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Science Fiction (and Fantasy) Writers Wanted

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SFcrowsnest.com

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Dec 21, 1999, 3:00:00 AM12/21/99
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Hi the Science Fiction Writing list.

I'm looking for exciting and very well written science fiction
and fantasy novels to publish for a new Publishing Imprint,
Crowsnest Books.

The books are being published as Rocket E-Book editions and sold
through the Barnes and Noble chain (see
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/subjects/ebooks/ebooks.asp) ,
Powells Bookshops (see
http://www.powells.com/rocketeditions.html) and Ecampus (see
http://ecampus.com/) plus at the Science Fiction search engine
Sfcrowsnest.com (see www.sfcrowsnest.com) and SF super store
Orbital Trading Post (see http://www.orbitaltradingpost.com)

As well as catching the rising tide of e-book excitement,
Crowsnest Books is aiming to hook into the publishing on demand
explosion when Barnes and Noble finish trialing this new
technology.

Rather than bore the list with all the details of contracts etc,
you can find full details of how to get your novels published at
http://www.sfcrowsnest.com/greennebula/bkindex.htm (plus lots of
news and details of the Rocket Revolution, if this media is new
to you).

Hope to hear from you soon

Jessica Martin

PS - Please don't be disappointed if you get a rejection for
your work, our standards are very high, and all you need to
reach it is practice, practice, practice.

* Sent from RemarQ http://www.remarq.com The Internet's Discussion Network *
The fastest and easiest way to search and participate in Usenet - Free!


Anncrispin

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Dec 21, 1999, 3:00:00 AM12/21/99
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This is a British e-publisher. They do not, of course, pay an advance. :-(

They are promising wealth and glory, and 40% royalties.

Only problem is, 40% of 0 is still zero.

Show me the money, Jessica, and I might consider publishing with you.

<vbg>

-Ann C. Crispin

SFcrowsnest.com

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Dec 21, 1999, 3:00:00 AM12/21/99
to
If you check out the E-Book news section of our site, you'll see
that the first Rocket E-book author has just topped 6000 copies
sold - which is good mid-list sell throughs.

Advances cover the publication period of a print book ... and
guess what, e-books never go off the virtual shelf (unlike your
local Borders, where a non-best-seller novel will be lucky to
stay in fron of the buying public for more than 4 weeks).

Make your own mind up people ... preferably after reading the
news sources and sites on our E-book resources pages (and
getting suitably informed).

E-books are going to do to do to the stuffy old print book world
what MPEG music is doing to the music industry, and what desktop
films (aka Blair Witch) is doing to Hollywood. That is to say
they are going to change **EVERYTHING**

If you're a writer, you really don't want to let this revolution
pass you by.

Jessica

Steve Patterson

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Dec 21, 1999, 3:00:00 AM12/21/99
to
In article <05f86e90...@usw-ex0108-060.remarq.com>,
sfcrowsne...@hotmail.com.invalid says...

>
>If you check out the E-Book news section of our site, you'll see
>that the first Rocket E-book author has just topped 6000 copies
>sold - which is good mid-list sell throughs.

Not in my (admittedly limited) experience. In the miniatures/RPG industry,
6000 copies would be a satisfactory sales number for the first year of a
midlist title, pretty good for one of the smaller houses, and darned pitiful
for White Wolf, TSR/WotC, or Games Workshop.

From what I've heard, 6000 copies for the first year is an order of
magnitude too small for dead-tree publications.

>Advances cover the publication period of a print book ... and
>guess what, e-books never go off the virtual shelf (unlike your
>local Borders, where a non-best-seller novel will be lucky to
>stay in fron of the buying public for more than 4 weeks).

Advances are advance payments against future royalties. IIRC, the vast
majority of publishing contracts state that these advances are *not*
refundable to the publisher in the case that a title does not "earn out"
(sell enough copies that the authour's royalties equal or exceed the size of
the advance). Advances have very little to do with the publication period
of a print book; if the book goes out of print before it earns out, then
the authour still keeps the money.

True, print books do vanish from the shelves rather quickly in a retail
environment which expects best-sellers all day and every day. If you feel
that you're more of a midlist writer, then e-books may indeed be the way to
go. Still, I'd rather check with the dead-tree publishers first for the
next few years since their distribution and promotion system is already set
up and past the hiccup stage.

>Make your own mind up people ... preferably after reading the
>news sources and sites on our E-book resources pages (and
>getting suitably informed).

That includes information both on and off the web. Check trade magazines; I
can't recommend _Locus_ enough. http://www.locusmag.com/ or the print
version.

>E-books are going to do to do to the stuffy old print book world
>what MPEG music is doing to the music industry,

What, mess up the royalty system and encourage piracy? :)

> and what desktop
>films (aka Blair Witch) is doing to Hollywood. That is to say
>they are going to change **EVERYTHING**

Perhaps. It's still too early to tell.

>If you're a writer, you really don't want to let this revolution
>pass you by.

Maybe. Maybe not. By all means, though, get informed before making a
decision like this.

--
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
Note: My "from:" address has been altered to foil mailbots.
Remove the "no_spam_" to get in touch with me by email.
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
Steven J. Patterson no_spam_s...@wwdc.com
"Men may move mountains, but ideas move men."
-- M.N. Vorkosigan, per L.M. Bujold
See my refurbished webpage! http://www.wwdc.com/~spatterson


Elisabeth Carey

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Dec 21, 1999, 3:00:00 AM12/21/99
to
SFcrowsnest.com wrote:
>
> If you check out the E-Book news section of our site, you'll see
> that the first Rocket E-book author has just topped 6000 copies
> sold - which is good mid-list sell throughs.
>
> Advances cover the publication period of a print book ... and
> guess what, e-books never go off the virtual shelf (unlike your
> local Borders, where a non-best-seller novel will be lucky to
> stay in fron of the buying public for more than 4 weeks).

Advances are advances against royalties; they have nothing directly to
do with the publication period of the book. For writers with any track
record at all, the advance is often paid, at least in part, when the
contract is signed, and the writer has that money available for living
expenses while writing the book.

I don't know about _your_ local Borders, but my local Borders, and my
local Barnes and Noble, and my local independent bookstore, all keep
books on the shelf, "bestsellers" or not, a good deal longer than four
weeks unless they are just not moving _at all_.



> Make your own mind up people ... preferably after reading the
> news sources and sites on our E-book resources pages (and
> getting suitably informed).

What, writers should become "informed" on the subject by relying
solely on the information you provide or point them to, and not seek
independent sources of information?



> E-books are going to do to do to the stuffy old print book world

> what MPEG music is doing to the music industry, and what desktop


> films (aka Blair Witch) is doing to Hollywood. That is to say
> they are going to change **EVERYTHING**

Um. Well. Maybe. Eventually.



> If you're a writer, you really don't want to let this revolution
> pass you by.

One doesn't want to give one's work away to someone incapable of
promoting it effectively either, and it seems only fair that the
_publisher_ should assume some of the risk of publication.

Lis Carey

Lawrence Watt-Evans

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Dec 21, 1999, 3:00:00 AM12/21/99
to
On Tue, 21 Dec 1999 08:13:14 -0800, SFcrowsnest.com
<sfcrowsne...@hotmail.com.invalid> wrote:

>If you check out the E-Book news section of our site, you'll see
>that the first Rocket E-book author has just topped 6000 copies
>sold - which is good mid-list sell throughs.

Um... it is?

Okay, I don't know British numbers very well, but last time I got
sales figures for one of my books published in Britain, it had sold
15,000+ copies, and the publisher found that disappointing.

In the U.S., 6,000 in hardcover is well above average for midlist, and
6,000 in paperback is well below average for midlist. I think it
might be midlist numbers for trade paperback, but I'm not really sure.

My own attitude is that RocketBooks look promising -- I got to play
with one, and it's a very nifty gadget -- but that I'm not about to
risk marketing a new novel that way yet. A subsidiary deal, maybe.
And I've got a handful of short story reprints that'll be available on
Rocket soon, if they aren't already.


--

The Misenchanted Page: http://www.sff.net/people/LWE/ Last update 10/1/99
DRAGON WEATHER is now available -- ISBN 0-312-86978-9

Anncrispin

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Dec 21, 1999, 3:00:00 AM12/21/99
to
>Make your own mind up people ... preferably after reading the
>news sources and sites on our E-book resources pages (and
>getting suitably informed).
>
>E-books are going to do to do to the stuffy old print book world
>what MPEG music is doing to the music industry, and what desktop
>films (aka Blair Witch) is doing to Hollywood. That is to say
>they are going to change **EVERYTHING**
>
>If you're a writer, you really don't want to let this revolution
>pass you by.
>
>Jessica

Um, Jessica, I earned in excess of 50 grand from my last hardback book. (Yes, I
know, a boring old stuffy dinosaur dead-trees book...)

Are you saying you guys can realistically compete with the print market in
terms of remuneration to authors?

Again...show me the money.

<g>

-Ann C. Crispin

J. Moreno

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Dec 21, 1999, 3:00:00 AM12/21/99
to
Anncrispin <anncr...@aol.com> wrote:

Baen's Webscription is paying something at least -- he says that for
sales on just one month, David Weber is getting more than a grand. Of
course Weber is a top selling author, and it's for a book that is just
coming out.

But it's just started up, I expect sales for everybody to increase as
time goes on, and it is at least at a respectable amount of money for a
startup effort -- I bet it's a lot better than what you'd get with
Rocket.

--
John Moreno

Marilee J. Layman

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Dec 21, 1999, 3:00:00 AM12/21/99
to
In <385FABF6...@mediaone.net>, Elisabeth Carey
<lis....@mediaone.net> wrote:

>SFcrowsnest.com wrote:
>>
>> If you check out the E-Book news section of our site, you'll see
>> that the first Rocket E-book author has just topped 6000 copies
>> sold - which is good mid-list sell throughs.
>>

>> Advances cover the publication period of a print book ... and
>> guess what, e-books never go off the virtual shelf (unlike your
>> local Borders, where a non-best-seller novel will be lucky to
>> stay in fron of the buying public for more than 4 weeks).
>
>Advances are advances against royalties; they have nothing directly to
>do with the publication period of the book. For writers with any track
>record at all, the advance is often paid, at least in part, when the
>contract is signed, and the writer has that money available for living
>expenses while writing the book.
>
>I don't know about _your_ local Borders, but my local Borders, and my
>local Barnes and Noble, and my local independent bookstore, all keep
>books on the shelf, "bestsellers" or not, a good deal longer than four
>weeks unless they are just not moving _at all_.

The WashPost Business section digest a few weeks ago had a bit on IBM
selling Barnes & Noble (and their online version) all the hardware &
software to print books on demand, in about five minutes. I think
that's the real wave of the future.

--
Marilee J. Layman Co-Leader, The Other*Worlds*Cafe
relm...@aol.com A Science Fiction Discussion Group
Web site: http://www.webmoose.com/owc/
AOL keyword: BOOKs > Chats & Message > SF Forum > The Other*Worlds*Cafe

Phil Fraering

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Dec 21, 1999, 3:00:00 AM12/21/99
to
Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> writes:

>My own attitude is that RocketBooks look promising -- I got to play
>with one, and it's a very nifty gadget -- but that I'm not about to
>risk marketing a new novel that way yet. A subsidiary deal, maybe.
>And I've got a handful of short story reprints that'll be available on
>Rocket soon, if they aren't already.


Why do you think that RocketBooks is better than, say, Pulpless?

Is Rocketbooks tied to a particular hardware platform? Although
I have only used Pulpless once, on one of their older books,
which is only available in one format, it seems I could look
at it on desktop or laptop PC's and mac's, in addition to
palms and Newtons (sob). (Well, in reality, I have two desktops,
but you get the point).

Phil
p...@globalreach.net
--
Phil Fraering "I take it the Orwellian/Obediance is All
p...@globalreach.net message doesn't bother you?"
/Will work for tape/ - Cronan Thomson, discussing Teletubbies

Irvin Koch

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Dec 21, 1999, 3:00:00 AM12/21/99
to
Elisabeth Carey wrote:

> SFcrowsnest.com wrote:
>
> > E-books are going to do to do to the stuffy old print book world
> > what MPEG music is doing to the music industry, and what desktop
> > films (aka Blair Witch) is doing to Hollywood. That is to say
> > they are going to change **EVERYTHING**
>
> Um. Well. Maybe. Eventually.

>
> > If you're a writer, you really don't want to let this revolution
> > pass you by.
>
> One doesn't want to give one's work away to someone incapable of
> promoting it effectively either, and it seems only fair that the
> _publisher_ should assume some of the risk of publication.

Based on info. to date, what we may see is a "TV vs Radio" situation on
a lesser scale. The "eBooks" appear to be hitting a "new" market ...
for generally lower quality, lower price, material. Eventually the
market will saturate and the "producers" will start SOME sort of
screening, though not as tough as for print books. That will be about
the same time that the buyers realize what they're getting.

E.g., right now we're seeing a "novelty effect," perhaps.


Lawrence Watt-Evans

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Dec 22, 1999, 3:00:00 AM12/22/99
to
On Tue, 21 Dec 1999 22:56:00 -0600, pgf@lungold (Phil Fraering) wrote:

>Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> writes:
>
>>My own attitude is that RocketBooks look promising -- I got to play
>>with one, and it's a very nifty gadget -- but that I'm not about to
>>risk marketing a new novel that way yet. A subsidiary deal, maybe.
>>And I've got a handful of short story reprints that'll be available on
>>Rocket soon, if they aren't already.
>
>Why do you think that RocketBooks is better than, say, Pulpless?
>
>Is Rocketbooks tied to a particular hardware platform?

Yes. And that's what impressed me -- the hardware.

I have a few short stories on the Web, on sites that pay me per
download, but I don't see that as the wave of the future. Most people
aren't much interested in reading fiction on their PCs.

