I’ve been watching the buzz and babble around the new e-book readers recently, particularly the Amazon Kindle, and one thing that’s struck me is that, well, I’ve been here before.
Apparently no one involved in all the hype-and-squabble is old enough to remember the home computer industry back in the eighties. The consumer had a wide variety of format choices — PCs (both IBM and clones), Apple IIs, Apple Macintoshes, Ataris, TRS-80s, Commodores, Amigas, plus other systems you’ve probably never heard of — each with its fans and detractors. And despite a few stand-outs — the original IBM PC for its reliability, the PC clones for price, the Mac for ease of use, the Amiga for multi-media — most of the software stores catered to everyone; the shops were divided up with different sections for each type of computer. Because if you had a Macintosh, for example, you couldn’t run your software on a PC or an Amiga or a TRS-80. (Or even on an Apple II.) Changing systems meant resigning yourself not only to having an expensive pile of hardware which was now useful only as a boat anchor, but also to having another pile, this one composed of software, which was now just as useless and — depending on what you’d been into and for how long — could well be just as expensive.
Because of this, people tended to stick with one format for as long as they could. It took a truly significant development in technological capability (or some incredible marketing) to get any significant number of people to change systems. Either that, or pure abandonment on the part of developers.
Because software developers need to pay bills too, and it eventually became obvious where the money was. It took a real fanatic to write software for a platform that only had a tiny percentage of the market (and therefore a relatively tiny number of potential sales) when there was a much larger market sitting right there on top of its enormous installed base of hardware, beckoning. Even when it finally came down to the big two — the PC and the Mac — many people jumped from the latter to the former simply for the availability of software. It doesn’t matter how cool your system is, or how many technical bells and whistles it might have, if you only have one shelving section in the software store to choose from and your neighbor has the rest of the shop.
So now we have the e-book readers getting ready to battle it out. Mike Shatzkin in Publisher’s Weekly thinks Amazon’s Kindle is going to win, but I’m skeptical. Because Amazon seems determined to force its Kindle customers to buy only its proprietary format books. It’s bad enough you have to jump through hoops to get all your Mobipocket format e-books to work — something many users won’t be comfortable doing anyway, for a variety of reasons — given that Mobipocket is an Amazon supported format. But refusing to support .PDF files is just ridiculous. The .PDF format is hugely popular and many readers already have considerable libraries of .PDF e-books. Amazon expects us to just abandon this investment, like a pile of old Commodore games.
I’m sure it’s purely coincidental that Amazon is hoping to sell us brand new libraries of e-books in their own format.
What’s really annoying here is that there’s no technical reason for this. Different computer systems have different quirks and capabilities. Software which runs on an Atari simply couldn’t run on an Apple II, for fundamental technical reasons. All e-book readers have the same job to do, though, and there’s no reason to create one from the ground up which can’t handle existing formats. No reason, that is, except for the hope of sales.
This is purely a marketing move. Amazon is hoping to corner the market on e-book sales by marketing the Kindle into the top spot on the hardware list. They want everyone to have to come to them for both hardware and book files.
I think they’re shooting themselves in the foot. This is reminiscent of what Apple has done, only moreso — at least Apple encouraged outside software developers. But Amazon should note that despite all their technical innovations, and despite twenty-some years of marketing and evangelizing and waving the flag, Macintoshes are still only about ten percent of the installed base of home computers. Maybe pushing fifteen in some years. The winner in that particular game was the IBM PC and the reason it won was the existence of a bazillion PC clones — cheap copies of IBM’s hardware, all pretty much interchangeable and all able to run PC software.
IBM lost a huge chunk of the market to the clone manufacturers, yes. But those cheap clones made the PC format the most popular home computer in the world, by an enormous margin, which meant it was the preferred format for most software developers. There were enough people who wanted the solid reliability of the more expensive IBM box to keep IBM selling nicely, but the reason those people were interested in the first place was that the larger installed base made it a flourishing platform for software. If developers hadn’t been scrambling to write software for the PC, the platform would’ve died the death of the Amiga and the Atari and all the other failed platforms, or perhaps faded to a tiny scrap of the market along with the Macintosh, while some other platform would’ve taken over. IBM’s (rather surprising at the time) generosity with their architecture ensured that even the fraction of the market they retained was large and healthy, and it was the huge variety of available software, from an uncountable number of developers both large and small, that made it all come together and earned money for everyone.
