The Summer of E-books

Ditto Book Digital Reading Device Hits the Market

By Calvin Reid -- Publishers Weekly, 7/6/2009 7:49:00 AM

With the release of the newest handheld digital reading device, the awkwardly named Ditto Book (Digital Interface Total Text Organizer), this has truly become the summer of the e-book reader.

The Ditto Book is a nonwireless e-book reading device that looks a bit like the Amazon Kindle 2 but has a price ($249) that’s more like that of the Cool-ER, a similar nonwireless e-reading device that debuted at BookExpo America this year. (The Amazon Kindle 2 sells for $359.) Like the Kindle, The Ditto Book has a 6-inch black & white e-ink screen; long battery life and can read both text and PDF as well as play MP3 sound files. On the other hand, like the Cool-ER, the Ditto Book offers an expandable SD card slot that kicks its memory up to 2 GB of storage.

Most importantly, unlike the Kindle, the Ditto Book supports epub format titles, the industry's open e-publishing format standard and the format in which most e-books will be published going forward. In addition the Ditto Book is not a wireless device and users will need a computer and USB connection to move their e-books onto the device after downloading them to a laptop or desktop computer.

Although Amazon’s Kindle dominates part of the e-book marketplace, it seems that more companies are planning to target this sector of the market with black & white reading devices priced to undercut the Kindle. The Ditto Book is just the latest dedicated handheld reading device targeting this sector and it certainly won’t be the last. Companies like Plastic Logic are planning to offer their own black and white devices to a market that includes a range of devices that can used for reading, such as the Sony Reader, mobile phones (with high res screens and full color display for roughly the same price); and lesser known wireless and nonwireless b&w reading devices like the DRS series of devices from iRex Technologies or even the forthcoming full-featured CrunchPad. And you can bet there are even more devices offering similar functionality and similar prices on the way.

Will Sony's new device spell the end of the traditional book?

IT IS small enough to fit in a handbag or a large pocket – but contains the contents of around 160 books.

The race to convert book-lovers to electronic novels will intensify on Thursday with the launch of the £199 Sony Reader.

But writers are split on whether the gadget will ever challenge the traditional paperback as the favoured way to read a novel.

Roughly the size of an average paperback, it has 200 megabytes, enough to store 160 books of average length, and more capacity can be added in the form of memory cards. The device can also store and play back pictures and music files.

By connecting it to a home computer, owners will be able to download "ebooks" from the website of the bookshop chain Waterstone's, which will be selling the device.

The Reader uses display technology called electronic ink or "e-ink", meaning it uses power only when pages are turned. A single battery life should be enough for 1,680 page turns.

Each Reader will be sold with a CD containing 100 free books, including Dracula, Great Expectations, Pride And Prejudice and Romeo And Juliet.

Waterstone's has managed to beat Amazon – which has been selling its Kindle device in the United States for several months – to the British market.

Toby Bourne, category manager at Waterstone's, said: "We are very impressed with the Reader and think our customers will be too.

"We're working with publishers to develop the best range of ebooks – classics and new bestsellers."

However, writers were divided over the invention.

Toby Young, author of How To Lose Friends And Alienate People, said: "In the long run, electronic books will benefit writers, creating an easier way to enable first-time authors to get their work in front of the public. That will be a revolutionary change."

But Nick Hornby, whose books include Fever Pitch and About A Boy, was less convinced.

He wrote recently: "There is currently much consternation in the industry about the future of the conventional book, but my suspicion is that it will prove to be more tenacious than the CD.

"Readers of books like books, whereas music fans never had much affection for CDs."

Waterstone's said it had pre-orders for thousands of Readers, but admitted it was struggling to finalise pricing of ebooks.

A spokesman said: "We aim to make them cheaper than their physical counterparts, although people will have to pay VAT.

"We plan to have every new title available the day it launches, so you should be able to download everything you see in store."

Earlier this month, the CitiGroup financial services company predicted Amazon would sell 380,000 electronic books during 2008.

However, Amazon is notoriously reticent about publishing figures and some experts believe there could be as few as 50,000 electronic books in circulation.

Marc Lambert, chief executive officer of the Scottish Book Trust, said: "It's definitely a future; I don't know if it's the future.

"I think it's a good thing. It is still reading, it is just another platform, like the iPod, which has come into rapid use. It does take the tactile pleasure away of turning a book's pages, but at the same time it's making the book accessible on a different kind of platform.

"It can never replace the book as it was invented, because people will always enjoy the physical experience of reading a book, which you are going to miss on this."

First E Ink Magazine Cover Coming in September

(Mac Slocum, July 21, 2008)

Esquire will use E Ink technology to declare "the 21st Century Begins Now" on 100,000 flashing copies of its September issue. David Granger, Esquire's editor in chief, discusses the first E Ink-driven magazine cover with New York Times:

... on its own, the magazine will run out of juice after 90 days. Mr.Granger knows some will see the cover as a gimmick -- but he says he thinks the technology behind it, which has been used for supermarket displays but never embedded in a magazine, speaks to the possibilities of print.

Update 7/23: Folio says Esquire's E Ink edition sell for $5.99, two dollars more than the usual cover price.

E-Books

Ebook Format Primer

Liza Daly
April 21, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Amid all the recent ebook news, many publishers may still be unclear about the different formats and devices. How do ebooks actually get made? What changes need to be made to existing workflows to enable content distribution to ebook devices? We've put together this primer to help clear things up.