J. Moreno

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Dec 22, 1999, 3:00:00 AM12/22/99
to
Lawrence Watt-Evans <lawr...@clark.net> wrote:

> pgf@lungold (Phil Fraering) wrote:
>
> >Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> writes:
> >
> >>My own attitude is that RocketBooks look promising -- I got to play
> >>with one, and it's a very nifty gadget -- but that I'm not about to
> >>risk marketing a new novel that way yet. A subsidiary deal, maybe.
> >>And I've got a handful of short story reprints that'll be available on
> >>Rocket soon, if they aren't already.
> >
> >Why do you think that RocketBooks is better than, say, Pulpless?
> >
> >Is Rocketbooks tied to a particular hardware platform?
>
> Yes. And that's what impressed me -- the hardware.
>
> I have a few short stories on the Web, on sites that pay me per
> download, but I don't see that as the wave of the future. Most people
> aren't much interested in reading fiction on their PCs.

What format are they using that they can't be read on a Palm Pilot
(which is what that looks like)?

I think the Palm Pilot (or something similar) will be preferable to
using a PC, but I do think most people would like to get the "book" by
simply downloading it.

--
John Moreno

Justin Bacon

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Dec 22, 1999, 3:00:00 AM12/22/99
to
In article <19991221122422...@ng-da1.aol.com>, anncr...@aol.com
(Anncrispin) writes:

>Are you saying you guys can realistically compete with the print market in
>terms of remuneration to authors?

I don't think she necessarily has to. Her primary target seems to be relatively
new authors, not superstars such as yourself, Ann. :)

Plus, I know that my mother (<hype>Margaret Frazer</hype>) has maintained the
electronic rights to at least some of her books. With 40% royalties from the
E-book sales it certainly couldn't hurt for an author like that to funnel her
work through an organization such as Jessica's (assuming that Jessica is
reputable -- I have neither the time, inclination, or need to verify that). Or
an author whose work has gone out of print.

Justin Bacon
tr...@prairie.lakes.com

(Admittedly, Jessica's lack of knowledge concerning what an advance is has me
more than a little skeptical of her professional standards.)

William December Starr

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Dec 22, 1999, 3:00:00 AM12/22/99
to
In article <CmZ74.17588$W2.1...@iad-read.news.verio.net>,
lawr...@clark.net said:

> Yes. And that's what impressed me -- the hardware.
>
> I have a few short stories on the Web, on sites that pay me per
> download, but I don't see that as the wave of the future. Most
> people aren't much interested in reading fiction on their PCs.

Tell that to alt.sex.stories... :-)

-- William December Starr <wds...@crl.com>


Phil Fraering

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Dec 22, 1999, 3:00:00 AM12/22/99
to
Lawrence Watt-Evans <lawr...@clark.net> writes:

>>Is Rocketbooks tied to a particular hardware platform?

>Yes. And that's what impressed me -- the hardware.

>I have a few short stories on the Web, on sites that pay me per
>download, but I don't see that as the wave of the future. Most people
>aren't much interested in reading fiction on their PCs.

I keep hoping something like the Newton would come back. I think
there's a market for it, even though the company that built it
abandoned it and basically wouldn't license it to anyone either.

Ernie Sjogren

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Dec 24, 1999, 3:00:00 AM12/24/99
to
SFcrowsnest.com <sfcrowsne...@hotmail.com.invalid> wrote:

>Hi the Science Fiction Writing list.
>
>I'm looking for exciting and very well written science fiction
>and fantasy novels to publish for a new Publishing Imprint,
>Crowsnest Books.

I know what a crow is. What is a snest?

-- Ernie Sjogren

Martha H Adams

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Dec 27, 1999, 3:00:00 AM12/27/99
to
Perhaps a snest is where you wind up if you sell your work to the wrong
party. (It sounds Suessian to me.)

Maybe I missed it, but something very important seems missing from this
topic thread. It is,

http://www.sfwa.org/Beware/

which I can only describe as ten degrees more serious than required reading.
This site and its many links won't make you happy; but if you make yourself
very familiar with the rich content here, you may save yourself a lot of
major unpleasantness later.

Cheers -- Martha Adams

Paul Fraser

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Dec 27, 1999, 3:00:00 AM12/27/99
to
I'm surprised no-one has mentioned the issue of piracy here. Once your
book is out their in digital form you potentially lose control of it
forever. Look at what has happened to computer software and music.

I'm not a writer, but if I was, you wouldn't get a digital copy of one
of my books...

Paul Fraser

email: ma...@spectrumpublishing.com
web: www.spectrumpublishing.com

Kai Henningsen

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Dec 28, 1999, 3:00:00 AM12/28/99
to
nos...@nospam.com (Paul Fraser) wrote on 27.12.99 in <38639aab...@news.demon.co.uk>:

> I'm surprised no-one has mentioned the issue of piracy here. Once your
> book is out their in digital form you potentially lose control of it
> forever. Look at what has happened to computer software and music.

They still sell like mad?

Kai
--
http://www.westfalen.de/private/khms/
"... by God I *KNOW* what this network is for, and you can't have it."
- Russ Allbery (r...@stanford.edu)

Paul Fraser

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Jan 1, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/1/00
to
On 28 Dec 1999 23:59:00 +0200, kaih=7VhEx...@khms.westfalen.de (Kai
Henningsen) wrote:

>nos...@nospam.com (Paul Fraser) wrote on 27.12.99 in <38639aab...@news.demon.co.uk>:
>
>> I'm surprised no-one has mentioned the issue of piracy here. Once your
>> book is out their in digital form you potentially lose control of it
>> forever. Look at what has happened to computer software and music.
>
>They still sell like mad?

I disagree. I think that music sales are affected adversely by mp3
piracy. Computer software sales are also affected by copying.

Secondly, the software and music businesses don't have any option but
to distribute their goods this way; publishers do.

Michael Martinez

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Jan 2, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/2/00
to
In article <3869d752...@news.demon.co.uk>, nos...@nospam.com wrote:
>I disagree. I think that music sales are affected adversely by mp3
>piracy. Computer software sales are also affected by copying.

This has never been proven. The software industry and the music industry have
been dealing with piracy for years, but the impacts on the two industries have
been significantly different. Piracy of music tapes, CDs, and albums through
the years HAS cost the music industry tons of money -- because people buy
those products. Software piracy sometimes involves product sales (especially
where someone pirates key components for complex software and resells them as
part of larger packages without paying appropriate licensing fees) but most of
the PC-based piracy has simply consisted of people making illegal copies of
software.

The software industry is ENTITLED to billions of dollars that never exchanged
hands. They cannot show the sales would have occurred had the piracy been
preventable. Software has for the most part been way overpriced, though it
has mostly been coming down up until the last couple of years. Microsoft,
unfortunately, has helped to make PC software more expensive again, but maybe
that problem will be resolved in the next year or two.

The impact of mp3 piracy has yet to be demonstrated. If people are paying for
illegal mp3 files then the impact is substantive, but if they are simply
making illegal copies then no can rightly claim they have had sales stolen
from them. All they can rightly claim is that they are entitled to
compensation. There is a very big difference between having sales stolen from
you and merely being entitled to compensation for illegal copying of software
(which is essentially what mp3 files are).

>Secondly, the software and music businesses don't have any option but
>to distribute their goods this way; publishers do.

Actually, software could be distributed in multiple formats, and has been in
the past. And music is still distributed in multiple formats. I see no
weakening in the CD or cassette market. I still buy a fair number of them
(all legitimate copies, of course -- I've never liked the quality of the old
pirated stuff, and the cost of music is not outrageous like the cost of
software).


--
\\ // Science Fiction and Fantasy in...@xenite.org
\\// I need a new .sig. This space for rent.
//\\
// \\ENITE.org...............................................

Don D'Ammassa

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Jan 2, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/2/00
to

SFcrowsnest.com wrote:

> If you check out the E-Book news section of our site, you'll see
> that the first Rocket E-book author has just topped 6000 copies
> sold - which is good mid-list sell throughs.
>

Well, my first novel sold better than 4 times that and it was apparently a poor
midlist performer, so that doesn't seem to be a valid comment.


Don D'Ammassa

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Jan 2, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/2/00
to
I worried about that at one time, but then I looked at scanning software
and realized that once it's printed, it can be electronically reproduced
without much trouble anyway.

Paul Fraser wrote:

> I'm surprised no-one has mentioned the issue of piracy here. Once your
> book is out their in digital form you potentially lose control of it
> forever. Look at what has happened to computer software and music.
>

> I'm not a writer, but if I was, you wouldn't get a digital copy of one
> of my books...
>

Michael Martinez

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Jan 2, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/2/00
to
In article <386FA961...@ix.netcom.com>, Don D'Ammassa <damm...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
>Paul Fraser wrote:
>
>> I'm surprised no-one has mentioned the issue of piracy here. Once your
>> book is out their in digital form you potentially lose control of it
>> forever. Look at what has happened to computer software and music.
>>
>> I'm not a writer, but if I was, you wouldn't get a digital copy of one
>> of my books...
>
>I worried about that at one time, but then I looked at scanning software
>and realized that once it's printed, it can be electronically reproduced
>without much trouble anyway.

THE LORD OF THE RINGS has been available on the Internet for some time now,
but I believe it's still the best-selling fantasy novel of all time, and it
doesn't seem to be showing any decline in sales.

Maybe that's just a fluke.

Kai Henningsen

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Jan 2, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/2/00
to
nos...@nospam.com (Paul Fraser) wrote on 01.01.00 in <3869d752...@news.demon.co.uk>:

> On 28 Dec 1999 23:59:00 +0200, kaih=7VhEx...@khms.westfalen.de (Kai
> Henningsen) wrote:
>
> >nos...@nospam.com (Paul Fraser) wrote on 27.12.99 in
> ><38639aab...@news.demon.co.uk>:

> >> I'm surprised no-one has mentioned the issue of piracy here. Once your
> >> book is out their in digital form you potentially lose control of it
> >> forever. Look at what has happened to computer software and music.
> >

> >They still sell like mad?
>

> I disagree. I think that music sales are affected adversely by mp3
> piracy. Computer software sales are also affected by copying.

Computer software sales never existed in a world without copying. (And
typical M$ software has extremely inflated prices, too.)

As for suffering, well, how much they really suffer by individuals copying
stuff ... my impression (from what I can see around me) has always been
"very little". *Very* few people who copy would buy original if they could
not copy.

As for copying-for-profit, well, those exist even without easy copying
(look for example at people copying brand clothes, or brand watches, and
so on).

> Secondly, the software and music businesses don't have any option but
> to distribute their goods this way; publishers do.

So? How many people would skip buying a book just because they could copy
one? At current paperback prices? Not I, certainly.

It's different for fiction non-mass-market books, of course; but if a mass
market edition is not available (and not expected in the near future),
that is solely the publisher's fault, IMO.

Non-fiction non-mass market books already get copied all the time at
universities, for example - still, I've certainly bought my share.

But with these especially, an electronic, searchable, quotable edition
would itself be worth money to me.

Juha Kerätär

unread,
Jan 2, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/2/00
to
On Sun, 02 Jan 2000 18:29:07 GMT, Mic...@xenite.org (Michael
Martinez) wrote:

>THE LORD OF THE RINGS has been available on the Internet for some time now,
>but I believe it's still the best-selling fantasy novel of all time, and it
>doesn't seem to be showing any decline in sales.
>Maybe that's just a fluke.

One cannot really compare software and music piracy with distributing
literature in electronical form.

In former you have an original, and a copy, both almost exactly same
when it comes to contents on the CD or disk. Music is almost the same,
except of course that the format changes nowadays. But MP3 is much
more handy when using computer, and when it comes to quality of sound
it will almost as good as real CD.

Of course, when copying will miss a few things: manuals, covers and
such. And of course you'll have that feeling in the back of your head
that you're a stealing bastard, but when wAR3D00dZ have cared about
that?-)

With the literature the situation is IMHO a bit different.
The_Black_Company.txt cannot replace the Glen Cook's book on my shelf,
at least not yet. There are practical reasons: reading a printed paper
is much more comfortable to eyes than reading from monitor... And you
cannot read your computer screen too easily in bed, if you don't have
a laptop that is. :)

And there are of course sentimental reasons. .txt doesn´t smell the
same as a paperback. And it doesn´t look so good in your bookshelf.
Someday I plan to own a big bookshelf, smelling like literature
smells. :)

-Luna

The Cure : Prayers for Rain

Paul Fraser

unread,
Jan 3, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/3/00
to
On Sun, 02 Jan 2000 11:39:13 -0800, Don D'Ammassa
<damm...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:

>I worried about that at one time, but then I looked at scanning software
>and realized that once it's printed, it can be electronically reproduced
>without much trouble anyway.

I think you are missing the point somewhat. Earlier in the thread
people here were talking about rocketbooks and other e-readers. My
contention was simply that the files for supplied these would be
copied and sales would be lost due to casual and commercial piracy.

Also. there is a considerable difference in workload between scanning
a paper book and converting it to digital than copying a pdf, txt or
other electronic file. Plus the fact that in the former case you don't
get a perfect copy, in the second you do.

Paul Fraser

unread,
Jan 3, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/3/00
to
On Sun, 02 Jan 2000 05:49:15 GMT, in rec.arts.sf.written you wrote:

>>piracy. Computer software sales are also affected by copying.
>

>This has never been proven.

I don't have the time or inclination to trawl about for proof of my
original statement, but I do have anecdotal evidence. If you seriously
think that computer software piracy has never cost a company money you
are dreaming.

On Sun, 02 Jan 2000 05:49:15 GMT, in rec.arts.sf.written you wrote:

>>piracy. Computer software sales are also affected by copying.
>

>This has never been proven.

I don't have the time or inclination to trawl about for proof of my
original statement, but I do have anecdotal evidence. If you seriously
think that computer software piracy has never cost a company money you
are dreaming.

Paul Fraser

unread,
Jan 3, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/3/00
to
On 02 Jan 2000 18:04:00 +0200, kaih=7W7aR...@khms.westfalen.de (Kai
Henningsen) wrote:

>Computer software sales never existed in a world without copying. (And
>typical M$ software has extremely inflated prices, too.)

