Tuesday, September 16, 2003
The Future of eBooks
Posted by Ed Hansberry in "THOUGHT" @ 09:00 AM
The week of September 7 will not be remembered as one of the better weeks in the history of ebooks. Barnes & Noble announced they were leaving the ebook business. Barnes and Noble basically sold two kinds of ebooks, DRM 5 encrypted Microsoft Reader ebooks in the .LIT format and the Adobe .PDF format.
The prior week though is a better indication of the future of ebooks. This was when PalmOne sold Palm Digital Media to PalmGear. I've been a Palm Reader fan for years, well before it was Palm Reader in fact. Ever wondered why the folder your Palm ebooks are stored in is called "Peanut Press?" They do need to market themselves more effectively to non-Palm users though. So few people realize that you can read ebooks in the Palm Reader format on Pocket PCs, Windows PCs and the Macintosh. It isn't a big surprise that this is the case though. Since Palm purchased Peanut Press in 2001, the ebook site has had more incentive in marketing Palm devices, only footnoting that other platforms are supported. Just visit their home page. You'll see a picture of some Palm device, currently the aging (and overpriced at $179) m130 and the text opens with "If you have a Palm Handheld, Sony Clié, or any other Palm OS device, you can be off reading eBooks in minutes." Then as if to say "Oh yeah, we do other platforms too" they list other operating systems they support. Even though that is the case, Pocket PC ebook revenue at the Palm Digital Media is, according to Peter Fry of PDM, "a fairly sizable chunk of our revenue." Imagine what they could do if marketed to the Pocket PC community? Think of a nice shiny 1935 next to that m130 on the front page. :D
There is an article called Digital books still have a future (Thanks for the link scargill). It states that the future of ebooks is still viable but it will just grow a bit slower than originally thought. "(On Wednesday) we sold 2,000 ebooks. It was the largest retail day at Palm Digital Media in 2003, and we are having the largest month ever," Ryan WuerchMost, chief executive of privately held Web retailer PalmGear, said last week. PalmGear recently bought Palm's digital publishing unit. He estimated that PalmGear, whose offerings range from "Beowolf" to best-sellers by Stephen King and Al Franken, will sell some 1.3 million ebooks over the next 12 months."
That is quite a contrast to a recent article on handheld enthusiast site Brighthand called "Will E-Books Survive?" which gives a much gloomier picture of the future of ebooks, relegating them to the task of being reference manuals. "So is there a future for ebooks? Maybe, but not when it comes to novels. To obviate paper-based novels, ebook novels must provide something compelling. That means that they must "do novels" better, easier or cheaper, and preferably all three. Ebooks do none of these when it comes to novels." The article's author, Steve Bush, wraps it up with "But novels in ebook form? I don't think so."
I couldn't disagree more. I think ebooks have a great future for a number of reasons, but I also think that a number of changes have to be implemented to give them broader appeal. First, let's look at why digital text can be superior to printed text.
Search Capabilities
I read probably an above average amount of time. I have collected 34 ebooks on my Peanut Press bookshelf over the past two and a half years costing around $425. One of the things I like most about ebooks is the search feature. I don't think I've ever read a book where I wasn't near the end and needed to go back and look at something earlier to make sure I had the facts straight as the plot comes to a close. This is a huge pain with paper. Sometimes, I just give up. With ebooks, you just enter a key word or two and search. This is doubly so for historical, self help and reference books.
I'll lump bookmarks in here too. I have several ebooks with dozens of bookmarks. You can't read a paper book that has 15 slips of paper hanging out. I personally am not one to dog ear pages either. I'm not sure why, I just don't like damaging the book.
Unlimited libraries
The library you carry with you is limited only by your financial resources to buy insanely large storage cards. Most ebooks are in the 300-500K range, so even a dirt cheap 32MB SD card will allow you to keep approximately 80 ebooks with you.
Always with you, always ready
You have the ability to always have your ebook reader with you. I'll discuss this more in depth in the problems with ebook readers later, but if the reader is well designed, there should be very few occasions where you don't have your ebooks at your fingertips. I know though that I read far more today than I did five to six years ago. I would often be caught in a doctor's office reading a nine-month old article from Money magazine. Today, I'll knock out 100 ebook pages.
