16 in of margins. Having 3/4 in of white margin around the print on an iPod Touch screen leaves a very small area that is actually covered in print. Kindle app and Bluefire app, I am looking at you. If you make everything on the screen customizable, from margins, to line spacing, to whether or not you have page numbers at the bottom of the screen, that will be a huge win.
One thing I have learned, is that an eReader is not a paper book, and I don’t think manufacturers have embraced this basic fact. Take advantage of those differences, make them the reason to get an eReader. Make holding the eReader easy for an older population. Make the Font customizable. Make having a large library easy to carry around and manage. Give me a reason to buy a dedicated device, because currently, I don’t see why I should buy your one hit wonder, when I can get a MP3 player (for audiobooks), electronic calendar, solitaire all-in-one.
@Teresa C. Just fyi, with Calibre and a bit of finessing, the font is customizable on the Sony 350/650. Don’t know about earlier models.
industry29: the industry needs to get at least *a* clue, much less 29 of them.
I love reading on my iPod Touch, but I’m not yet willing to invest a lot of money in ebooks (I read fanfic and public domain works instead). If I buy a book, it’s because I’m reasonably sure I’ll want to read it more than once, and probably over many years. My paper books will probably be readable fifty years from now; I’m not convinced that I can say the same about most ebooks due to DRM and likely future format changes. I can leave my paper books to my kids; it’s not clear whether I can legally do the same with my ebooks.
Make it easy and legal for me to convert my books to run on the next device I buy; make it easy and legal for me to transfer my books to family members so that my personal library doesn’t become wasted money the moment I die; then I’ll start buying more ebooks.
This is Relevant to the Interests of this thread, and in particular to all you Kindle users: if you didn’t know already, it looks like the Kindle update to implement ZOMG ACTUAL PAGE NUMBERS has dropped. I got the update with the Kindle app on my iPhone and apparently it’s gone out to actual Kindles as well…?
The caveat is that only some of the books I have are showing actual page numbers, not all of them, so apparently this functionality is on a book by book basis. But at least it’s a start!
I have a nookcolor and I love it for the most part. The things I don’t love are:
1. The lack of directions! I was nearly driven to tears trying to figure out how to get library books on it (one of the main reasons I got a nook) and I still haven’t figured out how to get my nookbooks onto my computer.
2. I also HATE how non-bn books and files are relegated to “my files” and buried behind a few extra steps. I paid the money for the reader, the nookbooks, and my other ebooks, so let me organize them how I want!
3. Both of these issues are further complicated by the fact that I have a mac. I find this really annoying, since macs aren’t that uncommon now, yet companies only make things mac- compatible as an afterthought
4. I also agree with a lot of the other common complaints but it would be redundant to write them out again…
I don’t really care about DRM since that’s easily taken care of with a few additions to calibre but FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY! get rid of regional restrictions!!! I bought my Cybook Opus even though it was 10 bucks more expensive than the Kindle with a bunch of functions less(!) just to not be depending on Amazon and still if I want an eBook that’s not available on AllRomance/Samahin/eHarlequin I’m left with Amazon because I haven’t found another store that will sell me an eBook here in Switzerland!X(
Yes, I could buy eBooks from Swiss stores but they are just as expensive as a hardcover and here in Switzerland that’s about 20 to 30 bucks and I bought my eReader to save money.
Am I too late?
On the Kindle you can resize the text of the books (yay!) but you can’t resize the text of the directory (WTH?). My aunt needs to have someone else select the book she wants to read, because she can’t read the directory.
And why can’t you sort your collections on your kindle by name??? Drives me bonkers.
I know I’m late here but I agree with pretty much everyone here said. Get rid of DRM. I rip that off of each and every ebook I buy, regardless of whether the original format is compatible with my iphone, and convert everything to PDF and PDB and have it in a file on my computer, where they can’t be “updated” out of my bookshelf. I’ve never bought a pirated book (although I might eventually if Ms. Rowling doesn’t wake up) don’t sell them, give them away, and have never even tried to print them, so don’t feel bad about getting rid of DRM at all.
I do wonder if the formatting wars have been actual deliberate attempts by ereader sellers/publishers to force readers into buying specific readers, or just free market WTFery. Has there been any discussion of this in the conference?
@library addict – are you using our advanced search feature? What would you like to see that isn’t there. Feedback is always welcome!
Lori