What about those packages that required a dongle?

>As for suffering, well, how much they really suffer by individuals copying
>stuff ... my impression (from what I can see around me) has always been
>"very little". *Very* few people who copy would buy original if they could
>not copy.

As I have said elsewhere I have anecdotal evidence that refutes this.

>So? How many people would skip buying a book just because they could copy
>one? At current paperback prices? Not I, certainly.

Just wait till there's a e or rocketbook market (which I still have to
be convinced about) and then watch the sales of the latest King or
Bujold plummet when the files are cracked 12 hours after release.

I doubt, watching the experience of the European satellite companies,
that publishers'll be able to develop an encryption system that'll
survive.

Paul Fraser

unread,
Jan 3, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/3/00
to
On Sun, 02 Jan 2000 18:29:07 GMT, Mic...@xenite.org (Michael
Martinez) wrote:

>THE LORD OF THE RINGS has been available on the Internet for some time now,
>but I believe it's still the best-selling fantasy novel of all time, and it
>doesn't seem to be showing any decline in sales.
>
>Maybe that's just a fluke.

This is a totally unprovable staement. How can you possibly know what
the sales would have been.

As I have posted elsewhere, this is about copying in the world of a e
or rockerbook reader. I doubt many people can be bothered dwonloading
and printing out books the size of LOTR, or reading them on-line.

J. B. Moreno

unread,
Jan 3, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/3/00
to
Paul Fraser <nos...@nospam.com> wrote:

Unless you happen to be one of the few people entitled to use
"nospam.com" (and since you seem to be posting from Demon I seriously
doubt if you are -- instead you are most likely ripping off someone
else's domain and in violation of Demon's AUP, which can get your
account closed) I'd suggest that you change that address to:
<nos...@nospam.invalid>

> (Kai Henningsen) wrote:

> >So? How many people would skip buying a book just because they could copy
> >one? At current paperback prices? Not I, certainly.
>
> Just wait till there's a e or rocketbook market (which I still have to
> be convinced about) and then watch the sales of the latest King or
> Bujold plummet when the files are cracked 12 hours after release.

Uhm, have you checked out the Baen website recently? Online books,
1000's of copies sold, no copy-protection, and the closest I've heard to
a problem is someone sending it to a mailing list and saying they
thought it was OK (and I'm not sure if that actually happened or was
referring to someone/something else).



> I doubt, watching the experience of the European satellite companies,
> that publishers'll be able to develop an encryption system that'll
> survive.

And why should they bother -- there is actually little incentive to
steal (by giving away) online books (particularly not if sample chapters
are available).

The "try it before buying it" factor is eliminated by the sample
chapters, the "prestige" factor doesn't exist unless it is difficult to
do (and with no encryption to beat it isn't).

Some few people that can't afford the cost might like to steal it, but
that requires that someone who actually did buy it to give it away.
Which I don't believe will work well as a distribution method (even if
someone gets it that way, they don't have any incentive to go around
giving it to other people).

--
John B. Moreno

J. B. Moreno

unread,
Jan 3, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/3/00
to
Paul Fraser <nos...@nospam.com> wrote:

> Mic...@xenite.org (Michael artinez) wrote:
>
> >THE LORD OF THE RINGS has been available on the Internet for some time now,
> >but I believe it's still the best-selling fantasy novel of all time, and it
> >doesn't seem to be showing any decline in sales.
> >
> >Maybe that's just a fluke.
>
> This is a totally unprovable staement. How can you possibly know what
> the sales would have been.

You can chart what it was doing before, and make a good guess (you're
right that you can't know absolutely what it would have been, but then
again, you can't know that it doesn't increase sales either).

--
John B. Moreno

Paul Fraser

unread,
Jan 3, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/3/00
to
On Mon, 3 Jan 2000 10:18:02 -0500, pl...@newsreaders.com (J. B.
Moreno) wrote:

>Uhm, have you checked out the Baen website recently?

Yes.

> Online books,
>1000's of copies sold, no copy-protection, and the closest I've heard to
>a problem is someone sending it to a mailing list and saying they
>thought it was OK (and I'm not sure if that actually happened or was
>referring to someone/something else).

I am _so_ glad to hear we live in a Utopia... However, as the Baen
web-site sales have just started I would suggest you wait to see what
the end-of-year sales figures for both electronic and book sales
combined are. I have little doubt that this company has estimated a
certain amount of loss of sales and hopes it has set its e prices at a
level to compensate.



> there is actually little incentive to
>steal (by giving away) online books (particularly not if sample chapters
>are available).

The "incentive" for theft of books is the same as the incentive of any
kind of theft: getting something for nothing.

>Some few people that can't afford the cost might like to steal it, but
>that requires that someone who actually did buy it to give it away.
>Which I don't believe will work well as a distribution method (even if
>someone gets it that way, they don't have any incentive to go around
>giving it to other people).

Well, some people think that those nasty publishing and entertainment
companies earn to much as it is, so they might do it as a David and
Goliath thing; others will do it because they can; alternatively, what
about a club of people chipping in a portion of the cost and then
copying the number of copies they need? And no-one's going to send a
copy to their friend "you really want to read this".

The great thing about this thread is that time will definitely tell...

Selki

unread,
Jan 3, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/3/00
to
Paul Fraser <nos...@nospam.com> wrote:
: I disagree. I think that music sales are affected adversely by mp3
: piracy. Computer software sales are also affected by copying.

Sales of music media, probably. However, Christine Lavin
(singer/songwriter) wrote an article a few months ago saying that most
performers make most of their money from touring (concerts), not CD
(etc.) sales, because of the way most record distributors structure the
deals with performers. Her theory is that CD sales are mostly good (for
performers like her, as opposed to the companies) to get fans enthused
enough to go to concerts, so the minor damage (to artists) of pirating is
outweighed by the goodness of it getting easier for artists to do their
own packaging, promotions, and distribution (via mp3 etc.).

--se...@clark.net
"Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that
can be counted counts." - Big Al

Elisabeth Carey

unread,
Jan 3, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/3/00
to
Paul Fraser wrote:
>
> On Mon, 3 Jan 2000 10:18:02 -0500, pl...@newsreaders.com (J. B.
> Moreno) wrote:
>
> >Uhm, have you checked out the Baen website recently?
>
> Yes.
>
> > Online books,
> >1000's of copies sold, no copy-protection, and the closest I've heard to
> >a problem is someone sending it to a mailing list and saying they
> >thought it was OK (and I'm not sure if that actually happened or was
> >referring to someone/something else).
>
> I am _so_ glad to hear we live in a Utopia... However, as the Baen
> web-site sales have just started I would suggest you wait to see what
> the end-of-year sales figures for both electronic and book sales
> combined are. I have little doubt that this company has estimated a
> certain amount of loss of sales and hopes it has set its e prices at a
> level to compensate.

The National Academy Press (publishing arm of the National Academies
of Sciences) started making most of their books available online in
fulltext for free several years ago, figuring that their main goal was
to make the information available, and that they could afford some
loss of sales in order to increase the information's availability.
Instead, what they found was that their sales of print editions
_increased_ when the books were available online. People would start
reading online, decide that they wanted to read the whole book but
that reading on the screen was too much of a strain, and order a print
copy.

Now, that's non-fiction and indeed fairly serious science publishing,
and the same thing won't _necessarily_ apply to fiction publishing,
but Baen's not crazy. There is a basis for believing that making the
books available online free or at a token cost may actually boost
sales of print copies. It is, at the least, a worthy experiment.

<snip>

Lis Carey

J. B. Moreno

unread,
Jan 3, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/3/00
to
Paul Fraser <nos...@nospam.invalid> wrote:

> pl...@newsreaders.com (J. B. Moreno) wrote:
>
> >Uhm, have you checked out the Baen website recently?
>
> Yes.
>
> >Online books, 1000's of copies sold, no copy-protection, and the closest
> >I've heard to a problem is someone sending it to a mailing list and
> >saying they thought it was OK (and I'm not sure if that actually happened
> >or was referring to someone/something else).
>
> I am _so_ glad to hear we live in a Utopia... However, as the Baen
> web-site sales have just started I would suggest you wait to see what
> the end-of-year sales figures for both electronic and book sales
> combined are. I have little doubt that this company has estimated a
> certain amount of loss of sales and hopes it has set its e prices at a
> level to compensate.

I have never suggested we live in a Utopia.

As for loss of sales -- they are in fact aware that they are both
loosing some sales and gaining others. Some people will buy as an ebook
and that will be that, others will go ahead and buy a paperback when one
comes out, and others will buy the HC as soon as it comes out.

Some theft may be accounted for, but personally I think it's unlikely
that many people that were willing to pay 20-30 for a HC, are going to
be stealing the 2.50 (or $10 depending upon how you look at it) e-text.



> >there is actually little incentive to steal (by giving away) online books
> >(particularly not if sample chapters are available).
>
> The "incentive" for theft of books is the same as the incentive of any
> kind of theft: getting something for nothing.

Ah, but it's not the ones that are "getting something for nothing" that
are of importance -- it's those that are first buying it and then
giving it to someone else.

In most cases outright theft is not possible because they don't have
access to the other persons machine.

And even after they have stolen it -- what incentive do they have to
help other people steal it?



> >Some few people that can't afford the cost might like to steal it, but
> >that requires that someone who actually did buy it to give it away.
> >Which I don't believe will work well as a distribution method (even if
> >someone gets it that way, they don't have any incentive to go around
> >giving it to other people).
>
> Well, some people think that those nasty publishing and entertainment
> companies earn to much as it is, so they might do it as a David and
> Goliath thing; others will do it because they can; alternatively, what
> about a club of people chipping in a portion of the cost and then
> copying the number of copies they need? And no-one's going to send a
> copy to their friend "you really want to read this".

David vs Goliath --- as a one time distribution it is there and then
gone (and relies upon other people being willing to steal it for any
damage to occur), if it's repeated then they can be sued.

As for a club -- so what, they can do it legally; buy it and only one
person at a time reads it. Given reasonably fast readers (the kind that
would use etext over paper), a club of 30 people could reasonably share
it, just as they could with the paper version.

(Although given the price, $10 for four books, if I was to do it, I'd
say $1 a person and buy multiple copies).

As for the "send a copy to a friend", again, if they act responsibly and
the friend deletes his copy afterword, then it's the exact same thing as
loaning out the paper.

> The great thing about this thread is that time will definitely tell...

Not necessarily -- only if it is drastic one way or another will there
be a definite answer and even then there will probably be people arguing
extenuating circumstances and coincidence.


--
John B. Moreno

Michael Martinez

unread,
Jan 3, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/3/00
to
In article <3870992...@news.demon.co.uk>, nos...@nospam.com wrote:
>On Sun, 02 Jan 2000 05:49:15 GMT, in rec.arts.sf.written you wrote:
>
>>In article <3869d752...@news.demon.co.uk>, nos...@nospam.com wrote:
>>>piracy. Computer software sales are also affected by copying.
>>
>>This has never been proven.
>
>I don't have the time or inclination to trawl about for proof of my
>original statement, but I do have anecdotal evidence. If you seriously
>think that computer software piracy has never cost a company money you
>are dreaming.

I have worked in the industry for many years. The claims by software
companies that they are losing money to illegal copying are largely bogus, as
I pointed out, for the reasons I pointed out. They are ENTITLED to user fees
from all the illegal copying, but the illegal copying mostly did not deprive
them of any sales.


--
\\ // Science Fiction and Fantasy in...@xenite.org

\\// LOTR Movie News: http://www.xenite.org/faqs/lotr_movie/
//\\ 1500+ Xena Links: http://www.xenite.org/xor/home.shtml
// \\ENITE.org...............................................

Michael Martinez

unread,
Jan 3, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/3/00
to
In article <3870994...@news.demon.co.uk>, nos...@nospam.com wrote:
>On 02 Jan 2000 18:04:00 +0200, kaih=7W7aR...@khms.westfalen.de (Kai
>Henningsen) wrote:
>
>>Computer software sales never existed in a world without copying. (And
>>typical M$ software has extremely inflated prices, too.)
>
>What about those packages that required a dongle?

Dongle technology was broken before it became popular (and that's only one
reason why you don't see them any more).

It's more cost effective for a software company to lower its prices and
generate more sales than it is to implement anti-copying technology that won't
generate more sales.

Michael Martinez

unread,
Jan 3, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/3/00
to
In article <38709a8...@news.demon.co.uk>, nos...@nospam.com wrote:
>On Sun, 02 Jan 2000 18:29:07 GMT, Mic...@xenite.org (Michael
>Martinez) wrote:
>
>>THE LORD OF THE RINGS has been available on the Internet for some time now,
>>but I believe it's still the best-selling fantasy novel of all time, and it
>>doesn't seem to be showing any decline in sales.
>>
>>Maybe that's just a fluke.
>
>This is a totally unprovable staement. How can you possibly know what
>the sales would have been.

For one thing, most book buyers in the United States aren't cruising Russian
Web sites for illegal copies of THE LORD OF THE RINGS.

Justin Bacon

unread,
Jan 4, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/4/00
to
In article <386FA85D...@ix.netcom.com>, Don D'Ammassa
<damm...@ix.netcom.com> writes:

>SFcrowsnest.com wrote:
>
>> If you check out the E-Book news section of our site, you'll see
>> that the first Rocket E-book author has just topped 6000 copies
>> sold - which is good mid-list sell throughs.
>>
>
>Well, my first novel sold better than 4 times that and it was apparently a

>poor midlist performer, so that doesn't seem to be a valid comment.

Huge difference between midlist paperbacks and midlist hardbacks.