The simplest solution, of course, is to partner directly with the ebook manufacturers and let them take care of the details. These partnerships must be drawn up for each new platform and publishers are at the whims of the device-makers' terms of use. Innovative publishers may want to first experiment on their own and be prepared to shift platforms strategically: this means ebook distribution must fit into existing workflows. Although some of the formats below support digital rights management, consider eschewing DRM in favor of flexibility and cross-platform support.

Let's start with the major devices first:

1. The Sony Reader primarily uses Sony's proprietary Broadband eBooks (BBeB) format for documents with DRM but also supports RTF and non-DRM PDF. Sony does not provide any official tools for end users to convert to BBeB although at least one unofficial open source tool can convert HTML to BBeB. The most flexible non-DRM formats are RTF and PDF. Microsoft Word can readily save to RTF and Microsoft offers detailed instructions on converting from XML to RTF, but pure open-source alternatives are not mature. XML to PDF conversion has stronger open source support but files may need to be specially tweaked for optimum display on the Reader.
2. The Amazon Kindle uses Amazon's proprietary AZW format, which supports DRM. There are no tools available to directly convert to AZW, but AZW is a wrapper around the Mobipocket format and DRM-free Mobipocket files can be read on the device. Mobipocket documents can be created using a free (but not open-source) tool called Mobipocket Creator. As if the format wars weren't confusing enough already, "Mobipocket DRM" is not the same as AZW, and files created as Mobipocket DRM cannot be read on the Kindle. Mobipocket Creator does have a "batch" creation mode which could be integrated into an existing workflow, but the software is Windows-only. The Kindle also supports HTML and Word documents, but not PDF.

Specialized readers aren't the only way consumers may be viewing ebook content. Ultra-portable laptops like the Eee PC and OLPC XO are price-competitive with standalone readers. (I have an OLPC and reading by the pool in bright sunlight is quite a joy.) The next version of the iPhone is expected soon, and while the first edition was already a serviceable reader, the next version is likely to be more so, and to reach a wider audience.

All the devices listed above, except the Sony Reader, can read a common format: HTML. If XML is already a part of your workflow, converting to HTML is trivial. If not, HTML is a worthwhile investment for a number of reasons:

1. XHTML is the standard markup for book content in OPS/.epub. .epub support is just getting off the ground but is expected to become widespread.
   
2. If your publishing workflow includes HTML, your organization is able to distribute content to dozens of devices in addition to the open Web.

HTML is also the lingua franca of online search engines, and inclusion of partial or full HTML books will attract casual surfers and can drive community engagement with your content. Whether it's BBeB or AZW that becomes the Betamax of the next decade (and one, if not both, will be obsolete by then), HTML conversion is guaranteed to pay off in the foreseeable future.

Where do I see publishing going?

There are as many opinions on the future of publishing as there are different types of publishing, and only time will tell who's right or wrong. I also believe that where each sector of publishing will go will be determined primarily by its readers and its purpose.

For fiction book publishing, where the primary purpose is a good read, I believe that the Kindle and other e-readers will not take over the market. Instead, POD will become cheap enough that there will be POD kiosks in large retailers. One will either walk over to a POD "atm" and order and pay for a book that will be printed while you wait, or one can order and pay online and then walk over to the kiosk later and pick up the book. Wiley has actually taken the first step towards this by announcing that they plan to have "travel kiosks" in Border stores.

For non-fiction book publishing, it will depend on whether the book is narrative in nature or for reference purposes. If the former, then I believe the kiosk approach will work for them as well; if the latter, then the search functions offered by e-readers would be invaluable and will therefore outweigh the benefits of the tried-and-true paper format.

For journals, magazines, and newspapers I believe that it's only a matter of time before e-paper technology takes over. For those of you who aren't familiar with e-paper, see Wikepedia's definition below:

Electronic paper, also called e-paper, is a display technology designed to mimic the appearance of ordinary ink on paper. Unlike a conventional flat panel display, which uses a backlight to illuminate its pixels, electronic paper reflects light like ordinary paper and is capable of holding text and images indefinitely without drawing electricity, while allowing the image to be changed later.

There are several different technologies to build e-paper, some of which can use plastic substrate and electronics, so that the display is flexible. It is considered more comfortable to read than conventional displays. This is due to the stable image which does not need to be constantly refreshed, the large viewing angle, and the fact that it uses reflected ambient light. It has a similar contrast ratio to that of a newspaper and is lightweight and durable, however it still lacks good color reproduction.

Applications include e-book readers capable of displaying digital versions of books and e-paper magazines, electronic pricing labels in retail shops ^[1], time tables at bus stations ^[2], and electronic billboards ^[3].

Electronic paper should not be confused with digital paper, which is a pad to create handwritten digital documents with a digital pen.

Since journals, magazines, and newspapers all have a predefined page length, which tends not to vary too much between issues, e-paper would allow a reader to buy the e-paper version once, and then have the latest issue uploaded at a lower subscription rate. Eventually e-paper will be able to handle high-resolution photos as well as the black-and-white ones, so that won't be a deterrent for the high-end magazines and journals.

With the ever-increasing cost of PPB (paper, printing, and binding), the new technology is definitely a way for both the publisher and the consumer to save money. But there will always be readers, like myself, who prefer the feel of a book in the hand rather than another screen to stare at. And if along with the cheaper POD kiosks there are bins to return the book--perhaps even with a rebate like Staples is now offering for returned cartridges--then the paper can be recycled and reused.

And as a speaker said at the Book Business Conference I went to recently, "the future is here today."

Until next time.