You can also read an ebook on almost 100% of PDAs in low to no light situations. My wife really appreciates this as I can lay in bed and read for hours if desired without her hearing pages turning or having the lamp on. I've also read outdoors at night with nothing but moonlight, at my church camp in the cabin after "lights out" and several other places that would simply make reading a regular book impossible without a flashlight.
So, why haven't ebook taken off at anywhere close to what was predicted a few years ago? There are several reasons.
Inability to loan/transfer your ebooks
Formats like the Microsoft .LIT and Adobe .PDF that have digital rights management pretty much eliminate the ability to pass your ebook on when you are done. Not only do they need to have one of the supported platforms (Microsoft Reader supports the Pocket PC and Windows PC OS, Adobe supports Windows and Mac), you'd have a very limited circle of friends or family members to share with and that is if you used common passport/activation accounts, something that simply isn't realistic. Palm Reader formats can work on four platforms which makes it a bit easier to share, but your ebook is locked to your credit card number. That, for me, guarantees the only one I'll share my ebooks with is my wife. You must also agree to the PDM license agreement before buying which states "You may install the Reader and Content on any supported handheld device that you own." Doesn't sound like loaning is encouraged.
I understand that digital media is different than print media. It is impossible to physically have one copy of a paper book in multiple places at one time to be read by multiple users. This is all too easy with an unprotected ebook though. I'm not sure what the solution to this is, but until there is one, this will prevent people that tend to buy a book then pass it around to a close circle of friends, from ever investing in ebooks.
Inability to easily download ebooks
Downloading ebooks is a bit like installing software. Simple for you and me but not so simple for some people. Ebook readers should have a feature that allows them to view the library, browse the ebook (PDM allows you to download first chapters of many ebooks or read them online) then purchase it right there over whatever online connection you have. I currently buy about 50% of my ebooks with my Pocket PC, but I need to use Pocket Internet Explorer and have a WiFi connection to browse. The PDM site isn't at all optimized for small screens that have online capabilities. Remember who they were marketing to for the past few years and the online access those devices had. ;) You can browse over slower connections like GPRS, but it can be painful unless you are going to purchase a specific book rather than peruse their online library. Consequently, I scroll horizontally a lot and then have to use Resco File Explorer to unzip the ebook to the correct folder. You think my grandmother could handle that? I doubt it. Remember, there are 30 million AOL users and many of them never venture out of AOL's walled garden. If you make purchasing ebooks more difficult than checking email on AOL, you are leaving out a big potential market.
Ebook readers must be in a narrow range of sizes
Ebook readers that are small enough to fit in your pocket or purse must still be large enough to have a screen that provides a satisfactory reading experience. I don't think ebook reading on voice centric devices like the Nokia 3650 or Orange SPV Smartphone will ever be a significant enough percentage of ebook sales to warrant the cost of developing the readers for it. That said, MobiPocket has released cell phone readers. You and I may read ebooks on a device that small, but it would only be a backup for me. I'd never seriously consider reading more than a few dozen pages on it for long periods of time.
On the other hand, if you have a screen that's as large as a page in a paperback novel, you can forget any guy carrying around something that big. A woman might be able to fit that in her purse, but given that it would weigh quite a bit compared to modern PDAs, I don't see that being very likely either. This is but one reason why the Gemstar Rocket ebook reader died. The GEB 2150 had an 8.2" screen. 8) Who is going to carry that anywhere?
Most PDAs are the ideal size for this task. Light devices like the HP iPAQ 1900 series make perfect ebook readers. One possible exception for some users is the Tablet PC. It has a nice big screen and will be perfect for some users despite its mass and size. I personally will never understand why anyone would read an ebook on a desktop machine. I can't even stand to read long articles on the Web. I Repligo them to my Pocket PC so I can kick back and enjoy some quiet reading time.