Justin Bacon
tr...@prairie.lakes.com

Nancy Lebovitz

unread,
Jan 4, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/4/00
to
In article <1e3tt29.poaqb5126qp5yN%pl...@newsreaders.com>,
J. B. Moreno <pl...@newsreaders.com> wrote:

>Paul Fraser <nos...@nospam.com> wrote:
>> (Kai Henningsen) wrote:
>
>> >So? How many people would skip buying a book just because they could copy
>> >one? At current paperback prices? Not I, certainly.
>>
>> Just wait till there's a e or rocketbook market (which I still have to
>> be convinced about) and then watch the sales of the latest King or
>> Bujold plummet when the files are cracked 12 hours after release.
>
>Uhm, have you checked out the Baen website recently? Online books,

>1000's of copies sold, no copy-protection, and the closest I've heard to
>a problem is someone sending it to a mailing list and saying they
>thought it was OK (and I'm not sure if that actually happened or was
>referring to someone/something else).
>
Imho, the breakpoint isn't the existance of e-books--it's the development
of a way to read them that's as pleasant and portable as paper books.
--
Nancy Lebovitz na...@netaxs.com

October '99 calligraphic button catalogue available by email!

Louann Miller

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Jan 4, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/4/00
to
On 4 Jan 2000 14:00:22 GMT, na...@unix3.netaxs.com (Nancy Lebovitz)
wrote:

>J. B. Moreno <pl...@newsreaders.com> wrote:

>>Uhm, have you checked out the Baen website recently? Online books,
>>1000's of copies sold, no copy-protection, and the closest I've heard to
>>a problem is someone sending it to a mailing list and saying they
>>thought it was OK (and I'm not sure if that actually happened or was
>>referring to someone/something else).

>Imho, the breakpoint isn't the existance of e-books--it's the development
>of a way to read them that's as pleasant and portable as paper books.

I have to agree. I have a Baen webscription (selected months, not
everything that comes down the pike.) At times when I feel like
sitting upright at my computer desk with a lot of light coming at my
face, then it's a great way to read. It's probably less of an
eyestrain, when I feel that way, than reading paperback-sized type.

OTOH, if I feel like curling up in bed under the covers and reading in
a low-light environment, or reading in the same room with my husband
watching television, or reading in the bathtub, it's no use to me at
all.


Paul Fraser

unread,
Jan 4, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/4/00
to
On Mon, 03 Jan 2000 17:48:15 GMT, Elisabeth Carey
<lis....@mediaone.net> wrote:

>Now, that's non-fiction and indeed fairly serious science publishing,
>and the same thing won't _necessarily_ apply to fiction publishing,
>but Baen's not crazy. There is a basis for believing that making the
>books available online free or at a token cost may actually boost
>sales of print copies. It is, at the least, a worthy experiment.

Yes, I agree. But I don't think I'd have done it the way that Baen
Books has (and, no, I don't think he's crazy...)

Paul Fraser

unread,
Jan 4, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/4/00
to
On Mon, 3 Jan 2000 13:49:25 -0500, pl...@newsreaders.com (J. B.
Moreno) wrote:

>I have never suggested we live in a Utopia.

Unnecessary sarcasm. Sorry.

>Ah, but it's not the ones that are "getting something for nothing" that
>are of importance -- it's those that are first buying it and then
>giving it to someone else.
>
>In most cases outright theft is not possible because they don't have
>access to the other persons machine.

I never suggested it happens this way. Look at the alt.warez groups -
people freely post software they have obtained for no direct reward.

>As for the "send a copy to a friend", again, if they act responsibly and
>the friend deletes his copy afterword, then it's the exact same thing as
>loaning out the paper.

It's easier, and a lot cheaper, to send something to a contact over
the internet. A digital copy is more easily sent than a paper one.

>> The great thing about this thread is that time will definitely tell...
>
>Not necessarily -- only if it is drastic one way or another will there
>be a definite answer and even then there will probably be people arguing
>extenuating circumstances and coincidence.

Well, what the publishers do will determine the answer, regardless of
what any of us here think.

Paul Fraser

unread,
Jan 4, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/4/00
to
On Mon, 03 Jan 2000 20:19:25 GMT, Mic...@xenite.org (Michael
Martinez) wrote:

>>What about those packages that required a dongle?
>
>Dongle technology was broken before it became popular (and that's only one
>reason why you don't see them any more).

I know. But you said that computer software had always existed in a
world where it could be copied.

>It's more cost effective for a software company to lower its prices and
>generate more sales than it is to implement anti-copying technology that won't
>generate more sales.

That avoids the argument. What I originally said was that digtial
copies of books would be pirated. I'd suggest that the pragmatic
response that computer software companies have been forced into is
irrelevant.

Paul Fraser

unread,
Jan 4, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/4/00
to
On Mon, 03 Jan 2000 20:18:02 GMT, Mic...@xenite.org (Michael
Martinez) wrote:

>I have worked in the industry for many years. The claims by software
>companies that they are losing money to illegal copying are largely bogus, as
>I pointed out, for the reasons I pointed out.

Well, best we agree to disagree then.

Paul Fraser

unread,
Jan 4, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/4/00
to
On Mon, 03 Jan 2000 20:21:31 GMT, Mic...@xenite.org (Michael
Martinez) wrote:

>For one thing, most book buyers in the United States aren't cruising Russian
>Web sites for illegal copies of THE LORD OF THE RINGS.

Again, how can you possibly tell how many copies of LOTR have been
downloaded from these sites by Americans? (Those other English reading
people worldwide obviously don't count... :)

J. B. Moreno

unread,
Jan 4, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/4/00
to
Paul Fraser <nos...@nospam.invalid> wrote:

> pl...@newsreaders.com (J. B. Moreno) wrote:

> >Ah, but it's not the ones that are "getting something for nothing" that
> >are of importance -- it's those that are first buying it and then
> >giving it to someone else.
> >
> >In most cases outright theft is not possible because they don't have
> >access to the other persons machine.
>
> I never suggested it happens this way. Look at the alt.warez groups -
> people freely post software they have obtained for no direct reward.

Quite a few of them are looking for a quid-pro-quid arrangement, and
that's where both the "price" and the "availability" have their effect
-- quite a lot of people think that 200-700 dollars is just way to much
to pay for a program, and others feel that people ought to have a chance
to use a program before buying it, or just have it in case it's needed
(someone getting a document in the latest word format and not having
anything to accurately open it).

I don't believe books will be quite so popular an item to give away.

> >As for the "send a copy to a friend", again, if they act responsibly and
> >the friend deletes his copy afterword, then it's the exact same thing as
> >loaning out the paper.
>
> It's easier, and a lot cheaper, to send something to a contact over
> the internet. A digital copy is more easily sent than a paper one.

True, but it only makes a difference if the other person would have
bought the dead-tree version, AND is unwilling to pay for the electronic
version.

Again -- I'm not saying that it's all sunny-side-up, but I expect that
overall it'll be of benefit, that sales will go up of the dead-tree
sales because of it, and that the effect of theft will be fairly small,
and infrequent.

> >> The great thing about this thread is that time will definitely tell...
> >
> >Not necessarily -- only if it is drastic one way or another will there
> >be a definite answer and even then there will probably be people arguing
> >extenuating circumstances and coincidence.
>
> Well, what the publishers do will determine the answer, regardless of
> what any of us here think.

They'll make their decision as to what to do, but that's rather
different from finding out whether it's of benefit

--
John B. Moreno

Michael Martinez

unread,
Jan 5, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/5/00
to
In article <38726d82...@news.demon.co.uk>, nos...@nospam.invalid wrote:

>On Mon, 03 Jan 2000 20:19:25 GMT, Mic...@xenite.org (Michael
>Martinez) wrote:
>
>>>What about those packages that required a dongle?
>>
>>Dongle technology was broken before it became popular (and that's only one
>>reason why you don't see them any more).
>
>I know. But you said that computer software had always existed in a
>world where it could be copied.

That's correct. And even with the dongles, the software was copyable. In
fact, it was crackable, since you usually had secret codes embedded which
would let the software work while you sent the dongles off for repair (or
waiting until a repairman with enough sense to unplug everything and let the
static buildup discharge came by).

>>It's more cost effective for a software company to lower its prices and
>>generate more sales than it is to implement anti-copying technology that won't
>>generate more sales.
>

>That avoids the argument...

It addresses one of the tangential points which arose.

>...What I originally said was that digtial copies of books would be pirated.


>I'd suggest that the pragmatic response that computer software companies have
>been forced into is irrelevant.

Everything will be pirated. Illegal copies of things have been made as long
as there have been copyrights and patents to prevent unauthorized duplication.
That's a fact of life, not of the electronic age.

Michael Martinez

unread,
Jan 5, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/5/00
to
In article <38726db1...@news.demon.co.uk>, nos...@nospam.invalid wrote:

>On Mon, 03 Jan 2000 20:21:31 GMT, Mic...@xenite.org (Michael
>Martinez) wrote:
>
>>For one thing, most book buyers in the United States aren't cruising Russian
>>Web sites for illegal copies of THE LORD OF THE RINGS.
>
>Again, how can you possibly tell how many copies of LOTR have been
>downloaded from these sites by Americans? (Those other English reading
>people worldwide obviously don't count... :)

People cannot steal what they don't have acces to.

Paul Fraser

unread,
Jan 5, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/5/00
to
Slightly off topic, but does anyone know why Baen chose not to give
PDF file downloads off the site? I would have thought this was ideal
for the readers.

You can give them readers spreads which can easily be printed out in
Acrobat to give sequential pagination and stapled top left hand
corner. I use these a lot and find it quite convenient (you get
pagination and some copy-edit errors are more obvious in this format).

With a bit more work you can organise the PDF file to print out as a
booklet. The latter is a bit flimsy (usually too thick to staple) but
I've found reading this format close enough to a paperback that you
pretty soon stop noticing. However, you are probably looking at 75 to
100 sheets A4 paper (letter to you American folks) per book.

It's no that work intensive either. Once you have your template it's
just a matter of flowing the text into Pagemaker or Quark or whatever.

Pete McCutchen

unread,
Jan 5, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/5/00
to
On Mon, 03 Jan 2000 17:11:34 GMT, nos...@nospam.invalid (Paul Fraser)
wrote:

>I am _so_ glad to hear we live in a Utopia... However, as the Baen
>web-site sales have just started I would suggest you wait to see what
>the end-of-year sales figures for both electronic and book sales
>combined are. I have little doubt that this company has estimated a
>certain amount of loss of sales and hopes it has set its e prices at a
>level to compensate.

Go look at the original litigation regarding the first VCR machines.
The movie companies were absolutely convinced that the VCR would mean
the End of the World As We Know It, and that people would be taping
movies off of HBO and Cinemax and then selling them. Well, I suppose
that happens from time to time, but, even so, the VCR has created a
huge aftermarket.

Likewise, Baen may well end up losing a few sales due to the online
market. Maybe a couple of people will download the full text of
_Ashes of Victory_ and e-mail it to friends. Maybe you'll get a rogue
website or two. But it's quite possible that it will have the same
effect as taping of CDs or videotaping of movies from HBO: none to
speak of.

Oh, and the "lost sales" might very well come not from people who get
pirated copies, but those who decide to purchase the Webscription
version and then forego the hardcover. Though I honestly don't know
if that will cost Jim Baen money; for all I know he makes more selling
the web version than an actual hardcover.

>
>> there is actually little incentive to
>>steal (by giving away) online books (particularly not if sample chapters
>>are available).
>
>The "incentive" for theft of books is the same as the incentive of any
>kind of theft: getting something for nothing.

Sure. There's an incentive. But the question is whether it's going
to become a serious problem. My hunch is that it won't, if for no
other reason than that for it to become a serious problem, you have to
have people selling pirated copies, and people who sell pirated copies
can be detected and stopped.


--

Pete McCutchen

J. B. Moreno

unread,
Jan 5, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/5/00
to
Pete McCutchen <p.mcc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:

> Oh, and the "lost sales" might very well come not from people who get
> pirated copies, but those who decide to purchase the Webscription
> version and then forego the hardcover. Though I honestly don't know
> if that will cost Jim Baen money; for all I know he makes more selling
> the web version than an actual hardcover.

Yes, that's the only real problem I see -- and it in my opinion isn't
such a large problem at the moment (not as comfortable to read as a
book, so most people will want both electronic and dead tree versions).

As for Baen -- I rather doubt if he is making more per sale. It's 4
books, so that's only 2.50 per and he's got expenses (including
royalties) to pay out of that.

If the stores are paying more than 2 bucks a book, then he's not making
more per book.

--
John B. Moreno

Louann Miller

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Jan 5, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/5/00
to
On Wed, 5 Jan 2000 13:16:08 -0500, pl...@newsreaders.com (J. B.
Moreno) wrote:

>As for Baen -- I rather doubt if he is making more per sale. It's 4
>books, so that's only 2.50 per and he's got expenses (including
>royalties) to pay out of that.

But no printing or distribution costs. Or sales reps, or advertising.
The web site is a nice-looking one, but there are many fancier ones
out there put out by total amateurs. I doubt he's getting so many web
hits (over and above the capacity he'd need anywar for the regular
baen.com web site) that he'd have to pay for a big pipe.

Nancy Lebovitz

unread,
Jan 6, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/6/00
to
In article <38739d37...@news.smu.edu>,

Louann Miller <loua...@yahoo.net> wrote:
>On Wed, 5 Jan 2000 13:16:08 -0500, pl...@newsreaders.com (J. B.
>Moreno) wrote:
>
>>As for Baen -- I rather doubt if he is making more per sale. It's 4
>>books, so that's only 2.50 per and he's got expenses (including
>>royalties) to pay out of that.
>
>But no printing or distribution costs. Or sales reps, or advertising.

And no waiting to see whether the book gets returned. Aside from
getting the money sooner, it must be refreshing for books to stay
sold when they go out.

