5 Ways That eBooks Are Better Than Paper Books
1. Social Highlighting
2. Notes
3. Look-up of words
4. Ability to Tweet & Facebook quotes
5. Search
5 Ways That Paper Books Are Better Than eBooks
1. Feel
2. Packaging
3. Sharing
4. Keeping
5. Second-hand books
Digital Original novel: In Hero Years… I’m Dead|Stormwolf.com:"So, there I was, stuck with a perfectly good novel that didn't have a home. I certainly wasn't the first novelist to face that problem. I know I won’t be the last. But it’s a bit galling when a story you know readers will enjoy doesn't see print simply because it doesn't fit in any convenient marketing niche."
In Hero Years… I’m Dead is New York Times bestselling author Michael A. Stackpole’s first Digital-Original novel.I enjoyed this book very much. It's an interesting take on superheroes and how the world would work if there really were such people. This premise has been explored before, but Stackpole has carved out a unique take on the subject. He is a very competent writer who has a lot of experience writing in a pre-defined universe (Star Wars in particular) and knows how to step outside the usual boundaries. He crafts a fast paced adventure married with superb character development and biting social commentary.
Twenty years ago someone stole him away from Capital City. Having been released from captivity he returns to find everything changed. The great heroes of his day, men who could move planets or tear apart criminal syndicates, have all retired. A new breed of hero has sprung up to deal with a perplexingly new brand of villain. It’s a world that makes no sense, and a world which, if he persists in playing the hero, will surely see him dead.
In Hero Years… I’m Dead mixes action, dark humor, satire and strong characters into a thrilling page-turner. It’s superheroes facing challenges both in costume and out, battling a cunning enemy bent on destroying all they have worked so hard to preserve.
Use the phrase: "smell of a real book," and watch out. This requires players to: "clean out the liquor cabinet, drink until you pass out, wake up next morning, puke, then continue drinking."
The big news is that both will use an xml-based format called XMDF ("ever-eXtending Mobile Document Format"), which is supposedly widely used in Japan for text/graphics composites. The launch video (see below) shows both in action. From what I can glean from the video, this format allows allowed embedded video and animation, pop-up windows and text-specific zooming (we'll nimbly gloss over the ugly fake page-turns).
"came across an interesting story yesterday about the West Vancouver Memorial Library and how they now have 6 Kindles on hand that can be checked out to library patrons. I was sitting here and pondering the cost benefit analysis of a Kindle ebooks when I realized there was an opportunity here.There may be legal issues with lending out Kindles with DRM crippled e-books installed on them. While it is unlikely that Amazon would go out of its way to sue a library, the legal mumbo-jumbo attached to the book gives them the legal right. The DRM language prevents the transfer of ownership (even temporarily).
I wonder how long it will be before Amazon announce a new ability for the Kindle: support for Overdrive library system? It wouldn’t take all that much work to accomplish. The Kindle is already running a modified version of Mobipocket Reader, so the technical work would be doable."
Rudy’s Blog - Ware Tetralogy Online NowThe Prime Books paperback is available in stores and from online booksellers such as Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Powell’s Books, and others.
Soon we’ll be offering commercial ebook versions for purchase as well. But for now, go ahead and check out the free ebook version, maybe buy the paperback, and leave a comment below.
Night Shade has stolen the ebook rights to The Mall of Cthulhu. They do not own them and are offering an electronic edition for sale through webscription.net, which is affiliated with Baen Books, a real publisher who should know better. Nine months ago, Night Shade made a verbal offer to pay me a small sum for the rights. I agreed. They’ve never paid me. They claimed their unauthorized edition was an oversight, and that was somewhat credible at the time. Nine months later, it’s clear that this is not an oversight. It’s a theft of my intellectual property.
I’ve given away the ebook of Mall of Cthulhu in hopes of cutting the legs out from Night Shade and webscription’s piracy of my work. (Guess what, Cory Doctorow? My problem is piracy and obscurity!) If you’d like a free electronic copy, scroll down here, or go to scribd. If you like it, please consider buying the Kindle edition, published by me and sold by Amazon, who pay me regularly for the copies I sell through them. (It’s only 3 bucks! Less than a latte!)
"If a giant snafu can delete Amazon web pages and data, who’s to say it couldn’t happen with customers’ books?
There’s a lot to be said for actually handing files over to people. Then the onus is on them to keep them safe, and the bonus is that they feel a sense of ownership."
"Pandigital's best known for its hard, hard work in the game-changing digital photo frame world, but the company's feeling a bit froggy of late. It's latest leap is into the burgeoning e-reader market..."Its a bit pricey for me, but if it supports Android apps it would be a great way to get into the Android world w/o buying an expensive phone
John Scalzi joined the debate on "illegal" copies of books when he wrote this article in reaction to an article written by Randy Cohen of the New York Times. Randy, who writes an ethics column, considers it ethical to download a pirated e-book version of a book that you have already purchased."I pay the authors more than once, because I can and I think I should. However, I also put such actions in the ethical category of “morally praiseworthy but not morally obligatory” — that is, I believe my transactional responsibility to the author was fulfilled the first time I paid her. Additional payments to the author are optional, and indeed are sometimes transactionally difficult. If a book is out of print I may have no choice but to buy a used physical copy, for which an author gets nothing, or acquire an unauthorized electronic edition, which again gives nothing to the author."
BitTorrent downloads grew by an average of 78% in the days after the iPad went on sale. Even so, the numbers were still tiny compared to the traffic in movies and musicE-book downloads on bitTorrent are miniscule. Compared to music and videos its practically non-existent. E-book piracy, however, has been around for about 15 years -- ever since scanners have been available.
"Original files come from those with enough time and patience to scan, OCR and proof-read the resulting files, but the majority of what you find are duplicates of these. Contrast this to music, where you pop a CD into your computer and wait a few minutes while it rips the tracks and downloads the metadata."The rate at which unique e-books appeared increased proportionately with the decrease in scanner prices and the increase in OCR software effectiveness.
...then copying an entire book, even if protected by DRM, will be as simple as automating screenshots of pages and sending them to an OCR (optical character recognition) program.DRM stripping software is already out there. OCR "scanning" of PDF files is still common, but as digital books become more common cracking and decryption will become more predominant, and OCR artifacts (mis-scanned 'typos', missing links, and even the '* * *' when a scene change occurs at the top of a page) will be a thing of the past.
If it causes a rise in book piracy, it is only because it is driving demand. The book industry should embrace this and give us what we want: cheap books, published day-and-date with their paper equivalents, along with all back-catalog titles made available. And preferably DRM-free.Amen. DRM and lawsuits will be same same failure for eBooks as it has been for movies and music. Innovative marketing and a fair pricing will keep piracy in the shadows where it has an insignificant impact on sales. It may in fact increase demand by introducing a greater number of authours wo a wider audience.
US consumers would pay just $5-$10 for an e-book, $2-$4 for a magazine and $5-$10 for a monthly newspaper subscription, the survey concluded.
In much of Europe, people were willing to pay higher prices, but in China and India respondents would pay no more than $3 for an e-book, $2 for a magazine and $2 for monthly newspaper access.
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