Screens must be easy on the eyes
Not only must the screens be large enough for you to get an adequate amount of text on the screen so you aren't flipping pages every eight seconds, the text must be legible. Variable font sizes are a given. Most ebook readers have several sizes so that usually isn't an issue. I'm talking about how the actual text looks. Microsoft was the first to market with a reader that gave you crisp text on a PDA in 2000 when the first MS Reader shipped with ClearType support. The problem was few devices were optimized for it so you either got a red or blue fuzzy edge to letters on some devices. Today this is less of a problem as more OEMs are making their devices work well with ClearType. Some devices even allow you to enable ClearType in all applications, not just Microsoft Reader.
Beyond that though, you must enjoy the experience. Palm Reader and Microsoft Reader offer markedly different reading experiences. Microsoft's Reader has large margins all around the text which significantly reduces the amount of text on the screen. Palm Reader has almost no margins at the top and bottom and none on the edges, to the point that occasionally italicized text on the right hand side runs off the edge of the screen cutting off the tops of letters like l, t and r. Oddly enough, neither reader offers full screen support. You could easily get 10% to 15% more text on the screen if you got rid of the menu and start bars, but you have to make it easy enough to get out of that full screen mode so people on a certain aforementioned ISP don't wind up soft resetting to get back to the Today screen. Margins should be optional. These are just mathematical algorithms to flow the text. Let me decide if I don't want a margin, a tenth of an inch or a quarter of an inch margin.
Also missing in action is landscape support. On a square screened Palm, this isn't an issue, but as Palm devices get input panels that move out of the way like their Pocket PC counterparts have had for years, landscape support makes more sense. Self help books, for example, make heavy use of bulleted lists and small tables. Width is much better in these circumstances than is the length you normally like when reading paragraphs. Some PDAs lend themselves to landscape reading just by the physical hardware design.
Devices must be multipurpose
The ebook reader must do more than just ebooks. This is another reason why the Gemstar ebook reader died. Other dedicated readers like the Franklin eBookman are dead too. They just don't know it yet.
PDAs are the perfect device for this. You already have your contacts, appointments and notes with you. Music? Got it. Games? Check. Email? Check. Ebooks? Now we're cooking. My point is no one is going to buy a $200 device to read ebooks. Ebooks must be icing on the cake. Palm Reader takes up absolutely no room in my pockets and costs nothing, although a $15 "Pro" version is available. It's already there on my iPAQ 2215. If I wanted an ebook in a different format that required installing another reader, like MobiPocket, that will also take up no space and should do it at no additional cost. Single purpose devices just don't make sense, and the market has already shown that.
Battery life
One valid concern is battery life. I can read on my iPAQ 2215 for eight hours or so at my preferred backlight setting, without stopping. For a PDA nut like me, that's no problem. I never take a trip without my charger anyway. For others though, eight hours might only last one weekend. I cannot imagine anything more frustrating than cozying up next to a fire in a lodge somewhere with three feet of snow on the ground, a nice hot cup of hot chocolate on the table next to me and the "Extremely low battery warning" pops up. Now, I'd just pop in my second battery or get the charger out of the suitcase and plug it in. The average person would probably chuck the PDA into the fire. Battery life and user education need to improve. People who use cell phones have figured out they either need a second battery or chargers for trips. PDA users need to get that message too.
Device ergonomics
I've been an iPAQ user since 2000 and have gotten used to using the joypad to flip pages, but I'll admit that a nice jog dial like the Sony Clié's have would make ebook reading a bit easier. Why the new iPAQ 2215 and 1900 series weren't given jog dials I'll never know.
Ebooks must be reasonably priced
Under no circumstances should an ebook cost more than the paper equivalent that is out at the same time. When a best seller is released, it is generally released as a hardcover first and will cost between $20-25 US. The ebook should be about the same price. The physical paper and distribution of the book isn't that significant and I'm not going to even discuss "but ebooks are cheap to produce and should be much less." You still need an IT infrastructure, so let's just assume they can be the same price.
So why is Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done $22 in Microsoft Reader format and $19.25 in hardcover? I've seen ebooks at the hardcover price when the paperbacks were out below $10. That's just plain insanity and a big turnoff. You want to kill a market, let people get the perception that products in that market are more expensive than other products that give you the same basic thing.