>The web site is a nice-looking one, but there are many fancier ones
>out there put out by total amateurs. I doubt he's getting so many web
>hits (over and above the capacity he'd need anywar for the regular
>baen.com web site) that he'd have to pay for a big pipe.
>

Kai Henningsen

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Jan 6, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/6/00
to
nos...@nospam.com (Paul Fraser) wrote on 03.01.00 in <3870994...@news.demon.co.uk>:

> On 02 Jan 2000 18:04:00 +0200, kaih=7W7aR...@khms.westfalen.de (Kai
> Henningsen) wrote:
>
> >Computer software sales never existed in a world without copying. (And
> >typical M$ software has extremely inflated prices, too.)
>

> What about those packages that required a dongle?

If you think those packages can't be copied, you are dreaming.

However, I do know for a fact that presence of dongles *does* adversely
affect sales figures.

> >As for suffering, well, how much they really suffer by individuals copying
> >stuff ... my impression (from what I can see around me) has always been
> >"very little". *Very* few people who copy would buy original if they could
> >not copy.
>
> As I have said elsewhere I have anecdotal evidence that refutes this.

How would anecdotal evidence refute this claim? Note the qualifications.

> >So? How many people would skip buying a book just because they could copy
> >one? At current paperback prices? Not I, certainly.
>
> Just wait till there's a e or rocketbook market (which I still have to
> be convinced about) and then watch the sales of the latest King or
> Bujold plummet when the files are cracked 12 hours after release.

I don't believe it.

> I doubt, watching the experience of the European satellite companies,
> that publishers'll be able to develop an encryption system that'll
> survive.

Oh, sure. Encryption is not the answer, just as dongles aren't. You'll
note that most software does *not* use dongles, even though the technology
is widely available. There's a reason.

Kai
--
http://www.westfalen.de/private/khms/
"... by God I *KNOW* what this network is for, and you can't have it."
- Russ Allbery (r...@stanford.edu)

Kai Henningsen

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Jan 6, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/6/00
to
nos...@nospam.invalid (Paul Fraser) wrote on 04.01.00 in <3871c601...@news.demon.co.uk>:

> On Mon, 3 Jan 2000 13:49:25 -0500, pl...@newsreaders.com (J. B.
> Moreno) wrote:
>
> >I have never suggested we live in a Utopia.
>
> Unnecessary sarcasm. Sorry.
>

> >Ah, but it's not the ones that are "getting something for nothing" that
> >are of importance -- it's those that are first buying it and then
> >giving it to someone else.
> >
> >In most cases outright theft is not possible because they don't have
> >access to the other persons machine.
>
> I never suggested it happens this way. Look at the alt.warez groups -
> people freely post software they have obtained for no direct reward.

Also note that the software companies in question (especially M$), for
some weird reason, are *not* going after the perpetrators. It's not as if
that would be particularly hard to do; most of them leave fairly obvious
traces.

But M$ and friends don't seem to think it worth their while to do
something about this. Why do you think that is?

Kai Henningsen

unread,
Jan 6, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/6/00
to
pl...@newsreaders.com (J. B. Moreno) wrote on 05.01.00 in <1e3xoj2.i8zeqt11aenqiN%pl...@newsreaders.com>:

> As for Baen -- I rather doubt if he is making more per sale. It's 4
> books, so that's only 2.50 per and he's got expenses (including
> royalties) to pay out of that.
>

> If the stores are paying more than 2 bucks a book, then he's not making
> more per book.

How much of that 2.50 go to the author? How much gows to other costs?

And how's the same for the 2 bucks? Other costs are bound to be
significantly higher.

The reason most software ships with electronic docs these days is that
electronic docs are *very* much cheaper to produce than dead tree ones.

Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes

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Jan 7, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/7/00
to
4 Jan 2000 14:00:22 GMT: in <84sudm$4...@netaxs.com>,
na...@unix3.netaxs.com (Nancy Lebovitz) spake:
>In article <1e3tt29.poaqb5126qp5yN%pl...@newsreaders.com>,

>J. B. Moreno <pl...@newsreaders.com> wrote:
>>Paul Fraser <nos...@nospam.com> wrote:
>>> (Kai Henningsen) wrote:
>>> >So? How many people would skip buying a book just because they could copy
>>> >one? At current paperback prices? Not I, certainly.
>>> Just wait till there's a e or rocketbook market (which I still have to
>>> be convinced about) and then watch the sales of the latest King or
>>> Bujold plummet when the files are cracked 12 hours after release.

Most people are actually willing to pay reasonable prices for their
books or other media, and sometimes unreasonable prices, as with the
case of music CDs. Most people are not thieves, and do understand that
buying the book = food on the author's (and publisher's, and printer's,
and editor's, and secretary's, and...) tables (not much food by that
point, but still...)

It's when you have UNreasonable prices, as software often does, that
you see piracy on a wide scale, and even then most people respect the
author's license terms and pay.

>>Uhm, have you checked out the Baen website recently? Online books,
>>1000's of copies sold, no copy-protection, and the closest I've heard to
>>a problem is someone sending it to a mailing list and saying they
>>thought it was OK (and I'm not sure if that actually happened or was
>>referring to someone/something else).
>Imho, the breakpoint isn't the existance of e-books--it's the development
>of a way to read them that's as pleasant and portable as paper books.

Rocketbooks are way cool. They're as portable as a paperback - and
more comfortable to hold for a long time than a spread-open pb. The
image is still too low-rez, but it's reasonably pleasant to read. While
not perfect yet, they're *very* spiffy. You can find them at your local
high-tech shop. <http://www.rocketbook.com/enter.html>

Palm Pilots have a user interface not as well-designed for reading
books (no page-flipping buttons on the case), but are equally small and
have comparable displays. Several people I know read on them all the
time (one carries the complete works of Edgar Allen Poe on hers, so she
can do full-text searches at whim).

-- <a href="http://kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu/~kamikaze/"> Mark Hughes </a>

Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes

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Jan 7, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/7/00
to
Wed, 05 Jan 2000 09:39:06 GMT: in <38726fa4...@news.demon.co.uk>,
nos...@nospam.invalid spake:

>Slightly off topic, but does anyone know why Baen chose not to give
>PDF file downloads off the site? I would have thought this was ideal
>for the readers.

PDF files are freaking huge, and require obscene amounts of CPU time
to render, and are laid out to be printed - they look like crap on any
but the very largest desktop screens. In contrast, plain text is the
most efficient format - there's no wasted bytes, it's all document.
HTML is only slightly less efficient when done right, marking up by
content rather than trying to simulate per-pixel positioning.

Digital books are best off being read in a palmtop device, and they
have neither much memory (2-32MB) nor much of a CPU. They also have
totally different display sizes and proportions from a CRT, so they NEED
to be able to re-render the document on the fly, from the content
markup.

Not to mention that PDF puts money into the pockets of exactly one
corporation - Adobe, who invented it to kill off their former cash cow,
Postscript (PDF is a crippled, binary-encoded version of PS), which
everyone had figured out how to implement, so nobody was paying Adobe to
implement it for them anymore. Now that some independant people have
implemented PDF, it's only a matter of time before Adobe kills that off
and comes up with some new (even more fucked-up) proprietary format.
Yes, they are that vicious and money-grubbing. Adobe makes most Evil
Empires of pulp SF and fantasy look like the neighborhood Welcome Wagon.

And then on the gripping hand, HTML and plain text are *FREE*. You
don't have to pay Tim Berners-Lee a licensing fee to make HTML
documents.

>With a bit more work you can organise the PDF file to print out as a
>booklet.

The point is not to let everyone be their own book printer, but to
replace book printers completely (for those who want it). However,
there are tools to do what you suggest with HTML. It looked okay, but
it was IMO a totally silly thing to do.

Paul Fraser

unread,
Jan 7, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/7/00
to
Re what I was saying earlier about piracy, Anyone interested might
wish to have a peek at: http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/SF-Archives/Ansible/.

The latest copy of Dave Langford's Ansible has a paragraph, PIRATES OF
THE WEB, about illegal copies of part 2 of the The SF Encyclopedia,
Chocky, Neuromancer, etc. on an Estonian web-site.

David Given

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Jan 7, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/7/00
to
In article <854ho5$858$1...@news.fsr.net>,
kami...@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu (Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes) writes:
[...]

> PDF files are freaking huge, and require obscene amounts of CPU time
> to render, and are laid out to be printed - they look like crap on any
> but the very largest desktop screens. In contrast, plain text is the
> most efficient format - there's no wasted bytes, it's all document.
> HTML is only slightly less efficient when done right, marking up by
> content rather than trying to simulate per-pixel positioning.
[...]

And for some reason people think that PDF files are good for the user.
Like hell. I have yet to see the computer with a screen big enough to
display a complete A4 page legibly; this means that you can see the top
half of a page, or the bottom half, or all of it but the text's too small
to read. This makes browsing a PDF (or Postscript) file dreadful.

This is what HTML is *designed* for.

--
+- David Given ---------------McQ-+ "Gaping from its single obling socket was
| Work: d...@tao-group.com | scintillating, many fauceted scarlet
| Play: dgi...@iname.com | emerald..." --- Jim Theis, _The Eye of
+- http://wired.st-and.ac.uk/~dg -+ Argon_

Elisabeth Carey

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Jan 8, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/8/00
to
David Given wrote:
>
> In article <854ho5$858$1...@news.fsr.net>,
> kami...@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu (Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes) writes:
> [...]
> > PDF files are freaking huge, and require obscene amounts of CPU time
> > to render, and are laid out to be printed - they look like crap on any
> > but the very largest desktop screens. In contrast, plain text is the
> > most efficient format - there's no wasted bytes, it's all document.
> > HTML is only slightly less efficient when done right, marking up by
> > content rather than trying to simulate per-pixel positioning.
> [...]
>
> And for some reason people think that PDF files are good for the user.
> Like hell. I have yet to see the computer with a screen big enough to
> display a complete A4 page legibly; this means that you can see the top
> half of a page, or the bottom half, or all of it but the text's too small
> to read. This makes browsing a PDF (or Postscript) file dreadful.
>
> This is what HTML is *designed* for.

HTML is designed for viewing onscreen; PDF is designed for printing
out. When you need to print a copy of a document, PDF is far superior
to HTML. But when the primary usage is going to be viewing on screen,
with any printing incidental and for strictly temporary use, HTML is
far superior to PDF.

Posting etext books in PDF will mostly be a silly thing until every
reader has one of those instant-print-and-bind machines as their
standard home printer. If people actually _want_ etext, then they'll
naturally prefer, and sensible publishers will provide, HTML or
something else well-designed for onscreen viewing.

Lis Carey

Paul Fraser

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Jan 8, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/8/00
to
On 7 Jan 2000 11:13:09 GMT, kami...@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu (Mark
'Kamikaze' Hughes) wrote:

> PDF files are freaking huge, and require obscene amounts of CPU time
>to render, and are laid out to be printed - they look like crap on any
>but the very largest desktop screens.

<snip>

> The point is not to let everyone be their own book printer, but to
>replace book printers completely (for those who want it).

I would suggest there are three target markets for digital books.

1. Those that want to view digital books on a portable device
(Rocketbook, Palm Pilot etc.).

2. Those that want to view them on a computer screen.

3. Those that want to print them out.

Different formats are best for different groups.

For those in group 3, like myself, I can assure you that html does not
do the job, but pdf does. Until someone else can work out a better way
to provide some sort of book facsimile this market is unlikely to take
off.

I would also add that this latter market will probably be the biggest
out of the three, especially when your local bookstore (or your
desktop) has a POD machine. Market 2 will never amount to much (and
the small numbers who want to refute that can tell me why Omni Online,
Event Horizon and Tomorrow SF went to the wall...) and I doubt number
1 will ever amount to more than a niche market.

Those that think that the Rocketbook Reader is the way of the future
are dreaming. Like I said, I can see a certain size of market share
for number 1, but probably on future generation palmtops that have
Rocketbook or similar functionality built in as an added feature. Not
as its only one. $199? 22 ounces (3-4 mobile phones in weight)? And
all you can do is read books with it? A toy for the idle rich or
faddish.

Oh, I forgot, you can make margin notes (v. handy - always doing that
myself) or do global searches (perhaps to see how many times the word
"bollocks" comes up).

I hope like the execs at B&N like omelette...

Tom Womack

unread,
Jan 8, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/8/00
to

"Paul Fraser" <nos...@nospam.invalid> wrote

> I would suggest there are three target markets for digital books.
>
> 1. Those that want to view digital books on a portable device
> (Rocketbook, Palm Pilot etc.).
>
> 2. Those that want to view them on a computer screen.
>
> 3. Those that want to print them out.
>
> Different formats are best for different groups.
>
> For those in group 3, like myself, I can assure you that html does not
> do the job, but pdf does. Until someone else can work out a better way
> to provide some sort of book facsimile this market is unlikely to take
> off.

I'm slightly surprised to be told of the existence of group 3, simply
because computer printout is generally substantially worse quality than book
printing, printing in duplex is tedious (you have to print one side, turn
over the paper, print again - and if anything goes wrong you have to reprint
quite large numbers of sheets), and 250 sheets of A4 plus toner or
inkjet-cartridge costs a good deal more than a paperback.

> Market 2 will never amount to much (and
> the small numbers who want to refute that can tell me why Omni Online,
> Event Horizon and Tomorrow SF went to the wall...) and I doubt number
> 1 will ever amount to more than a niche market.

The problem with Market Two is that subscription Web content is trying to
compete with the entire Web after putting an enormous obstacle in the way by
charging. Web-based non-fiction magazines have quite a nice niche - consider
Salon and Slate, and in a different region Anandtech, Sharky Extreme, Firing
Squad and the other computer-techie sites which have completely obsoleted
the computer-techie paper magazine.

> Those that think that the Rocketbook Reader is the way of the future
> are dreaming. Like I said, I can see a certain size of market share
> for number 1, but probably on future generation palmtops that have
> Rocketbook or similar functionality built in as an added feature.

As I keep pointing out, you don't really need a future generation - I've had
a palmtop since July 1997 which I use as an ebook. Read _Heretics_ (G K
Chesterton) on it in the car going back to Nottingham. Though a sharper
screen of the same size (7.5 inch by 2.5 inch) with a true-white background
might be nice. I'd agree that the Rocketbook is not sensible - you want
book-reading as an extra functionality on a machine that you carry with you
everywhere.