Amazon is going the total proprietary route, though, not only wanting to sell you their hardware but insisting on providing all your software. (Unless, of course, you are or know a decent hacker.)
I’m not willing to throw out all my e-books. I frankly don’t care what technological bells and whistles the Kindle might have; I’m not willing to pay four hundred dollars for a reader, and then on top of it pay to replace my existing library — to say nothing of putting all my literary eggs into Kindle’s basket, and taking the chance of having another pile of expensive, useless software if the Kindle itself ever goes belly-up. And I don’t think many other people will be either once they’ve thought it through.
With all due respect to Mr. Shatzkin, I don’t think the Kindle is going to soar to any kind of greatness, at least not with Amazon’s current approach. Unless they open it up to other formats — existing, popular formats, starting with the .PDF — I think that at best they’ll end up the Macintosh of the e-book readers. Which isn’t a horrible place to be, I’ll grant you. But I have a feeling Amazon fancies themselves the PC instead. Sorry, Jeff — not going to happen.
Angie
No related posts.
I was scanning through reviews on Amazon.com for the Kindle the other night, and my understanding is that rather than jump through “hoops” to convert PDFs, all you have to do is e-mail a copy of the document to your Kindle e-mail address, and it will automatically be converted.
Quoting from Steve Gibson: “There’s also been a great deal of confusion about Amazon charging for the conversion and delivery of our own content into our own Kindles. Amazon *only* charges for wireless delivery, the conversion is 100% free. If you eMail your content to YourKindleName@kindle.com it’s converted and downloaded into your Kindle for 10 cents. But if, instead, you eMail your content to YourKindleName@free.kindle.com it’s converted and a link to the converted file is eMailed to your registered eMail address at NO charge. You can then download it and use your PC’s USB connection to transfer the content to the Kindle.”
I have yet to jump on the e-book wagon, so converting previously-purchased content isn’t an issue for me, and I have to say, the ability to wirelessly shop for new books on the fly sounds very attractive to me.
According to Joel Johnson of BoingBoing Gadgets, who’s played around with the conversions, “PDF is not supported. At all. Even via the conversion process.”
He mentioned the e-mail option separately and didn’t specifically say whether .PDF is convertible that way. He did mention, though, that it took him about fifteen minutes for the e-mailed conversion to come through (and he didn’t say how long his test documents were so it could be 5K or half a meg; my first guess would be that longer documents would take more time).
Even assuming it does work on PDFs, multiply that fifteen minutes by a few hundred (or a few thousand) e-books and it’s going to take some people a very long time to convert their existing libraries. Heck, even if it were instant, that’s still a lot of time spent in your e-mail window.
And there’s still no reason to have done it this way. Whether there’s a method to do .PDF conversion now (and yes, I still consider the e-mail option to be jumping through hoops, although for people who only have a few existing e-books the hoop might be comfortably large and held very low to the ground) or whether Amazon offers one in the future, the fact remains that it’s all unnecessary from the get-go. They could have made it easier for everyone by just natively supporting .PDF files from the beginning. Why didn’t they? I can’t think of any reason besides a desire to herd everyone into a single corral that has “Amazon” branded on the gate.
Angie
I own a Kindle and love it. I did not buy the Sony as it’s not very functional as a reading device. It took me very little time to convert my books to work on the Kindle. Pretty much, when I want to read one of my older books, I simply take 30 seconds to convert it. I shop off amazon all the time and am a confirmed bookaholic so walking around with a book store in my hand is as perfect as it gets. It’s all about convenience and functionality for me and so far the price of new books (I am one of those that doesn’t wait and pays hard back prices and the device has half way paid for itself in two months)
I’ve had the ebookwise for years and love it, and still think it has features the “new” devices should have incorporated. If the ebookwise simply had handwriting recognition software, it would be the perfect device, IMO.
Then again, I own Mac’s too. I love the fact the WP program I used 20 years ago still works on my Mac today. I love it never crashes, never freezes, and everything just always works. Pretty much, I’m into functional technology. I want it to do it’s job and do it well while providing me with as little hassle and as much convenience as possible.
I agree, though. Eventually the publishers and device manufacturers will settle out to one DRM. In the meantime, none of the devices is particularly phenomenal over another, but the Kindle does have the immediate gratification of a bookstore in the hand combined with utter ease of use (don’t have to read the manual) and can do whatever I want functionality. That highly appeals to me.