Hard to find titles in your preferred format
Perhaps the worst problem with ebooks is the mish-mash of formats, resellers and device compatibility. As I said earlier, Palm Reader is the only reader that works on PalmOS, Pocket PC, Windows and Macintosh computers, so that presents a problem if you have a Palm and want to read an ebook in .LIT format, or a Pocket PC and want to read an ebook in the locked .PDF format. To make matters worse, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of Web sites where you can get books and I'd bet not one of them has even 25% of the ebook titles in their library.
If you want a physical book, you can just walk into a Barnes & Noble or Borders book store and they will either have it or can get it. You could also order it from Amazon.com. If you want an ebook, prepare to surf. The best place to start is often at the site of the publisher of the book. You can get that info easily from Amazon. If there is an ebook format available, usually that information will be found at the publisher's site with links to resellers. If not, all isn't lost, it just means you have to go to Google and look for it, and then hope, if you find it, that it is in a format you can use on your device.
Perhaps the reason this is such a problem is many times the publishers don't do the ebook. They just contract it out to another site to compile it and distribution agreements aren't standard. I'm really not sure why this is the case. All book stores carry, or can order, just about anything in print. No ebook store has even close to everything available. This is going to take someone or some company to bring ebook publishing distribution to the attention of dead-tree publishers and work out a standard way to make ebooks part of the normal publication process. Right now, it seems like more of an afterthought than anything else, and it results in frustration for ebook readers and lower sales of ebooks.
I am not one for monopolies by any stretch of the imagination, but the only thing I can think of that impacts my life daily that is as messed up as ebook distribution is the cell phone network in North America. Not everyone works everywhere and different carriers have different technologies so there is no sharing of bandwidth. And the reasons are the same. Palm Digital media is interested in cornering the market with their format. Microsoft wants to monopolize it with the .LIT format and their activation servers. Adobe wants to take over the text world with .PDF. It is as incomprehensible as it would be if certain chains of bookstores only carried ebooks from certain publishers.
I wouldn't care which ebook format won, but I really wish there was just one.
Finally, digital rights
There are several types of digital rights management models out today. I'll just say right now that Microsoft's DRM5 is messed up. No question. You have to activate your device and you have a limited number of devices you can activate. Just whose ebook is it? My iPAQ doesn't own it. I do! Palm Reader is better by locking the ebook to a credit card number. Palm Digital Media could shut down today and all my ebooks will still work for me for as long as I own devices and platforms that Palm Reader will still install on. If Microsoft decided tomorrow that DRM5 wasn't the way to go and shut down their DRM5 servers, you'd be toast. Device activation is just wrong-headed thinking. Audible does the same thing and I know for a fact I've cost Audible more in 1-800 phone call support on not being able to activate devices than they've made in profit off of me since I started using them in 1999.
I don't know the best solution for this either. PDM allows you to reset all ebooks in your library to a new credit card number if you switch cards or have to get a new one issued, which is good, but as I stated earlier, you can't just transfer it to a friend or co-worker. I should be able to transfer my ebooks from my online library to theirs, but there are problems with that too. I'd never consider shipping a paper book from here to Canada or Italy to share with a friend. The shipping would pay for the book. But I wouldn't think twice about transferring books in my library to friends all over the world.
Conclusions
Ebooks are here to stay, contrary to what doomsayers predict in various analyst reports, on various sites and in various articles. As you can see, there are several obstacles that need to be overcome before ebooks are ubiquitous, but none are insurmountable. Many of the negatives I've listed have gotten better over the past few years. More and more Pocket PCs have great ClearType screens. Ebook pricing is starting to be more in line with paper versions. I've paid under $3 for some older ebooks at Palm Digital Media, which would be less than I could purchase it from Amazon if it was still in print. Battery life is getting better all of the time for Pocket PCs. Strangely, battery life for PalmOS devices are headed down, not up.
I think novels will be the lion's share of the revenue in ebook sales for the near term anyway. I could see student books becoming a large piece of the ebook pie if you can ever get the publishing and distribution model for schools and universities right.