I don't like the way that the cellphone market has adopted a form-factor
which precludes putting a sensible screen on ... I'd not mind holding my
Psion, which is about 8" by 3" but half an inch thick, to my ear to answer
calls; I'd much more mind taking notes on a cellphone.

Tom

Michael Martinez

unread,
Jan 8, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/8/00
to
In article <3877b...@einstien.netscapeonline.co.uk>, "Tom Womack" <t...@womack.net> wrote:
>
>I'm slightly surprised to be told of the existence of group 3, simply
>because computer printout is generally substantially worse quality than book
>printing, printing in duplex is tedious (you have to print one side, turn
>over the paper, print again - and if anything goes wrong you have to reprint
>quite large numbers of sheets), and 250 sheets of A4 plus toner or
>inkjet-cartridge costs a good deal more than a paperback.

I redesigned one of my Web sites to make it easier for people to print out
because I got so much email asking me how to do it I just got fed up with
trying to explain to people I didn't WANT them to do it. A lot of teachers
and librarians were recommending the site to their students, and after a
lengthy exchange with one librarian I finally decided to just give in and post
permission on the site that anyone could print one copy for their own personal
use. I have no way of ensuring no one mass copies the thing, but if I ever
come across copies in circulation I'll worry about that then.

So, I took off all the weird backgrounds, changed the colors to black on
white, reformatted the essays to as close to page-length as I could, and put
the site back up.

People DO like to print stuff out. I had hundreds of requests for permission
and instructions on how to do it for PARMA ENDORION the first year after it
went up.

>> Market 2 will never amount to much (and
>> the small numbers who want to refute that can tell me why Omni Online,
>> Event Horizon and Tomorrow SF went to the wall...) and I doubt number
>> 1 will ever amount to more than a niche market.
>
>The problem with Market Two is that subscription Web content is trying to
>compete with the entire Web after putting an enormous obstacle in the way by
>charging. Web-based non-fiction magazines have quite a nice niche - consider
>Salon and Slate, and in a different region Anandtech, Sharky Extreme, Firing
>Squad and the other computer-techie sites which have completely obsoleted
>the computer-techie paper magazine.

There is more than one subscription model. Someone may indeed come up with a
subscription service that makes money.


Paul Fraser

unread,
Jan 10, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/10/00
to
On Sat, 08 Jan 2000 23:24:37 GMT, Mic...@xenite.org (Michael
Martinez) wrote:

>In article <3877b...@einstien.netscapeonline.co.uk>, "Tom Womack" <t...@womack.net> wrote:
>>
>>I'm slightly surprised to be told of the existence of group 3, simply
>>because computer printout is generally substantially worse quality than book
>>printing,

>I redesigned one of my Web sites to make it easier for people to print out

>because I got so much email asking me how to do it I just got fed up with
>trying to explain to people I didn't WANT them to do it.

I'm glad it's not just me.

It also backs up my argument about on-screen reading being a
non-starter. Although in the States, where there are no local call
charges, I'd expect more of this to happen.

Paul Fraser

unread,
Jan 10, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/10/00
to
On Sat, 8 Jan 2000 23:04:35 -0000, "Tom Womack" <t...@womack.net>
wrote:

>I'm slightly surprised to be told of the existence of group 3, simply
>because computer printout is generally substantially worse quality than book
>printing,

I'd have to disagree. I've only got an aging HPIIIP, but the output
from that is perfectly readable with 11pt Garamond and quite close to
book quality. given the size and layout of type I've seen in a couple
of books recently (look at the print size in the UK George Martin 2nd
novel in his trilogy or the margins in The UK Zelazny Lord of Light)
I'd say it's an easier read. On a 600 dpi printer it would be even
better. All that's needed now is a home binder.

> printing in duplex is tedious (you have to print one side, turn
>over the paper, print again - and if anything goes wrong you have to reprint
>quite large numbers of sheets),

Agreed, but there is a reverse printing option in Acrobat that
automates this to a large extent. Once a binder is available this
process will become much more automated.

> and 250 sheets of A4 plus toner or
>inkjet-cartridge costs a good deal more than a paperback.

No. I recently got 3 x 500 for 5.98 pounds at WH Smith. A 90,000
(250-300 page paperback) novel I had submitted used 75 A4 pages, cost
50 pence. The toner doesn't even cost that, nor the electricity and
capital cost of the printer.

>As I keep pointing out, you don't really need a future generation

Don't have any personal experience of this, I was going on a previous
poster who did not like the resolution of the Palmtop.

Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes

unread,
Jan 10, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/10/00
to
Sat, 08 Jan 2000 21:43:07 GMT: in <3877ab30...@news.demon.co.uk>,
nos...@nospam.invalid spake:

>On 7 Jan 2000 11:13:09 GMT, kami...@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu (Mark
>'Kamikaze' Hughes) wrote:
>> PDF files are freaking huge, and require obscene amounts of CPU time
>>to render, and are laid out to be printed - they look like crap on any
>>but the very largest desktop screens.
><snip>
>> The point is not to let everyone be their own book printer, but to
>>replace book printers completely (for those who want it).
>
>I would suggest there are three target markets for digital books.
>1. Those that want to view digital books on a portable device
>(Rocketbook, Palm Pilot etc.).

This market is small but extant now, and as the devices plummet in
price - especially now that the image quality is acceptable - it will
massively increase.

>2. Those that want to view them on a computer screen.

There are few rational people who would prefer this to #1, given a
good handheld device. The disadvantages are many: sitting upright, and
looking at an eye-straining glowing CRT rather than a flickerless
paperwhite LCD, the inability to take it with you, and the bootup time
of a general-purpose computer. That last is my personal main complaint
about ebooks on desktop/laptop computers - I can't just whip the
computer out when I'm waiting in a line and read my book.

The sole advantage I can come up with is that you don't have to
transfer your book files over to the handheld, which has a limited
amount of memory.

>3. Those that want to print them out.

The only reason anyone would want to do this, with the cost of toner
and the inconvenience of unbound sheets of 8.5"x11" paper, is that
handhelds are still expensive and they can't stand looking at a computer
screen all day.

>For those in group 3, like myself, I can assure you that html does not
>do the job, but pdf does.

Printed HTML looks fine to me, on the occasions when I need it. If I
want it in a book-like format, I print it 2-up. If I want it as just a
plain document, I print it in a single stream.

What do you want from a printed document that HTML doesn't do? I'm
quite serious - I'd like you to name a useful feature PDF has that you
can't do with HTML in 1% of the network bandwidth, disk space, and CPU
time.

> Until someone else can work out a better way
>to provide some sort of book facsimile this market is unlikely to take
>off.

Since market 3 is a legacy market, doomed to extinction, that's just
as well.

Your laser printer is greatly inferior to a paperback printing and
binding machine, and cost you a lot more than a Rocketbook or PDA.

>Those that think that the Rocketbook Reader is the way of the future
>are dreaming. Like I said, I can see a certain size of market share
>for number 1, but probably on future generation palmtops that have

>Rocketbook or similar functionality built in as an added feature. Not
>as its only one. $199? 22 ounces (3-4 mobile phones in weight)? And
>all you can do is read books with it? A toy for the idle rich or
>faddish.

Printed books display one document, and only one document. They have
no search mechanism at all, and your bookmarks can fall out. And yet
they seem pretty popular. Most of us here spend the current price of a
Rocketbook in a few months on what are essentially one-use books... and
electronic devices get smaller, lighter, faster, better, and cheaper
with every iteration.

So the current Rocketbook is pricy, for the early adopters. But it
won't be for long, now that one that's pleasantly usable is available.

Michael Martinez

unread,
Jan 10, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/10/00
to
In article <85ddfn$3gh$1...@news.fsr.net>, kami...@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu (Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes) wrote:
>
>>2. Those that want to view them on a computer screen.
>
> There are few rational people who would prefer this to #1, given a
>good handheld device. The disadvantages are many: sitting upright, and
>looking at an eye-straining glowing CRT rather than a flickerless
>paperwhite LCD, the inability to take it with you, and the bootup time
>of a general-purpose computer. That last is my personal main complaint
>about ebooks on desktop/laptop computers - I can't just whip the
>computer out when I'm waiting in a line and read my book.
>
> The sole advantage I can come up with is that you don't have to
>transfer your book files over to the handheld, which has a limited
>amount of memory.

PCs are more widespread than handheld readers.

>> Until someone else can work out a better way
>>to provide some sort of book facsimile this market is unlikely to take
>>off.
>
> Since market 3 is a legacy market, doomed to extinction, that's just
>as well.

I wouldn't be so quick to say that. There will probably always be people who
want or need to print something out.

> Your laser printer is greatly inferior to a paperback printing and
>binding machine, and cost you a lot more than a Rocketbook or PDA.

This is true, but people may use someone else's facilities to print out
electronic content.


James C. Ellis

unread,
Jan 10, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/10/00
to
Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes wrote:
>
> What do you want from a printed document that HTML doesn't do? I'm
> quite serious - I'd like you to name a useful feature PDF has that you
> can't do with HTML in 1% of the network bandwidth, disk space, and CPU
> time.

Look the same when printed from a variety of machines/configurations.

It has been my experience that predicting how tables, page breaks et
al look on the printed page with HTML is anybody's guess. I haven't had
that problem (though my experience is far more limited) with PDF.

Biff

--
-------------------------------------------------------------------
"Me? Lady, I'm your worst nightmare - a pumpkin with a gun.
[...] Euminides this! " - Mervyn, the Sandman #66
-------------------------------------------------------------------

Niall McAuley

unread,
Jan 10, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/10/00
to
Michael Martinez wrote in message <858gvl$1u0...@news.uswest.net>...

>I redesigned one of my Web sites to make it easier for people to print out
[snip]

>So, I took off all the weird backgrounds, changed the colors to black on
>white, reformatted the essays to as close to page-length as I could, and put
>the site back up.


... and accidentally made it more pleasant to read online in the process.
--
Niall [real address ends in se, not es]

Paul Fraser

unread,
Jan 11, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/11/00
to
On 10 Jan 2000 19:55:35 GMT, kami...@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu (Mark
'Kamikaze' Hughes) wrote:

> The only reason anyone would want to do this, with the cost of toner
>and the inconvenience of unbound sheets of 8.5"x11" paper, is that
>handhelds are still expensive and they can't stand looking at a computer
>screen all day.

Even if handhelds do drop in price a lot of people will continue to
prefer paper for aesthetic reasons. Also, paper does not suffer from
batteries going flat.
The cost argument I rebutted in another posting.

> What do you want from a printed document that HTML doesn't do?

Something that looks like a printed page. If you know of one on the
web I'd like to know of it (genuinely). I've yet to see typographer's
quotes in any html doc yet, for instance, or anything that looks like
normal book typography.

> I'm
>quite serious - I'd like you to name a useful feature PDF has that you
>can't do with HTML in 1% of the network bandwidth, disk space, and CPU
>time.

Big file size agreed (a 160 page B-format book just off to the printer
is 750 kB). CPU time? Give me a break -- it takes about 1second for
this file to load and display on a P233/64M Ram.

> Since market 3 is a legacy market, doomed to extinction, that's just
>as well.

> Your laser printer is greatly inferior to a paperback printing and
>binding machine, and cost you a lot more than a Rocketbook or PDA.

Desktop POD machines will arrive in the future for the same price as
desktop printers now.

> Printed books display one document, and only one document. They have
>no search mechanism at all, and your bookmarks can fall out. And yet
>they seem pretty popular. Most of us here spend the current price of a
>Rocketbook in a few months on what are essentially one-use books... and
>electronic devices get smaller, lighter, faster, better, and cheaper
>with every iteration.
>
> So the current Rocketbook is pricy, for the early adopters. But it
>won't be for long, now that one that's pleasantly usable is available.

I've already said I can see a niche palmtop market, but it won't be on
the Rocketbook. The minute a similar functionality is available on
another platform (Psion, Palmtop, take your pick) the Rocketbook is
going to be dead. If it doesn't spear in before then, that is.

Also, having had a look at the Rocketbook site, there is currently
have a major problem with software. If I was into Edgar Rice Burroughs
or Jules Verne, I'd be fairly wetting myself with excitement but
there's not much else is there?

Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes

unread,
Jan 12, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/12/00
to
Tue, 11 Jan 2000 23:57:38 GMT: in <387b5f4e...@news.demon.co.uk>,
nos...@nospam.invalid spake:

>On 10 Jan 2000 19:55:35 GMT, kami...@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu (Mark
>'Kamikaze' Hughes) wrote:
>> The only reason anyone would want to do this, with the cost of toner
>>and the inconvenience of unbound sheets of 8.5"x11" paper, is that
>>handhelds are still expensive and they can't stand looking at a computer
>>screen all day.
>Even if handhelds do drop in price a lot of people will continue to
>prefer paper for aesthetic reasons.

I don't believe it. There will be fanatics for a few years, but
they'll eventually die off, just as horse-and-buggy fanatics died off,
and the vinyl album fanatics are dying off (though not before being bled
for $10,000 blocks of wood to hook up to their system or spiritually
cleansed cables).

One palmtop can display any book or books, and a big HD is a lot
smaller and cheaper than a house full of bookshelves. That's the killer
application.

> Also, paper does not suffer from
>batteries going flat.

Battery life on anything modern is quite respectable. This is not a
serious obstacle, judging by the number of walkmans in the world.

>The cost argument I rebutted in another posting.

The cost is vastly cheaper in the long run for e-books, because nobody
has to sustain the printing costs, not the publisher OR you.

>> What do you want from a printed document that HTML doesn't do?
>Something that looks like a printed page. If you know of one on the
>web I'd like to know of it (genuinely). I've yet to see typographer's
>quotes in any html doc yet, for instance, or anything that looks like
>normal book typography.