I don’t think anyone buying a Sony, or a Kindle, a bookeen, or an ebookwise will be left out in the cold. When things settle out, the devices will still function. Right now, it’s just a matter of personal preference of what matters more. Eink or backlight? Sleek looking design or Functionality? etc.
I just can’t go electronic on reading books. I LOVE my books. Love seeing them on my bookshelves, love the covers, the sexy and colorful artwork, love the descriptions on the back cover, and I love having a permanent physical copy to hold in my hands and then to just look at when I’ve finished it, remembering how much I loved reading it.
The Kindle sounds cool to me, because I do kind of like gadgets, but I just can’t imagine not having real ink and paper books.
I imagine the Kindle will eventually be like the iPod with dozens of versions and generations. The ones we’re seeing today will probably be relics in a year.
I’m not a fan of reading books any other way than paper. I do it for my writing and for my CP, etc. but I’d rather sit on the couch holding a real book – smell the paper, feel the binding, hear the crinkle of the pages.
Don’t feel alone, Angela. I remember the whole computer mess of the 80s. What a pain. Thank goodness I settled on the PC early, and learned all that software rather than learning any of the now-defunct platforms’. Ack.
Sarah — I agree, something’s going to have to change before any particular system pulls ahead, or before e-books in general become really popular. [nod] People are used to being able to buy and read any book they want, and I don’t see swarms of people flocking to a reader which can only read a certain percentage of what’s out there, even if it’s a pretty large percentage.
The Kindle itself, as a piece of technology, might be incredibly cool; I don’t have one so I can’t really comment on that. My annoyance right now is solely with the proprietary formatting.
LC — I like paper books too, especially for various types of illustrations, or for non-fiction reference books where I have a bunch of bookmarks stuck in and I’m always flipping back and forth. [laugh/flail] Sometimes, though, it’s nice to be able to take a huge pile of books with me when I’m travelling, without having to bring a separate suitcase. And when I’m reading in bed, it can be tough to hold a heavy hardcover over my head for more than a few minutes. My arms much prefer my Palm, which is lighter even than a paperback.
And I definitely agree with you that the current Kindle will seem paleolithic in a year or two, but there’s no guarantee that the next version will be any different regarding the e-book formats it can read. I think it’d be to the benefit of all the Kindle users, to say nothing of Amazon itself, if it were. [crossed fingers]
Kimber An — Although I’ve been reading on a computer monitor for over twenty years and it just feels normal now, I’ll admit I prefer paper books too, most of the time.
Many of the books I read these days are only available as e-books, though, and everything I’ve published so far has been electronic, so I definitely have a personal interest in how the industry shakes out. I’m with you in hoping it works out to the benefit of the users. [nod]
B.E. — another computer fogey!
I had friends with TRS-80s, C64s and Amigas, but luckily my first computer was a PC too. 4.6 MHz, woot! [grin] With a turbo option that took it up to 10! O_O
Angie
I love computers, love the idea of being able to do things unimaginable years ago (especially when I had that TRS-80), but I don’t understand electronic books. I read three to four books a week, and get most of my reading material at the free library. Maybe I would buy a device if I could borrow the content from the library and it would expire in a few weeks. It all seems like a lot of money from my pocket to someone else’s. I’d like to know how these devices effect author margins. Out here in LA forward thinking technology like this is exactly why television writers are on strike.
LOL – and with an 8086 processor, no doubt. Plus the wonderful 5 1/4″ floppy drive (when the floppies were actually floppy). CDs were a godsend. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
There are the concerns with Kindle that everyone discusses: the expense and the proprietary format.
Then there is the concern that doesn’t get mentioned nearly as often: the wireless download is limited. One of the big advertising points is the “buy books anywhere/anytime†wireless network. Apparently, this relies on Sprint EVDO. Looking at Sprint’s map, it would appear that if you aren’t in or very near a city of at least 100, 000, you’ll be hooking your Kindle to your computer and downloading like everybody else. You’ll still get your books, but if the Anywhere/Anytime is an important feature, you might want to check your coverage.
For more, see:
http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/2007/12/10/interested-in-the-kindle-check-your-coverage-map-before-buying/
I will wait til pdf’s are supported as well. Plus the Kindle is way out of my price range for just a reading device.
At the moment I either read my ebooks on my Palm Vx or my HTC Touch (using Mobipocket on both) and I have no problems. I am able to multitask and do what I need. I like the HTC Touch because it is backlit and easier to read, but my Palm Vx has a bigger screen. I use whichever is handy (or charged) when I am reading.
