On other topics

[kinzel]

Theo is in process. Sorry the chapter is late, was going over important paperwork ... sigh.

Meanwhile, not paperwork, is some commentary about ebooks on the SFnovelists blog ...
http://www.sfnovelists.com/2008/09/28/my-own-epublishing-rant/
which seems of the opinion that ebooks are not where it is. Please feel free to read and comment...

Comments

[keristor.livejournal.com]

As far as I'm concerned there are several problems with e-books. One is the readers, I want something which has around the same word density as a paperback book (around 10 words per line, 30 lines per page). The only reader I've found which meets that is the iLiad, but that costs $600 (400 pounds Sterling)!

The other is the availability of material, and that is where it really falls down. In particular I want copies of the books I already have and enjoy re-reading, and around 95% of those aren't even in print let alone available in electronic form, nor are they at all likely to be made available in my lifetime (in fact the probability drops with time, since many of them are obsolete in terms of the science in the "Science Fiction" and they have limited appeal from a literary perspective).

I read certain things on the screen at home. LJ and the like, email, newsgroups, source code -- and Fledgling and Saltation, of course (they are in small enough chunks that I don't mind them being on screen; my main fiction reading however is done in bed, where I typically read several chapoters or even a whole book in one chunk, and doing that with a screen would be very hard on my eyes).

[jryson.livejournal.com]

In particular I want copies of the books I already have and enjoy re-reading, and around 95% of those aren't even in print let alone available in electronic form, nor are they at all likely to be made available in my lifetime (in fact the probability drops with time, since many of them are obsolete in terms of the science in the "Science Fiction" and they have limited appeal from a literary perspective).

I have some optimism about that. Probably any book printed in the last decade or so exists in machine-readable format in somebody' vault. Then it's a matter of finding it and arranging to pay for intellectual property. Or, you can scan the book yourself. Scanning paper type-to-machine-readable software is cheap and pretty good.