They have text on a piece of paper. That's a printed page. They've
even got page numbers and titles on each page, so you know where you
are. Typographer's quotes are non-trivial, as they're not in ASCII and
most systems don't do UNICODE yet, so any use of them is OS- and
browser-specific. But if you don't mind cutting your readership down to
25% or so, you CAN go ahead and use a ton of typography tricks,
including quotes, in bog-standard HTML. Clever use of style sheets can
even allow you to have some typography for printing and still be pure
HTML for browsers and handhelds, though few web designers are that
clever.

However, are you claiming that you'd throw out a printed book that had
straight quotes and didn't have 15 font changes per page? Pardon me if
I find that incredibly shallow.

I read real paper books printed in what you must classify as "the dark
ages" (the '50s and '60s) all the time that have straight quotes and a
single font, sometimes even... monospaced (it's pica, back from the
dead to devour the living!).

>> I'm
>>quite serious - I'd like you to name a useful feature PDF has that you
>>can't do with HTML in 1% of the network bandwidth, disk space, and CPU
>>time.
>Big file size agreed (a 160 page B-format book just off to the printer
>is 750 kB). CPU time? Give me a break -- it takes about 1second for
>this file to load and display on a P233/64M Ram.

CPU time is VERY relevant on palmtop devices; most are 10-20x slower
than your machine. And they usually have tiny amounts of hybrid
memory/storage space - 4-16MB are common; 32MB is an unnaturally large
amount. PDF is completely unsuitable for them.

>> Since market 3 is a legacy market, doomed to extinction, that's just
>>as well.
>> Your laser printer is greatly inferior to a paperback printing and
>>binding machine, and cost you a lot more than a Rocketbook or PDA.
>Desktop POD machines will arrive in the future for the same price as
>desktop printers now.

Which is twice the *current* price of a Rocketbook or your favorite
PDA. And you can buy a Rocketbook and ebooks *today*. Not in some
mythical vaporware future.

>> Printed books display one document, and only one document. They have
>>no search mechanism at all, and your bookmarks can fall out. And yet
>>they seem pretty popular. Most of us here spend the current price of a
>>Rocketbook in a few months on what are essentially one-use books... and
>>electronic devices get smaller, lighter, faster, better, and cheaper
>>with every iteration.
>> So the current Rocketbook is pricy, for the early adopters. But it
>>won't be for long, now that one that's pleasantly usable is available.
>
>I've already said I can see a niche palmtop market, but it won't be on
>the Rocketbook. The minute a similar functionality is available on
>another platform (Psion, Palmtop, take your pick) the Rocketbook is
>going to be dead. If it doesn't spear in before then, that is.

Specialized hardware is a lot cheaper than a more general-purpose
machine. I expect Rocketbook, or something very much like it, to
survive quite handily... and at the very least match printed books in
sales volume in, er, some years ("it's very hard to make predictions,
especially about the future"). Sooner or later, print will die.

>Also, having had a look at the Rocketbook site, there is currently
>have a major problem with software. If I was into Edgar Rice Burroughs
>or Jules Verne, I'd be fairly wetting myself with excitement but
>there's not much else is there?

That's what this discussion *started* by discussing. It's been a
chicken-and-egg problem since the pathetic Sony Bookman long ago, and
it's finally starting to change.

Holly E. Ordway

unread,
Jan 12, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/12/00
to
kami...@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu (Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes) wrote:
>Tue, 11 Jan 2000 23:57:38 GMT: in <387b5f4e...@news.demon.co.uk>,
>nos...@nospam.invalid spake:
>>Even if handhelds do drop in price a lot of people will continue to
>>prefer paper for aesthetic reasons.
>
> I don't believe it. There will be fanatics for a few years, but
>they'll eventually die off, just as horse-and-buggy fanatics died off,
>and the vinyl album fanatics are dying off (though not before being bled
>for $10,000 blocks of wood to hook up to their system or spiritually
>cleansed cables).
>
> One palmtop can display any book or books, and a big HD is a lot
>smaller and cheaper than a house full of bookshelves. That's the killer
>application.

I don't think I'm a fanatic. I do like books though, physical books, and I
can't see electronic books replacing them. Supplementing them, possibly
(easier to bring on long trips?), but not replacing them.

I like my house full of bookshelves. I like being able to browse through
the books on the shelf when I'm thinking about what I want to read next.

I like being able to write a dedication on the title page of a book I'm
giving as a gift.

I like being able to lend a book to anybody, not just people who have the
same technology as I do.

If I spill a glass of water on the book I'm reading now, or it gets
crunched into oblivion in luggage-handling, I mess up one book, not
potentially my whole collection.

In fifty years I know I'll be able to pick up any one of my books and read
it without worrying about whether I bothered to update that book to the
model I currently have of my palm book-reader.

I like looking at printed text on paper, not off a screen.

>> Also, paper does not suffer from
>>batteries going flat.
>
> Battery life on anything modern is quite respectable. This is not a
>serious obstacle, judging by the number of walkmans in the world.

Still, it's a valid point. Paper books never need batteries. There's *no*
chance that I'll pick up a book and say "Darn, can't read it, batteries are
low!" And battery life is still an annoyance. I've used a laptop on various
occasions, and it's always been necessary to keep a sharp eye on the
battery. This would bug me in a book reader ("Do I have enough juice to get
through the end of Chapter 5?")

I'm no technophobe. A palmtop computer is on its way to our home even now;
it promises to be highly useful as a mobile address book, notebook, and
daily planner rolled into one. It combines several paper-and-pen functions
and makes them easier. OTOH, e-books seem to take one function, make parts
of it potentially easier, while adding a number of potential problems and
drawbacks. Other people clearly feel differently, and that's fine; they can
buy e-books. I just don't see it taking over the market.

Now, print-on-demand seems to be potentially *very* interesting. If the
product were of good quality (compact size, clearly printed text, durable
binding), and the price were reasonable, I'd be positively thrilled if it
meant I could get books that are now out of print.

That's my two cents :)

Cheers,
Holly

Michael Martinez

unread,
Jan 12, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/12/00
to
In article <8EB97177C54397...@24.3.9.180>, holly-...@home.com.xxx (Holly E. Ordway) wrote:
>
>I don't think I'm a fanatic. I do like books though, physical books, and I
>can't see electronic books replacing them. Supplementing them, possibly
>(easier to bring on long trips?), but not replacing them.
>
>I like my house full of bookshelves. I like being able to browse through
>the books on the shelf when I'm thinking about what I want to read next.

One day, people will have libraries of storage cartridges or disks for their
electronic books. Libraries will be much more compact and less expensive to
build.


Holly E. Ordway

unread,
Jan 12, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/12/00
to
Mic...@xenite.org (Michael Martinez) wrote:

>In article <8EB97177C54397...@24.3.9.180>, holly


>-or...@home.com.xxx (Holly E. Ordway) wrote:

>>I like my house full of bookshelves. I like being able to browse
>>through the books on the shelf when I'm thinking about what I want to
>>read next.
>
>One day, people will have libraries of storage cartridges or disks for
>their electronic books. Libraries will be much more compact and less
>expensive to build.

That still doesn't address:

--Browsing. It'd be a pain in the butt to plug in the cartridge and load
up the book on my bookreader just to scan the back cover blurb and open
it to a random page, which I do a lot. All those book spines look *nice*,
too.

--Lending. So if I lend out _Startide Rising_, I'm out all the Bs until I
get it back. And I'm screwed if I don't get it back.

--Changing technology. If my books are saved in Form X, I will have to:

a) hope that bookreaders still read Form X in fifty years,

b) remember to upgrade my books to Form Y if the new bookreaders switch
to that form, as well as buying a new bookreader (so much for being cheaper
and easier), or

c) hang on to my old bookreader(s) as forms change, so I can read my Form X
books on a Form X compatible reader and my Form Y books on a Form Y
compatible reader, and hope that the readers don't break down, since nobody
in fifty years will know how to fix them.

Now that I think about it, e-books may be great for people who don't keep
the books they read. I do, though, so there are a number of reasons why
they're not satisfactory to me.

Cheers,
Holly


Michael Martinez

unread,
Jan 12, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/12/00
to
In article <8EB97473354397...@24.3.9.180>, holly-...@home.com.xxx (Holly E. Ordway) wrote:
>Mic...@xenite.org (Michael Martinez) wrote:
>
>>In article <8EB97177C54397...@24.3.9.180>, holly
>>-or...@home.com.xxx (Holly E. Ordway) wrote:
>
>>>I like my house full of bookshelves. I like being able to browse
>>>through the books on the shelf when I'm thinking about what I want to
>>>read next.
>>
>>One day, people will have libraries of storage cartridges or disks for
>>their electronic books. Libraries will be much more compact and less
>>expensive to build.
>
>That still doesn't address:
>
>--Browsing. It'd be a pain in the butt to plug in the cartridge and load
>up the book on my bookreader just to scan the back cover blurb and open
>it to a random page, which I do a lot. All those book spines look *nice*,
>too.

Maybe for some people, but that IS the way we browse CDs in music stores now.
At least, I've been able to do it.

>
>--Lending. So if I lend out _Startide Rising_, I'm out all the Bs until I
>get it back. And I'm screwed if I don't get it back.

All out of the "Bs"? That one went past me. If I lend my copy of the book
to someone, I'll still be screwed if I don't get it back. Makes no difference
if it's on paper or disk.

>--Changing technology. If my books are saved in Form X, I will have to:
>
>a) hope that bookreaders still read Form X in fifty years,
>
>b) remember to upgrade my books to Form Y if the new bookreaders switch
>to that form, as well as buying a new bookreader (so much for being cheaper
>and easier), or
>
>c) hang on to my old bookreader(s) as forms change, so I can read my Form X
>books on a Form X compatible reader and my Form Y books on a Form Y
>compatible reader, and hope that the readers don't break down, since nobody
>in fifty years will know how to fix them.

And you'd be lucky to have a paperback last that long. Hardbacks MAY last
longer, but most of the publishers are still using acid-content paper.

The formats probably won't be a big problem. I'm not saying there will never
be a radical change. I'm just saying they probably won't be a big problem.

E-publishing promises to reduce the cost of purchasing books. If that promise
is fulfilled, replacing outdated technology will be less expensive than
replacing worn and crumbly books. And e-books are less likely to go
"out-of-print", so replacing them should be easier.

Collecting will probably be affected in two ways: paper book collecting may
become more expensive if it is ever phased out (and that prospect seems a long
time away), and e-publishing collecting may never start up. People will have
to find some way of making e-books unique in order for them to accumulate
value.

>Now that I think about it, e-books may be great for people who don't keep
>the books they read. I do, though, so there are a number of reasons why
>they're not satisfactory to me.

Frankly, I think I'd rather have a box of e-books than a wall of paper books.
The shelves must be dusted, the books are rotting, and the space could be used
for something else.

Maybe someone will come up with a flat e-book reader that has two screens, so
you can hold it in your hand like a book and see two pages. That might help
people get over some of the discomfort they'll feel in switching.

But probably the revolution will have to come through our school and library
systems. If kids are raised to read these things, they'll not feel so
nostalgic about the books. An e-book manufacturer should probably look into
forming alliances with educational e-book publishers and helping start some
pilot programs in the schools.

Holly E. Ordway

unread,
Jan 12, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/12/00
to
Mic...@xenite.org (Michael Martinez) wrote:

>>One day, people will have libraries of storage cartridges or disks for
>>>their electronic books. Libraries will be much more compact and less
>>>expensive to build.
>>

>>--Lending. So if I lend out _Startide Rising_, I'm out all the Bs until
>>I get it back. And I'm screwed if I don't get it back.
>
>All out of the "Bs"? That one went past me. If I lend my copy of the
>book to someone, I'll still be screwed if I don't get it back. Makes no
>difference if it's on paper or disk.

Since you said that libraries of storage cartridges would be much more
compact than paper-book libraries, I assumed that you meant that multiple
books would fit on a single storage cartridge. Thus, since I categorize
books alphabetically, Brin's books would end up on the same cartridge as
Benford, Bujold, Bramah, etc. If I want to lend _Startide Rising_, there
go all the Bs.

OTOH, if you were thinking of one book per cartridge, I don't see that an
e-book library is going to beat a paper library on compactness.

[Changing technology]


>The formats probably won't be a big problem. I'm not saying there will
>never be a radical change. I'm just saying they probably won't be a big
>problem.
>

So, there could be a radical change, but it won't be a big problem? Why?
I would have a big problem if I wanted to listen to something that had
been recorded on an 8-track tape or a vinyl record.

[Paperbacks will fall apart, and]


>E-publishing promises to reduce the cost of purchasing books. If that
>promise is fulfilled, replacing outdated technology will be less
>expensive than replacing worn and crumbly books.

Note: just because a lot of books were printed on crappy, short-lived
paper in the middle of the century in the United States, does not mean
that this is standard for books. Books, generally speaking, last. Books
that are made to last, last very well. Also, I can read a crumbly or
moldy book if I'm careful when I turn the pages. The data is still
accessible I can't get *anything* off a book whose format has gone
obsolete.

The *cost* of replacing books is not the point when I'm talking about
technology. I can buy a book today and be certain that it'll be readable
in fifty years without any extra effort on my part. If I buy an e-book, I
have to make sure that it gets upgraded at each step; otherwise in fifty
years I'll have the equivalent of an 8-track tape.

There was a thread here a while back that addressed this issue in detail.
It was about a collection of (IIRC) Jack Vance's fiction. One person
argued that a CDROM collection would be the best way for the collection
to stand the test of time. The arguments as to why this would be fraught
with problems were sound, and I think they apply quite well to this
situation as well.

>And e-books are less likely to go
>"out-of-print", so replacing them should be easier.

"Use it and throw it away, you can always get more" is not a philosophy
that I'm comfortable with.

>Maybe someone will come up with a flat e-book reader that has two
>screens, so you can hold it in your hand like a book and see two pages.
>That might help people get over some of the discomfort they'll feel in
>switching.
>
>But probably the revolution will have to come through our school and
>library systems. If kids are raised to read these things, they'll not
>feel so nostalgic about the books. An e-book manufacturer should
>probably look into forming alliances with educational e-book publishers
>and helping start some pilot programs in the schools.