Ebooks are becoming more popular here too. Jason recently opened up a new ebook forum to discuss ebooks, readers and anything related to them.
The prior week though is a better indication of the future of ebooks. This was when PalmOne sold Palm Digital Media to PalmGear. I've been a Palm Reader fan for years, well before it was Palm Reader in fact. Ever wondered why the folder your Palm ebooks are stored in is called "Peanut Press?" They do need to market themselves more effectively to non-Palm users though. So few people realize that you can read ebooks in the Palm Reader format on Pocket PCs, Windows PCs and the Macintosh. It isn't a big surprise that this is the case though. Since Palm purchased Peanut Press in 2001, the ebook site has had more incentive in marketing Palm devices, only footnoting that other platforms are supported. Just visit their home page. You'll see a picture of some Palm device, currently the aging (and overpriced at $179) m130 and the text opens with "If you have a Palm Handheld, Sony Clié, or any other Palm OS device, you can be off reading eBooks in minutes." Then as if to say "Oh yeah, we do other platforms too" they list other operating systems they support. Even though that is the case, Pocket PC ebook revenue at the Palm Digital Media is, according to Peter Fry of PDM, "a fairly sizable chunk of our revenue." Imagine what they could do if marketed to the Pocket PC community? Think of a nice shiny 1935 next to that m130 on the front page. :D
There is an article called Digital books still have a future (Thanks for the link scargill). It states that the future of ebooks is still viable but it will just grow a bit slower than originally thought. "(On Wednesday) we sold 2,000 ebooks. It was the largest retail day at Palm Digital Media in 2003, and we are having the largest month ever," Ryan WuerchMost, chief executive of privately held Web retailer PalmGear, said last week. PalmGear recently bought Palm's digital publishing unit. He estimated that PalmGear, whose offerings range from "Beowolf" to best-sellers by Stephen King and Al Franken, will sell some 1.3 million ebooks over the next 12 months."
That is quite a contrast to a recent article on handheld enthusiast site Brighthand called "Will E-Books Survive?" which gives a much gloomier picture of the future of ebooks, relegating them to the task of being reference manuals. "So is there a future for ebooks? Maybe, but not when it comes to novels. To obviate paper-based novels, ebook novels must provide something compelling. That means that they must "do novels" better, easier or cheaper, and preferably all three. Ebooks do none of these when it comes to novels." The article's author, Steve Bush, wraps it up with "But novels in ebook form? I don't think so."
I couldn't disagree more. I think ebooks have a great future for a number of reasons, but I also think that a number of changes have to be implemented to give them broader appeal. First, let's look at why digital text can be superior to printed text.
Search Capabilities
I read probably an above average amount of time. I have collected 34 ebooks on my Peanut Press bookshelf over the past two and a half years costing around $425. One of the things I like most about ebooks is the search feature. I don't think I've ever read a book where I wasn't near the end and needed to go back and look at something earlier to make sure I had the facts straight as the plot comes to a close. This is a huge pain with paper. Sometimes, I just give up. With ebooks, you just enter a key word or two and search. This is doubly so for historical, self help and reference books.
I'll lump bookmarks in here too. I have several ebooks with dozens of bookmarks. You can't read a paper book that has 15 slips of paper hanging out. I personally am not one to dog ear pages either. I'm not sure why, I just don't like damaging the book.
Unlimited libraries
The library you carry with you is limited only by your financial resources to buy insanely large storage cards. Most ebooks are in the 300-500K range, so even a dirt cheap 32MB SD card will allow you to keep approximately 80 ebooks with you.
Always with you, always ready
You have the ability to always have your ebook reader with you. I'll discuss this more in depth in the problems with ebook readers later, but if the reader is well designed, there should be very few occasions where you don't have your ebooks at your fingertips. I know though that I read far more today than I did five to six years ago. I would often be caught in a doctor's office reading a nine-month old article from Money magazine. Today, I'll knock out 100 ebook pages.
