Okay, the time has come for me to get an e-reader. So far I’ve peered over people’s shoulders in the train and asked intelligent questions such as: ‘Do you find it good?’ ‘How many books can you fit on it?’
Everyone I’ve spoken to loved their e-readers.
We’ve all heard of Amanda Hocking who has become a e-book millionaire. Here Nathan Bransford talks about this phenomenon. More mid-list authors are thinking about going the e-book route because their royalties are better on e-books. There are traditionally published authors who make more off their e-books.
Wall Street Journal announces that Random House has switched their pricing policy on e-books. They are the last major publisher to switch to the agency model.
‘Five of the country’s six largest publishers switched to agency pricing last year when Apple introduced its iPad tablet. Publishers believed the iPad would sharply expand sales of e-books and challenge Amazon.com Inc.’s popular Kindle e-reader. Apple is hosting a news conference Wednesday and is expected to unveil a new version of the iPad.’
Here, at Pimp My Novel, Eric explains what this means for us readers. And more from Pimp My Novel Five Things you should Know About the eRevolution.
Which all brings me back to, what do you look for in an e-book?
What do you want from an e-reader?
In an ebook – decent formatting. The most obvious problems I have come across is section breaks within a chapter not being signified with *** of #. Some publishers still use a couple of hard returns or an inch gap to indicate a break and this doesn’t translate a well.
I’d like to see authors take advantage of the unlimited space they have, include special features at the end of the book like interviews, perhaps notes on the text, or even appendices like Dune or LOTR.
I pretty easy with an e-reader – good battery life, sturdy.
Formats shouldn’t be an issue either. There’s free software that can allow the reader to strip drm and convert easily from kindle files to epub. Which makes my wonder why the big publishers bother with DRM at all.
Oh and why I am on a roll I read an article in the Rationalist by Peter Donoughue (35 years exp in wide range of publishing)on the Agency model and how its illegal here in Australia. The article was also a good dressing down of the overpricing employed by local big publishers _ some where to the tune of $5 a book – worth reading if you have access to it.
I was reading using the Kindle app on my iPod touch and now have a Kindle. I’m enjoying the e-ink over the backlit screen (plus the larger screen). My eyes aren’t as strained, and I can read with my glasses on (versus my iPod, where my glasses come off and I hold it close to my nose and squint like an old woman
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The big thing I’m loving about the Kindle is the ability to transfer my documents onto the device. I’ve been doing some judging for RWA and read the stories on my Kindle and it was great! I also know some folks who transfer their ms onto the Kindle, then engage the read-aloud feature on it so the device reads to them (saves their voice but they still get the benefit of using a different sense to consider the story).
I’m very much looking forward to loading the sucker up and going to America with all the reading I need for flights and hotel rooms but without the baggage issue
All valuable info, thanks Nicole.
Am so envious of your US trip!
I love my Sony. It’s small, light, simple. AND it also allows me to mark up the files I’ve saved onto it, so I can work on my mss as well as just read them. That was a key thing driving my decision. Much easier to carry around than a huge ms.
Do you have one of the newer sony’s then? I have an old PRS 505. Solid aluminium casing handles being dropped and drenched in coffee.
Thanks for the thought, Sean. I’ve asked my DH to take a look around, but I want to be able to read book and also fiddle with my manuscripts.
This is the kind of thing I was looking for Sean. Something that was versatile.
Could you list what you want to be able to do with it Rowena, will help me dig up some resources for you.
I just bought the Asus Eee Note EA-800. It not only allows you to read PDFs, but it allows you to use the included stylus to write notes and highlight sections, which it will then save for transportation back to your PC, so you can have a notated PDF.
Super useful for my Masters readings, and for any other document I need to edit on the go!
It also doesn’t have that crazy screen flash the Kobo – and many others! – do when you turn the page. Flashing the screen all black between pages gives me a migraine.
I bet it wasn’t cheap!