Open Question: How Can Ebooks Improve the Reading Experience?

Mac Slocum
June 24, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (6) | Listen

In "Random thoughts about the Kindle," Seth Godin suggests three ways the Kindle could improve the "act of reading a book":

* Let me see the best parts of the book as highlighted by thousands of other readers.

* Let me see notes in the margin as voted up, Digg-style, by thousands of other readers.

* Let me interact with hyperlinks and smart connections not just within the book but across books.

What suggestions do you have? How can digital books -- or, more broadly, digital content -- improve the reading experience? Please share your thoughts in the comments area.

Exploring DIY E-Reader Platforms

Liza Daly
June 23, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1) | Listen

I've been working with the EPUB open ebook format a lot lately, but when I want to read a book in it, I have to use my computer. There just aren't any devices which support it yet. Naturally this leads me to wonder whether I could build my own e-reader.

I'm not a hardware person, but the last few years have seen an emergence of open hardware platforms designed to allow even ordinary programmers like me to modify and customize small devices. As far as software goes, an e-reader is pretty straightforward: it's just some text on a screen. That shouldn't be too hard, right?

Surveying the landscape of hardware options, I've ranked below a variety of devices from "friendliest" to "most-intensive DIY." I'm not addressing PDA or phone devices here, largely because I consider their screen size and text rendering insufficient (but plenty of people disagree).

The Chumby -- With a 3.5" touch screen and reasonable $175 price tag, this little wireless computer in a bean bag is an obvious candidate. There's a full-fledged development environment and large community of users. Most Chumby applications are written in a lightweight version of Flash, which is easy enough to develop in.

It has a few downsides, though. The Chumby doesn't have much storage space at all, so any ebooks would have to be saved online and streamed to it, a page or a chapter at a time. Since it's meant to be an always-on wireless device, that seems doable. The screen might be too small to comfortably read lots of text, as it's meant for short bursts like RSS feeds or Twitter updates.

Unfortunately, it's powered by a wall outlet, with only a small 9-volt battery for emergency backup. People on the hardware forums have managed to hack in rechargeable batteries, and I wouldn't be surprised if a totally-wireless Chumby is forthcoming. [Disclosure: O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures is an investor in Chumby Industries.]

BugLabs -- The most open of the commercial hardware platforms, BugLabs sells individual pluggable modules that support various features, from touchscreens to cameras to GPS. It looks like a great platform, but it's very expensive ($349 for the base module plus $119 for the 2.5" touch-sensitive screen). The screen is probably too small for comfortable reading, but the company Web site promises a larger display soon.

Both the Chumby and BugLabs have touchscreens, which is key for making small screens more usable.

The Kindle -- All the heavy lifting has been done already to get into the Kindle filesystem and peek inside. It's probably too difficult to extend the existing Kindle environment without true source code, but it might be possible to do some simple things, like add new fonts. Few people have really explored hacking on e-ink devices, largely due to high cost and low availability. I suspect when the first color e-ink devices come out, used black and white ones will become popular playthings for enthusiasts.

YBox2 -- For the ultimate DIY experience, the YBox2 platform is a pile of electronic parts you solder together and assemble in an Altoids tin. It doesn't come with a touch-screen, or any screen at all: you connect it to a television or monitor. It uses the tiny Propeller chip, which powers many hobbyist devices and small robots. Like the Chumby, YBox2 comes with networking capability but little storage, and would need to stream book content from the Internet. The networking isn't wireless and of course there's no handy rechargable battery, but if you are the kind of person who can build a YBox2 you probably know how to make those too. I am not that kind of person.

While I'd be happy to crawl around a hacked Kindle, I know I'm not ready to program my own microcontroller. BugLabs seems great from a developer standpoint, especially when they release a larger screen, but I'm unwilling to shell out almost $500 just to experiment. The Sony Reader doesn't have networking, so that's much less interesting. Perhaps a Chumby is in my future. Any other options?

Related Stories:

• Select O'Reilly Books Soon on Kindle, and as DRM-free Digital Bundles (Including EPUB)
• What Would Your Ideal E-Reader Look Like?
• Ergonomics and Ebook Success
• Hacking the Kindle

Select O'Reilly Books Soon on Kindle, and as DRM-free Digital Bundles (Including EPUB)

Andrew Savikas
June 18, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (26) | Listen

Update (7/15): 30 O'Reilly titles are now available as ebook bundles. Full information is available here.

Update (6/19): On his New York Times blog, David Pogue has noted O'Reilly's pilot in the context of the recent discussion prompted his column on ebooks and piracy (which brought insightful responses from Adam Engst and  Mike Masnick, along with a follow up from David).

Ebooks are certainly nothing new for us at O'Reilly. We've offered PDFs of hundreds of our titles for some time now, and until quite recently Safari Books Online, our online-publishing joint venture with Pearson, generated more revenue than was typically associated with the entire downloadable ebook business.

But it's clear that things are changing in the ebook market (though precise numbers are proving hard to come by), so we've decided to officially announce two new e-publishing programs that have been in the works for some time:

• First, through oreilly.com we will offer a select number of books as a bundle of three ebook formats (EPUB, PDF, and Kindle-compatible Mobipocket) for a single price -- at or below the book's cover price -- starting in early July. Since we began selling PDFs directly some time ago, we've given those customers free updates to the PDFs to reflect published changes in the books; the same will apply to the ebook bundle, which will replace the PDF option on those titles. That also means that although the ebooks aren't yet available, if you buy the PDF now, you'll receive the EPUB and Mobipocket versions as a free update once they're available in early July. These files (like all our PDFs currently for sale) will be released without any DRM, though we are exploring some custom watermarking options. With these three formats, customers should be able to read the books with most current ebook software and devices, including Adobe Digital Editions, Kindle, Blackberries, and Sony Reader (Sony announced in May that EPUB support is forthcoming in a firmware update for their Reader).
• Second, O'Reilly has agreed to sell select ebooks for the Kindle through Amazon. We hope to see those ebooks available for sale through the Kindle store in the near future.

Open Question: What is the Best Use for Print on Demand?

Mac Slocum
June 11, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (5) | Listen

PublicAffairs Books recently used POD services from Lightning Source to manage demand for Scott McClellan's What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception.

From a Lightning Source press release (pdf):

PublicAffairs' experience with this title demonstrates how POD can be used to supplement offset printings in specific cases in which demand exceeds supply for a short term. In this instance, the POD copies of the book will supplement large scale conventional offset reprints, which are underway.

PublicAffairs used POD as an insurance policy, and panelists in a Digital Custom Publishing session at BEA also noted POD's use in short runs, niche titles and its importance as a Long Tail tool.

But do insurance policies, niche books and Long Tail plays represent the extent of POD's opportunities? What options do you see for POD? How have you used it in your own organization? How will POD evolve? Please share your thoughts in the comments area.