You can also read an ebook on almost 100% of PDAs in low to no light situations. My wife really appreciates this as I can lay in bed and read for hours if desired without her hearing pages turning or having the lamp on. I've also read outdoors at night with nothing but moonlight, at my church camp in the cabin after "lights out" and several other places that would simply make reading a regular book impossible without a flashlight.
So, why haven't ebook taken off at anywhere close to what was predicted a few years ago? There are several reasons.
Inability to loan/transfer your ebooks
Formats like the Microsoft .LIT and Adobe .PDF that have digital rights management pretty much eliminate the ability to pass your ebook on when you are done. Not only do they need to have one of the supported platforms (Microsoft Reader supports the Pocket PC and Windows PC OS, Adobe supports Windows and Mac), you'd have a very limited circle of friends or family members to share with and that is if you used common passport/activation accounts, something that simply isn't realistic. Palm Reader formats can work on four platforms which makes it a bit easier to share, but your ebook is locked to your credit card number. That, for me, guarantees the only one I'll share my ebooks with is my wife. You must also agree to the PDM license agreement before buying which states "You may install the Reader and Content on any supported handheld device that you own." Doesn't sound like loaning is encouraged.
I understand that digital media is different than print media. It is impossible to physically have one copy of a paper book in multiple places at one time to be read by multiple users. This is all too easy with an unprotected ebook though. I'm not sure what the solution to this is, but until there is one, this will prevent people that tend to buy a book then pass it around to a close circle of friends, from ever investing in ebooks.
Inability to easily download ebooks
Downloading ebooks is a bit like installing software. Simple for you and me but not so simple for some people. Ebook readers should have a feature that allows them to view the library, browse the ebook (PDM allows you to download first chapters of many ebooks or read them online) then purchase it right there over whatever online connection you have. I currently buy about 50% of my ebooks with my Pocket PC, but I need to use Pocket Internet Explorer and have a WiFi connection to browse. The PDM site isn't at all optimized for small screens that have online capabilities. Remember who they were marketing to for the past few years and the online access those devices had. ;) You can browse over slower connections like GPRS, but it can be painful unless you are going to purchase a specific book rather than peruse their online library. Consequently, I scroll horizontally a lot and then have to use Resco File Explorer to unzip the ebook to the correct folder. You think my grandmother could handle that? I doubt it. Remember, there are 30 million AOL users and many of them never venture out of AOL's walled garden. If you make purchasing ebooks more difficult than checking email on AOL, you are leaving out a big potential market.
Ebook readers must be in a narrow range of sizes
Ebook readers that are small enough to fit in your pocket or purse must still be large enough to have a screen that provides a satisfactory reading experience. I don't think ebook reading on voice centric devices like the Nokia 3650 or Orange SPV Smartphone will ever be a significant enough percentage of ebook sales to warrant the cost of developing the readers for it. That said, MobiPocket has released cell phone readers. You and I may read ebooks on a device that small, but it would only be a backup for me. I'd never seriously consider reading more than a few dozen pages on it for long periods of time.
On the other hand, if you have a screen that's as large as a page in a paperback novel, you can forget any guy carrying around something that big. A woman might be able to fit that in her purse, but given that it would weigh quite a bit compared to modern PDAs, I don't see that being very likely either. This is but one reason why the Gemstar Rocket ebook reader died. The GEB 2150 had an 8.2" screen. 8) Who is going to carry that anywhere?
Most PDAs are the ideal size for this task. Light devices like the HP iPAQ 1900 series make perfect ebook readers. One possible exception for some users is the Tablet PC. It has a nice big screen and will be perfect for some users despite its mass and size. I personally will never understand why anyone would read an ebook on a desktop machine. I can't even stand to read long articles on the Web. I Repligo them to my Pocket PC so I can kick back and enjoy some quiet reading time.
