Comments on: Three new ebook platforms nearing their debut

By: Goodreads Takes Next Step in Social Reading | Guy LeCharles Gonzalez

Goodreads Takes Next Step in Social Reading | Guy LeCharles Gonzalez — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 18:36:11 +0000

[...] use Goodreads’ APIs to add social reading functionality, including new players like Google, Blio and Copia, the latter of which has made “social reading” a core part of its pitch. Brown says [...]

By: The printed book’s path to oblivion « Phx Friends of UA SIRLS

The printed book’s path to oblivion « Phx Friends of UA SIRLS — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 15:58:00 +0000

[...] they run just keep improving: they get cheaper, lighter, more flexible, more capabilities-rich and there are ever more choices of them. Battery life gets longer. They develop the ability to take your notes, keyed in or handwritten. [...]

By: The printed book’s path to oblivion – The Shatzkin Files

The printed book’s path to oblivion – The Shatzkin Files — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 19:47:38 +0000

By: Book blogs weekly round-up (August 13)

Book blogs weekly round-up (August 13) — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 17:12:28 +0000

[...] 4) Three new e-book platforms nearing their debut [...]

By: Mike Shatzkin

Mike Shatzkin — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 12:14:57 +0000

Floyd, I understand your patience fatigue. Both Blio and Copia have kept us
standing on one foot for a long time. I am pretty sure that both of them
will arrive sometime soon, but news such as we got from Plastic Logic today,
along with the long wait, does promote skepticism, I must admit.

Mike

By: Floyd Wray

Floyd Wray — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 12:10:49 +0000

Blio seems to be aimed at right target — assuming they're actually going to come online at some point. I'm slightly tired of waiting.

By: marytod

marytod — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 15:58:59 +0000

Many thanks, Mike. I will update the diagram

By: Mike Shatzkin

Mike Shatzkin — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 14:21:25 +0000

Mary, what you've done is very good and very valuable and I'd encourage
anybody reading these comments to click over to it. A couple of things
occurred to me. One is that Ingram and Content Reserve belong in your list
of distributors, even though neither one of them (yet) runs a store. They
aggregate the titles of many publishers and power many independent etailers,
including Powells, Booksonboard, Diesel, etc. and the ebook lending programs
of public libraries.

There is another function here which is "distributor." The ebook files and
their associated metadata have to be delivered to the various outlets of
distribution, terms need to be agreed, and accounting and payments need to
take place. Ingram and LibreDigital and the various book distributors
(Perseus, NBN) provide that help, as does O'Reilly.

You've also left out Smashwords, which is a path to market for authors that
could be especially appealing. Its online-accessible, works from a doc file,
and puts ebooks everywhere in the supply chain offering very favorable
splits to the content creator.

I hope the word gets out about what you're doing here and that people
comment and that you're able to keep building it out.

Mike
--------------------
Mike Shatzkin
/blog
mike@idealog.com, 212-758-5670
Founder & CEO
The Idea Logical Company, Inc.,
Co-founder: Filedby, Inc. http://filedby.com
Conference Chair: Digital Book World http://digitalbookworld.com

By: marytod

marytod — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 14:10:05 +0000

Hi Mike – I read your latest post with pen in hand and the internet to help me browse various websites in an effort to understand how the ebook world is unfolding. I'm not sure if I've got it right, but I built a diagram to explore the trends. If you have time to take a look it's at http://onewritersvoice.com/2010/08/07/so-many-o…

I'm trying to look at the industry from a writer's point of view.
Really enjoy your blog.

By: Mike Shatzkin

Mike Shatzkin — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 12:54:24 +0000

But a big component of the betamax-VHS battle was that people had to get the
shrink-wrapped format, which *was* "manufactured." That's not true with
digital delivery. And the "open always triumphs" winning streak was broken
the first time the standards battle was fought without the need for a
shrink-wrapped product, when Apple kicked MP-3's butt around the corner in
the early part of this century.

Amazon and Apple are both big enough to sustain some proprietary aspects to
what they're doing for a long time. Millions of people, many of them very
heavy book consumers, are deeply invested in the Kindle format. Amazon
believes they can keep selling them upgraded devices so they can keep access
to their library. I think Amazon's right.

In the very long run, we probably will settle down to a single interoperable
format, or we'll have "translators" that make the format differences
inconsequential. But I don't think we'll see that in the new few years.

Mike