I love my paper book as well, but I am happy to have found a way to read ebooks, other than on my laptop. I can read them while waiting to pick my kids up at school.
I couldn’t agree more. I have about 500 ebooks in Microsoft Reader DRM format. Am I going to pay $399 for the Kindle when it won’t let me read those? I also switched briefly to Mobipocket DRM when I heard that Amazon had purchased it, only to find out that the Kindle doesn’t support that either. (I’m back with MS Reader now.)
I’d buy the Kindle in a minute if it supported multiple ereaders, like all computers do, and if I could continue to buy books from other than Amazon (even if I had to download them from the computer).
For novels and general prose it could be that you don’t need to buy an eReader at all. http://www.booksinmyphone.com give away public domain titles packaged up to be read on regular ‘dumb’ cell phones. The screen is small but I quickly forgot that and ‘got that reading feeling’. Being in the phone makes the books ultra portable, it’s life as usual + books. I’d happily buy contemporary novels for reading on my phone.
Jessica — all my stories have so far been published as e-books and my royalty is much higher than that of an author publishing hard copy books out of NY. Of course, they’re reader base is much larger, and they’re there in bookstores where readers are used to buying their books [wry smile] but relative to the size of the market, electronic authors are compensated very well. (Hollywood should take note.
) But the electronic publisher doesn’t have to pay for paper or printing or warehousing or shipping, so they can afford to be more generous with their authors.
B.E. — way back when at work, I used a dedicated word processor that had eight-inch floppies.
Before that job I hadn’t known they made them that big. They held less than a 5.25″ disk, too, just as those held less than a 3.5″.
SandyW — I saw that post, yes, and the map. [nod] Definitely a revelation for anyone who was hoping for the download-anywhere feature but wasn’t thinking along coverage lines.
MG — I read most of my e-books here at my desktop (love the monitor size [grin]) but when I want to just kick back on the couch or when I’m travelling, I load books onto my own Palm. [nod] I’ve been thinking about getting a dedicated reader mainly for the screen size, but I’m not willing to invest until this format thing shakes out.
Statch — re: Mobipocket, the fact that the Kindle doesn’t natively support a format that Amazon itself owns just has me boggling. What the heck are they thinking, seriously? o_O And yes, the issue of all the small electronic publishers whose books aren’t available in Kindle’s proprietary format is another issue. That right there eliminates a huge chunk of my existing e-library.
Avagee — I’m probably the only American over the age of ten who doesn’t have a cell phone, but… I don’t have a cell phone. [rueful smile] I’ve heard that books over the cell phone are popular in Japan, though, so I guess it’s not surprising that it’s coming over here too.
Angie
I love gadgets too, but like many of you I feel the technology is moving forward so fast for ebooks that I can’t invest all that money in a Kindle when something new, better, smarter and cheaper might come along very soon.
I don’t mind reading books on my laptop, but I would prefer a reader of some kind. Christmas is only 11 and a half months away.
On the one hand, I love my traditional books so much I kind of wish every e-book reader failed and we all went back to paper. On the other hand, I never like it when one company corners a market; I always like a little competition in my marketplace.
So I hope that you’re right and the Kindle doesn’t take off the way Mike Shatzkin predicts. Even if it’s not difficult to convert existing e-books to the Kindle’s format, it’s an unnecessary step to require of people. Having a device that’s compatible with all formats (or most) makes much more sense to me.
I’m with B.E. Sanderson. I sit at a computer all day for work, so (blogging activity not included) I hate staring at a screen for recreation.
I love the smell and the weight of books. I love the feeling of turning a page. I love the ease with which I can loan a book to a friend, or make a margin note.
Susan — There’s that too. [nodnod] The Kindle is unproven technology so far, and I’ve never been one to jump on the bleeding edge. I’m glad that there are people who do, and I’m glad that a lot of them are really good at writing up bug reports [wry smile] but even if everything looks just fine, when it comes to electronics I prefer to wait a bit and let everyone else beta-test.
Candice — exactly! It doesn’t matter how easy the conversion might be; it shouldn’t be necessary at all. And when you have an existing library of hundreds or thousands of files, even the simplest conversion becomes a pain.
