Attention Kindlers and Other eBook Reading Types
Posted on March 16, 2008 Posted by John Scalzi 19 Comments
It has come to my attention that Old Man’s War is now available on the Amazon Kindle eBook reader. And doing pretty well: at the moment it’s #10 on the Kindle SF bestseller list (The Ghost Brigades is #19). Now, what that translates to in actual sales, I have no idea. But it must be okay. So, thank you, Kindle readers.
Oh, and look — Old Man’s War is also available on Mobipocket.com as well. So you don’t have to give in to the Amazon eBook hegemony, unless of course you really want to.
Today has certainly been a day for alternate literary delivery systems here at the Whatever, hasn’t it.
A shame we have to wait till about 2030 before we can get it on some sort of direct neural input medium.
Well, you know. Good things come to those who wait.
Kaf:
Eh. Cool, but what fun is that, really? By 2020 you can probably get a customizable holographic avatar to read it to you. Mine’s gonna look like Natalie Wood!
Good times! More formats = more money from me.
By the way, I think actually Amazon owns Mobipocket these days. But, I get the idea.
Amazon does own Mobipocket. But they failed to make the Kindle compatible with DRM’d Mobipocket format. And other e-reader devices can’t read the Amazon Kindle DRM.
What’s more, neither format can be read on the Sony Reader or on a PC with Linux.
So I have mixed feelings, overall. Nice to see this in ebook form, but right now, the Mobipocket edition is twice the paperback price, and it’s still a DRM’d format that you can only read on the device registered at the time of purchase! If my Cybook fails and must be replaced, or if I buy a new device next year, I won’t be able to read the book anymore.
Please, Tor, hear the wailings… DRMs suck. DRM stop people from buying the ebook!
Irene:
I don’t believe the problem is Tor; the problem is Amazon.
Ah, yes. I was told by a publisher friend that Amazon had a hold on the electronic publication rights for books displayed with Search Inside feature. I know a few publishers who elected to pass on that one after reading the fine print. Way to go, Amazon…
The Mobipocket format is $3.50 cheaper at booksonboard.com. What I need is The Ghost Brigades in ebook-but-not-Kindle format. I can wait….
Yeah, it’s good news they’re starting to put these in ebook format…now Amazon just needs to drop the DRM like their mp3 store – oh, and like their Dead-Tree book store! I don’t see DRM on a paperback!
So far, I’m preferring Scalzi the blogger to Scalzi the author… no offense or anything.
None taken. Although personally, Stacey, I think you’d enjoy The Android’s Dream more than the OMW series.
Amazon likely worked hard to remove DRM from its music. Imagine what they had to do to convince the big five that this was a good idea.
Just imagine. Nevertheless, Jeff’s visions have come through much of the time.
Now, take this and apply it to eBooks. What advantages do you think DRM has for Amazon? None. Who do you think is telling Amazon to do DRM or else get nothing?
(Well, actually, what do I know, for that matter? Might as well flip a coin. Amazon might have its own reasons for the DRM-ness, apart from book companies wanting to kill it. Even Google bows to the book companies these days.)
Tor is a very rare publishing company. And I’m sure even they don’t want everything DRM-free.
If the music experiment works out, and Amazon crushes iTunes, I see the DRM fluttering away, maybe, from multiple things.
BTW, for those who think keeping the DRM on for Amazon will encourage Kindle sales. Remember, Amazon also profits from sales of the eBooks, no matter what format they’re in.
Must be nice for them to be on various ends of this market. :) Mind you, they will probably never become a successful publisher.
Sadly I really would like to read The Ghost Brigades but I can’t find it in electronic format other than tied to Kindle right now. I hope to see it in another format soon and drm-less would be nice since I like to move from my various pc’s, phone and my laptop to read etc.
I also have another reason for liking e-books, I can read them better, I have some visual impairments and reading text in white with a black background is actually easier for me to read with my dyslexia. I noticed this recently and shared it with my father and one of my daughters and all of us read better with a dark background! I doubt we’ll see books printed in white on black paper anytime soon so E-books again save the day!
@ phunkysai: Heh. That’s why I bought the paperback ;-)
@ Arachne Jericho: I don’t doubt Amazon would have to work hard to convince most publishers they have to sell ebook without digital locks. But somehow, I’m not convinced it’s the only reason they stick with DRMs for ebooks even though they dropped them on mp3 downloads. And it wouldn’t explain why the Kindle doesn’t read Mobipocket DRMs in the first place, when Amazon owns that company.
Remember, Apple, Amazon and other online music retailers used to blame the musical companies for the DRMs. But there was from the beginning some artists and music publishers who were willing to drop the DRM, and Apple, Amazon, etc., still slapped DRM on every download. And then, they changed their policy, of course, but not without years of campaigning.
I agree that digital locks like DRMs are not very useful for an ebook seller like Amazon, but the same should be true for the publishers as well. They too should be interested in selling books, not on keeping the readers from
DRMs are only interesting for companies with a vested interest in selling dead tree books: bookstores and truckers.
Now, what Amazon must be very, very interested in doing, right now, is not the DRMs per se, but imposing their own ebook format over Sony’s LRF and Adobe’s PDF. The Kindle could become the ebook equivalent to the iPod… But then, the users may wake up and force Amazon to lose the DRMs, just like Apple had, sooner or later, to choose between the locked music business and the customers.
I’ve started calling it my BookPal.
Now I just wish they’d release The Lost Colony on the Kindle. I finished OMW yesterday and immediately bought The Ghost Brigades. It’d be really nice to be able to do the same with TLC.
Also, FYI, I have noticed some slight formatting weirdness with The Ghost Brigades. Specifically, the left margin size seems to be inconsistent. This is on the Kindle, specifically. It doesn’t really bother me, but I thought you might want to know.
I see Zoe for sony, but not the lost colony :(. That’s what I’m stuck for in ebook form.
Just curious but why does a copy of “The Ghost Brigades” cost 12.60 for an e book version and the copy I bought at B&N cost 8.00?
Having read the “Old Man’s War” on my Ipod as my first real insight to E-books, I was quite taken by the fact that, here is my I-pod in my pocket that has not only my audio, a few episodes of Battlestar Galactica, some pictures and now…. a novel! I loved it. I don’t get a whole lot of time to read with the kids so having a few spare moments while on a break or in the car, what ever, and being able to whip out a book in a convenient manner was awesome.
With all the “Green” initiatives and save the tree movements, I thought there would be more incentive to buy paperless.