Screens must be easy on the eyes
Not only must the screens be large enough for you to get an adequate amount of text on the screen so you aren't flipping pages every eight seconds, the text must be legible. Variable font sizes are a given. Most ebook readers have several sizes so that usually isn't an issue. I'm talking about how the actual text looks. Microsoft was the first to market with a reader that gave you crisp text on a PDA in 2000 when the first MS Reader shipped with ClearType support. The problem was few devices were optimized for it so you either got a red or blue fuzzy edge to letters on some devices. Today this is less of a problem as more OEMs are making their devices work well with ClearType. Some devices even allow you to enable ClearType in all applications, not just Microsoft Reader.
Beyond that though, you must enjoy the experience. Palm Reader and Microsoft Reader offer markedly different reading experiences. Microsoft's Reader has large margins all around the text which significantly reduces the amount of text on the screen. Palm Reader has almost no margins at the top and bottom and none on the edges, to the point that occasionally italicized text on the right hand side runs off the edge of the screen cutting off the tops of letters like l, t and r. Oddly enough, neither reader offers full screen support. You could easily get 10% to 15% more text on the screen if you got rid of the menu and start bars, but you have to make it easy enough to get out of that full screen mode so people on a certain aforementioned ISP don't wind up soft resetting to get back to the Today screen. Margins should be optional. These are just mathematical algorithms to flow the text. Let me decide if I don't want a margin, a tenth of an inch or a quarter of an inch margin.
Also missing in action is landscape support. On a square screened Palm, this isn't an issue, but as Palm devices get input panels that move out of the way like their Pocket PC counterparts have had for years, landscape support makes more sense. Self help books, for example, make heavy use of bulleted lists and small tables. Width is much better in these circumstances than is the length you normally like when reading paragraphs. Some PDAs lend themselves to landscape reading just by the physical hardware design.
Devices must be multipurpose
The ebook reader must do more than just ebooks. This is another reason why the Gemstar ebook reader died. Other dedicated readers like the Franklin eBookman are dead too. They just don't know it yet.
PDAs are the perfect device for this. You already have your contacts, appointments and notes with you. Music? Got it. Games? Check. Email? Check. Ebooks? Now we're cooking. My point is no one is going to buy a $200 device to read ebooks. Ebooks must be icing on the cake. Palm Reader takes up absolutely no room in my pockets and costs nothing, although a $15 "Pro" version is available. It's already there on my iPAQ 2215. If I wanted an ebook in a different format that required installing another reader, like MobiPocket, that will also take up no space and should do it at no additional cost. Single purpose devices just don't make sense, and the market has already shown that.
Battery life
One valid concern is battery life. I can read on my iPAQ 2215 for eight hours or so at my preferred backlight setting, without stopping. For a PDA nut like me, that's no problem. I never take a trip without my charger anyway. For others though, eight hours might only last one weekend. I cannot imagine anything more frustrating than cozying up next to a fire in a lodge somewhere with three feet of snow on the ground, a nice hot cup of hot chocolate on the table next to me and the "Extremely low battery warning" pops up. Now, I'd just pop in my second battery or get the charger out of the suitcase and plug it in. The average person would probably chuck the PDA into the fire. Battery life and user education need to improve. People who use cell phones have figured out they either need a second battery or chargers for trips. PDA users need to get that message too.
Device ergonomics
I've been an iPAQ user since 2000 and have gotten used to using the joypad to flip pages, but I'll admit that a nice jog dial like the Sony Clié's have would make ebook reading a bit easier. Why the new iPAQ 2215 and 1900 series weren't given jog dials I'll never know.
Ebooks must be reasonably priced
Under no circumstances should an ebook cost more than the paper equivalent that is out at the same time. When a best seller is released, it is generally released as a hardcover first and will cost between $20-25 US. The ebook should be about the same price. The physical paper and distribution of the book isn't that significant and I'm not going to even discuss "but ebooks are cheap to produce and should be much less." You still need an IT infrastructure, so let's just assume they can be the same price.
So why is Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done $22 in Microsoft Reader format and $19.25 in hardcover? I've seen ebooks at the hardcover price when the paperbacks were out below $10. That's just plain insanity and a big turnoff. You want to kill a market, let people get the perception that products in that market are more expensive than other products that give you the same basic thing.
