It's the software, the page on the screen that matters

Ebooked

Since I have been reading on my iPad, I am very happy with the hardware, but the software makes me want better, better page design, better search and note talking options

As a reader, I want more choices, more mixed media, and more cross-indexing. I want to be able to have list of all my eBooks in one file; I want to be able to sort titles on the "shelf" by subject or keywords. Searching as list is not the same as browsing book jackets. At least until the printed book dies, I want that metaphor on my iPad in all the ways it can really replicate a library.

I love reading on my iPad. Even with the glare from too close reading lamps or outside sunshine is a small inconvenience. With an eBook reader I could only buy from one bookstore, and I couldn't compare page layouts. The iPad also gives me gorgeous black-and-white photographs in any reader,and great color in the iBookstore, although there are few books with any color that aren't Apps.

The true interactive, mixed-media potential of the iPad, the chance to combine audio, animation, video, and web links with text, exists in even fewer Apps than those with color. THE ELEMENTS remains the most imaginative book available, because it has 3D photography (and the Tom Leher song), but the scientific calculations exist only through links to the developer's web site, which, of course, you can access without an iPad.

That said, if I were reading only on a Kindle or a Nook, I would have no option for color or video. Likewise, if I bought only from the iBookstore, I would have a much smaller library of titles to choose from, since several major publishers and most small ones have not yet agreed to Apple's sales' model which is a consignment model unlike the way normal print books are paid for at wholesale prices. The iPad works for me only because it doesn't tie me to one retailer. I can buy from the store with the best inventory. I can also decide which software I like best for reading, which page layout, search function, highlighting and not taking is most convenient.

This software -- not the hardware -- I am convinced, is what readers should focus on now that we have choices, at different price points and with different inventories of books to buy and read electronically

Next blog: the words on the page are what we read.

Lots of e-book reader hardware to come

You will be reading more and more hype about e-books this month, in part because of the Consumer Electronics Show and the Apple Tablet, but keep in mind a very interesting (and possible cheaper than Apple) solution: new dual black and white and color screens, such as The Alex Reader, from Spring Designs.

The advantage of a dual-screen reader over the Nook or Kindle is that you can browse the internet or follow URL links at the same time you are reading in black-and-white, which is better for text. You can also have imbedded links to color illustrations, which is essential for professional books.

Sony E-Reader competiton good for book publishers

Ordering an e-book instantly from Kindle may be fun,

But being able to re-read that e-book on any device is priceless.

Sony’s recent e-book and e-book Reader announcements are the single best news book publishing has had in years. As the NYT article reports below, more books in more formats from more sources is the key to making e-books a viable format in an industry that can still afford to pay writers for writing books:

New York Times 8-13-09
Sony Plans to Adopt Common Format for E-Books By BRAD STONE
To counter Amazon.com, Sony and other device makers as well as several publishers will use the same technology, called ePub, for digital book sales.

…..
“If the business terms and conditions end up being dictated to publishers by one bookseller who has a chokehold over the value chain, publishers are going to have a hard time staying profitable,” said Bill McCoy, general manager for Adobe’s digital publishing business.

It occurred to me the other day that our vocabulary is all wrong in this debate over e-books – in the same way it’s misleading to talk as if America actually had “healthcare, when we really only have very expensive sickcare.

We don’t read e-books or hardcovers. We read what people write.

Books – whether print or digital, whether downloaded or mailed, whether new or old – are just one way that writing reaches the people who want to read it. Books are just one way that people get paid for their writing.

Books are not what I read; they are where I read things that interest me. I find writing in books interesting, because I like writing that reflect the author’s authentic research, originality, and talent. I like the sentences and paragraphs they choose to combine to make a book; I like the way their long story begins and ends.

I think if books are to survive we have to stop thinking about books as a “consumer product.” Format usually follow price, but the quality of what’s inside a book does not.

We need to start thinking about books as a place where writers write and readers find them. If printed books morph into e-books, that’s really not a lot of change.

If we don’t want to lose writing that’s long, and thoughtful, writing that requires time to create – if we want writing we such as we find in War and Peace, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Dreams From My Father, or A Room of One’s Own -- we have to find a way to subsidize the places readers can read what such writers write.

I submit that we could learn how to live without books. It’s reading and writing we can’t live without.

And the possibility of that impending loss is what we should talk about.