I remember when a graphics program we used at work for some computerized forms went through a major upgrade. Whenever we worked with an old-format form, when we went to save it with the new format we had to choose a special option, then it asked if we really wanted to, then it explained that the upgrade was irreversible and asked again if we REALLY wanted to, then it asked if we were sure one more time, before doing it. [headdesk] It wasn’t hard, just a menu choice and three mouse-clicks. It didn’t even take an incredibly long time. It was just annoying and obnoxious and everyone griped about it, because we had lots of computerized forms. Now Amazon wants us to do the same thing, only sending every single one through the e-mail. [sigh]
Kate — I’ve heard that from a lot of people, and I guess I understand it intellectually, but I’ve never quite gotten it in my gut. To me, a screen is a screen. It’s like saying, “Well, I stare at a screen all day at work, so when I come home I don’t want to watch TV.” It’s the same thing, staring at a screen, and yet nobody says that about TV screens, only about computer screens. I don’t get it. [shrug] But I know a lot of people who feel that way so I’m obviously the weird one here.
About the rest, there are word processors now that let you make margin notes, so it’s certainly doable, from a technological POV. I’m sure e-books will allow it eventually. I don’t think physically turning pages is compatible with a computer file, but what I miss about pages is the… sort of physical memory of where I was in a book at a certain point, if that makes sense. So if I want to go back and reread something to remind myself of just who this character is or whatever, with a paper book I might remember that we met him about 3/8″ into the book, and I’ll flip back there (while holding my place with one finger) and find the spot fairly easily. I don’t get that sort of memory with an e-book. I suspect, though, that someone who grows up with e-books will get the same sort of subconscious or automatic “feel” for where the slider was on the sidebar that we get now for about how much into the book we were.
Loaning books out is a definite issue. [nod] As someone who’s had stories published electronically, I’d really rather people don’t go around “loaning” copies of e-books to their friends, because in reality those aren’t loans; they’re permanent copies being made, for which I’m not getting royalties. If we could come up with a system for them to really be loans, so that the characteristics of loaning an e-book mapped one-to-one with the characteristics of loaning a paper book, I’d be all for it. And I agree that something like this is going to have to happen or people will just shrug and make dozens of (permanent) copies whenever they feel like it, because we’re used to being able to loan books and we should be able to loan books. :/ I don’t know what the solution is, but I agree that it’s definitely an issue.
Angie
Nicely explained, but put me on the old fashioned book category. I’m not saying I’ll never jump into the e-book market but nothing to this point has convinced me to do so, including the Kindle.
I’m going to have to be convinced the ease speed, and reading experience of e-books makes up for the pleasure of sitting down with a good print novel.
Travis — that’s the number one barrier to the e-book market taking off, yes. [nod] It seems like most people still prefer paper books; I do myself, when you get right down to it. But there are times when a reader full of e-books is just more convenient, like for travel. And the fact that an e-publisher doesn’t have to budget for paper and printing and warehousing and shipping means that small e-presses can afford to serve niche markets which otherwise wouldn’t have books at all. That’s a benefit to both readers and writers.
I have a feeling that a couple of generations from now, the younger people will be used to e-books and think paper books are bulky and inconvenient, the way so many kids today seem to have been born perfectly comfortable with a game controller, and just eyeroll when their parents or grandparents point to the bat and ball.
I think it’s a matter of what we’re used to, as much as the clunkiness one still runs into with the developing technology. Another generation or two will probably address both those issues.
Angie
There’s a lot to be said for getting something wirelessly. Just the other day a friend was showing me a memory card for her camera that had WIFI built in. Way cool!
But that’s not enough to get me to run out, get an e-reader and give up print books yet. I love the feel of a book in my hands and worry that the sun, sand and damp on the beach would do in most electronic devices.
On another note, although some of my earlier out-of-print books are available as e-books, when I refer readers to those, many say that they would rather try to track down a used book instead.
As for the different formats, I lived through the Betamax/VHS wars. See the battle now going on between HDDVD and BluRay.
Because of that I’m waiting until some kind of format is agreed upon or one version or another becomes more popular.
Caridad — well, I didn’t go into that part of it — beyond the scope here — but unless you’re in a major metropolitan area, the “wireless” part of the Kindle doesn’t work all that well either. :/ I agree that the wireless downloading would be incredibly cool, but only if it were reliable and only if it really worked wherever you were. I’d settle for the continental US for a start. [wry smile]
Re: the TV format wars, exactly, two more good examples. [nod] The husband and I are waiting to see how the latest one shakes out too.
Angie