Hard to find titles in your preferred format
Perhaps the worst problem with ebooks is the mish-mash of formats, resellers and device compatibility. As I said earlier, Palm Reader is the only reader that works on PalmOS, Pocket PC, Windows and Macintosh computers, so that presents a problem if you have a Palm and want to read an ebook in .LIT format, or a Pocket PC and want to read an ebook in the locked .PDF format. To make matters worse, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of Web sites where you can get books and I'd bet not one of them has even 25% of the ebook titles in their library.
If you want a physical book, you can just walk into a Barnes & Noble or Borders book store and they will either have it or can get it. You could also order it from Amazon.com. If you want an ebook, prepare to surf. The best place to start is often at the site of the publisher of the book. You can get that info easily from Amazon. If there is an ebook format available, usually that information will be found at the publisher's site with links to resellers. If not, all isn't lost, it just means you have to go to Google and look for it, and then hope, if you find it, that it is in a format you can use on your device.
Perhaps the reason this is such a problem is many times the publishers don't do the ebook. They just contract it out to another site to compile it and distribution agreements aren't standard. I'm really not sure why this is the case. All book stores carry, or can order, just about anything in print. No ebook store has even close to everything available. This is going to take someone or some company to bring ebook publishing distribution to the attention of dead-tree publishers and work out a standard way to make ebooks part of the normal publication process. Right now, it seems like more of an afterthought than anything else, and it results in frustration for ebook readers and lower sales of ebooks.
I am not one for monopolies by any stretch of the imagination, but the only thing I can think of that impacts my life daily that is as messed up as ebook distribution is the cell phone network in North America. Not everyone works everywhere and different carriers have different technologies so there is no sharing of bandwidth. And the reasons are the same. Palm Digital media is interested in cornering the market with their format. Microsoft wants to monopolize it with the .LIT format and their activation servers. Adobe wants to take over the text world with .PDF. It is as incomprehensible as it would be if certain chains of bookstores only carried ebooks from certain publishers.
I wouldn't care which ebook format won, but I really wish there was just one.
Finally, digital rights
There are several types of digital rights management models out today. I'll just say right now that Microsoft's DRM5 is messed up. No question. You have to activate your device and you have a limited number of devices you can activate. Just whose ebook is it? My iPAQ doesn't own it. I do! Palm Reader is better by locking the ebook to a credit card number. Palm Digital Media could shut down today and all my ebooks will still work for me for as long as I own devices and platforms that Palm Reader will still install on. If Microsoft decided tomorrow that DRM5 wasn't the way to go and shut down their DRM5 servers, you'd be toast. Device activation is just wrong-headed thinking. Audible does the same thing and I know for a fact I've cost Audible more in 1-800 phone call support on not being able to activate devices than they've made in profit off of me since I started using them in 1999.
I don't know the best solution for this either. PDM allows you to reset all ebooks in your library to a new credit card number if you switch cards or have to get a new one issued, which is good, but as I stated earlier, you can't just transfer it to a friend or co-worker. I should be able to transfer my ebooks from my online library to theirs, but there are problems with that too. I'd never consider shipping a paper book from here to Canada or Italy to share with a friend. The shipping would pay for the book. But I wouldn't think twice about transferring books in my library to friends all over the world.
Conclusions
Ebooks are here to stay, contrary to what doomsayers predict in various analyst reports, on various sites and in various articles. As you can see, there are several obstacles that need to be overcome before ebooks are ubiquitous, but none are insurmountable. Many of the negatives I've listed have gotten better over the past few years. More and more Pocket PCs have great ClearType screens. Ebook pricing is starting to be more in line with paper versions. I've paid under $3 for some older ebooks at Palm Digital Media, which would be less than I could purchase it from Amazon if it was still in print. Battery life is getting better all of the time for Pocket PCs. Strangely, battery life for PalmOS devices are headed down, not up.
I think novels will be the lion's share of the revenue in ebook sales for the near term anyway. I could see student books becoming a large piece of the ebook pie if you can ever get the publishing and distribution model for schools and universities right.
Ebooks are becoming more popular here too. Jason recently opened up a new ebook forum to discuss ebooks, readers and anything related to them.