This may be a profitable plan for e-book manufacturers, who of course
would want everyone to switch over to e-books. It has nothing whatsoever
to do with the desirability of e-books over paper books.

Frankly, I just don't see the point of a "revolution." Just because a new
technology is available doesn't mean it should necessarily replace
previous forms. Supplement, sure, but replace? Why?

Or is the e-book revolution like "the Internet changes everything"?

Cheers,
Holly

Reverend Sean O'Hara

unread,
Jan 12, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/12/00
to
Paul Fraser wrote:
>
> It also backs up my argument about on-screen reading being a
> non-starter. Although in the States, where there are no local call
> charges, I'd expect more of this to happen.
>
There are too local call charges in the US. They're something like
$.05 an hour -- so low they barely register on my bills.

--
Reverend Sean O'Hara
You two can be an ordained minister: http://www.ulc.org/ulc
"Arguing with anonymous strangers on the Internet is a sucker's
game because they always turn out to be - or to be indistinguishable
from - self-righteous sixteen-year-olds possessing infinite amounts
of free time." -Neal Stephenson, "Cryptonomicon"

Andrea Leistra

unread,
Jan 12, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/12/00
to
In article <85hbd5$d7c$1...@news.fsr.net>,

Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes <kami...@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu> wrote:
>Tue, 11 Jan 2000 23:57:38 GMT: in <387b5f4e...@news.demon.co.uk>,
>nos...@nospam.invalid spake:

>>Even if handhelds do drop in price a lot of people will continue to


>>prefer paper for aesthetic reasons.

> I don't believe it. There will be fanatics for a few years, but
>they'll eventually die off, just as horse-and-buggy fanatics died off,
>and the vinyl album fanatics are dying off (though not before being bled
>for $10,000 blocks of wood to hook up to their system or spiritually
>cleansed cables).

Perhaps you'll call me a fanatic, then, and define fanatic as one who
prefers paper books for aesthetic reasons. I don't think that's a
terribly useful definition, though. There are certainly uses for
electronic text, primarily for reference purposes because of
searchability. I don't carry around my astronomy textbooks, and it would
certainly be nice to be able to search them easily for something, so
having them in an electronic form would be a good thing for me. I want
different things from what I read for pleasure, though, and having _that_
in electronic form would be a bad thing.

> One palmtop can display any book or books, and a big HD is a lot
>smaller and cheaper than a house full of bookshelves. That's the killer
>application.

But I _like_ having an apartment full of bookshelves, and bookshelves
full of books; I like books as objects, as well as for their content.
I'd have to be dragged kicking and screaming into an age of exclusively
electronic books, and would consider the loss of new paper books to be
a sad thing.

>>The cost argument I rebutted in another posting.
>
> The cost is vastly cheaper in the long run for e-books, because nobody
>has to sustain the printing costs, not the publisher OR you.

But there's the cost of the reader, and that's the killer. Not only does
this give you an overhead cost, and mean that people would be less likely
to carry books around everywhere (the risk of losing it would simply be
too high), it means that if the reader was lost or damaged, you couldn't
read ANY of your books until it was replaced.

--
Andrea Leistra


Anncrispin

unread,
Jan 12, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/12/00
to
For those who are interested in reading a very informative, and, IMHO, very
even-handed view of electronic publishing as it pertains to writers, please
check out the SFWA Writer Beware site.

Victoria Strauss has done a wonderful job on this award-winning site, and she
has many useful articles about the pros and cons of publishing on the internet,
including interviews and commentary on internet publishers who charge writers
fees to publish.

http://www.sfwa.org

Go down to the bottom of the page and click on Writer Beware.

Mr. Martinez, if you find errors in that section, please let me know about
them, and we'll consider revising.

SFWA does want to be fair to e-publishers.

Best,

-Ann C. Crispin

Michael Martinez

unread,
Jan 12, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/12/00
to
In article <8EB98B55054397...@24.3.9.180>, holly-...@home.com.xxx (Holly E. Ordway) wrote:
>Mic...@xenite.org (Michael Martinez) wrote:
>
>>>One day, people will have libraries of storage cartridges or disks for
>>>>their electronic books. Libraries will be much more compact and less
>>>>expensive to build.
>>>
>>>--Lending. So if I lend out _Startide Rising_, I'm out all the Bs until
>>>I get it back. And I'm screwed if I don't get it back.
>>
>>All out of the "Bs"? That one went past me. If I lend my copy of the
>>book to someone, I'll still be screwed if I don't get it back. Makes no
>>difference if it's on paper or disk.
>
>Since you said that libraries of storage cartridges would be much more
>compact than paper-book libraries, I assumed that you meant that multiple
>books would fit on a single storage cartridge. Thus, since I categorize
>books alphabetically, Brin's books would end up on the same cartridge as
>Benford, Bujold, Bramah, etc. If I want to lend _Startide Rising_, there
>go all the Bs.

That's what I was afraid you might mean. I certainly won't predict no one
would do that. But I would hope we could buy "singles", too.

>OTOH, if you were thinking of one book per cartridge, I don't see that an
>e-book library is going to beat a paper library on compactness.

You can already fit the contents of the typical paperback book on a 1.2
megabyte floppy disk. That pretty much beats the paper industry in
compactness for TEXT. Graphics would, I think, require a much larger
capacity, but there have been floppy disks with 20 megabyte capacities for
years, and CDs have a far greater capacity.

>[Changing technology]
>>The formats probably won't be a big problem. I'm not saying there will
>>never be a radical change. I'm just saying they probably won't be a big
>>problem.
>>
>
>So, there could be a radical change, but it won't be a big problem? Why?
>I would have a big problem if I wanted to listen to something that had
>been recorded on an 8-track tape or a vinyl record.

Because we've gone through numerous radical changes in e-data storage and
retrieval already. There was a time when data for home systems was stored on
cassette tapes, and then we went to Apple II floppy disks, and CPM floppy
disks (radically different formats), and so on and so forth.

But electronic data was not a consumable item in those days. Businesses have
had to go through conversions from one format to another. The costs were
horrendously expensive at first but they came down. Presumably, once a format
becomes predominant, it will either be maintained well past the introduction
of a new format intended to replace it, or there will be significant demand to
lower conversion costs.

And don't forget that 8-track cartridges were once all the rage for music
lovers (I never liked them because you couldn't rewind them, but for several
years stores carried thousands of them).

VHS won out over Beta (a bad choice, according to most observers, but that was
the way the market went), and now even laserdiscs are being put on the
endangered consumables list, if they aren't being phased out already.

Electronic consumer goods DO change formats. People keep consuming them. DVD
is the next big thing. Something will come along eventually that makes DVD
look old and stale.

>[Paperbacks will fall apart, and]
>>E-publishing promises to reduce the cost of purchasing books. If that
>>promise is fulfilled, replacing outdated technology will be less
>>expensive than replacing worn and crumbly books.
>
>Note: just because a lot of books were printed on crappy, short-lived
>paper in the middle of the century in the United States, does not mean
>that this is standard for books. Books, generally speaking, last. Books
>that are made to last, last very well. Also, I can read a crumbly or
>moldy book if I'm careful when I turn the pages. The data is still
>accessible I can't get *anything* off a book whose format has gone
>obsolete.

You should see my first copy of THE PEOPLES OF MIDDLE-EARTH, Volume XII of THE
HISTORY OF MIDDLE-EARTH series. I bought it brand new in late 1996. Houghton
Mifflin hardback. The spine broke within the first month and I fortunately
got a copy from HarperCollins in the UK that is still holding up pretty well,
but neither book is of the same quality as much older volumes in the series
that I purchased in the 1980s and which are holding up better.

Paper books will probably never go away, but they aren't going to last
forever. They are consumables. How many people have bought more than one
paperback copy of their favorite novels because the paperbacks get worn out?

But if an electronic data storage format goes obsolete, that only means
manufacturers aren't making new machines and media for that format. The old
machines and media should still last for years.

>The *cost* of replacing books is not the point when I'm talking about
>technology. I can buy a book today and be certain that it'll be readable
>in fifty years without any extra effort on my part. If I buy an e-book, I
>have to make sure that it gets upgraded at each step; otherwise in fifty
>years I'll have the equivalent of an 8-track tape.

It's by no means certain that a book will still be readable in fifty years. A
book which is well cared for should easily last that long, but one which is
used and used often probably won't. You shouldn't have to upgrade an e-book
as long as you have a reader capable of handling the format, and backwards
compatibility can be built into them just as it's been built into many word
processor programs. I can still save documents to Word 2.0 format if I need
to.

>There was a thread here a while back that addressed this issue in detail.
>It was about a collection of (IIRC) Jack Vance's fiction. One person
>argued that a CDROM collection would be the best way for the collection
>to stand the test of time. The arguments as to why this would be fraught
>with problems were sound, and I think they apply quite well to this
>situation as well.

Haven't seen it, can't comment on it. I don't see any problem with CD-rom
technology, however. It's not likely to become obsolete in the near future,
and that's saying much about it, given how fast computer technology changes.

>>And e-books are less likely to go
>>"out-of-print", so replacing them should be easier.
>
>"Use it and throw it away, you can always get more" is not a philosophy
>that I'm comfortable with.

I didn't say anything about "use it and throw it away". I just pointed out
they will be more easily replaced.

>>Maybe someone will come up with a flat e-book reader that has two
>>screens, so you can hold it in your hand like a book and see two pages.
>>That might help people get over some of the discomfort they'll feel in
>>switching.
>>
>>But probably the revolution will have to come through our school and
>>library systems. If kids are raised to read these things, they'll not
>>feel so nostalgic about the books. An e-book manufacturer should
>>probably look into forming alliances with educational e-book publishers
>>and helping start some pilot programs in the schools.
>
>This may be a profitable plan for e-book manufacturers, who of course
>would want everyone to switch over to e-books. It has nothing whatsoever
>to do with the desirability of e-books over paper books.

Actually, it does have quite a bit to do with desirability. You like paper
books because you were raised with them. People raised with e-books will feel
just as strongly about them as you do about paper books.

>Frankly, I just don't see the point of a "revolution." Just because a new
>technology is available doesn't mean it should necessarily replace
>previous forms. Supplement, sure, but replace? Why?

Why did everyone have to go with Microsoft Windows? It was the worst possible
platform available and was years behind UNIX and MacOS in graphical
capabilities. The answer is that the manufacturer (Microsoft) dictated the
revolution to the rest of us by signing agreements with hundreds of PC
manufacturers which denied us, the end-users, any choice of operating system.

Good or bad, that's how it happened. And that's pretty much how it could
happen for e-books. School systems need to reduce costs, and e-books probably
will help them do that, provided the industry gets on the stick. Just because
something COULD benefit the educational system doesn't mean it will be used
that way.

>Or is the e-book revolution like "the Internet changes everything"?

Nope. The internet changes everything for people who want to get paid for
their writing. E-books only change the number of choices we have as readers
-- it increases them.

But the power of marketing should not be underscored. Cigarettes are bad for
us, but most people ended up addicted to them in the long-run anyway because
of the marketing machines. E-books stand on the threshold and they may fall
away, but I suspect they won't. SOMETHING will come out and be the next big
wave of electronic consumable. It may be time for e-books.


Michael Martinez

unread,
Jan 12, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/12/00
to
In article <20000112140952...@ng-fl1.aol.com>, anncr...@aol.com (Anncrispin) wrote:
>
>Mr. Martinez, if you find errors in that section, please let me know about
>them, and we'll consider revising.
>
>SFWA does want to be fair to e-publishers.

I'll take a look, but one is more likely to find outdated information than
errors on any Internet research site.


Tom Womack

unread,
Jan 12, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/12/00
to
"Holly E. Ordway" <holly-...@home.com.xxx> wrote

> OTOH, if you were thinking of one book per cartridge, I don't see that an
> e-book library is going to beat a paper library on compactness.

CD cases are a good deal smaller than books, CompactFlash cases are the size
of a credit card and three millimetres thick, and it's likely there'll be
one CD of 'Uplift Trilogy' or 'short stories of Arthur C Clarke' or 'The
Wheel Of Time', rather than three or six or however many books.

> So, there could be a radical change, but it won't be a big problem? Why?
> I would have a big problem if I wanted to listen to something that had
> been recorded on an 8-track tape or a vinyl record.

But you don't have a big problem reading a file which you originally created
on an Acorn Archimedes with 3.5" discs, because when you upgrade the
computer you pull all the content from the old hard disc onto the new one.

Tom

Tom Womack

unread,
Jan 12, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/12/00
to
"Michael Martinez" <Mic...@xenite.org> wrote

> One day, people will have libraries of storage cartridges or disks for
> their electronic books. Libraries will be much more compact and
> less expensive to build.

I'm not quite sure this makes sense - I've seen 20MB pieces of software
distributed on a whole compact disk in a large box, and would not be
startled if the next-but-twenty Iain Banks book came on some sort of storage
medium wrapped up in a box looking like the current ones. OK, the copy
you're reading will live on the disc drive in your palmtop, or maybe on the
drive on your home server in the basement linked by wireless to your iBook,
but you'll have a physical object which Is The Book.

Unless the world has changed and the physical object is a credit-card-sized
bit of plastic with the decryption key for your personalised copy of the
book from the publisher's server.

That's basically a marketting issue - people would rather buy CDs in a jewel
case in a box than CDs in a jewel case, and CDs without a jewel case are
reserved for the lower-budget magazine cover discs and AOL handouts.

Tom

Tom Womack

unread,
Jan 12, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/12/00
to
"Holly E. Ordway" <holly-...@home.com.xxx> wrote
> Mic...@xenite.org (Michael Martinez) wrote:

> >One day, people will have libraries of storage cartridges or disks for
> >their electronic books. Libraries will be much more compact and less
> >expensive to build.
>

> That still doesn't address:
>
> --Browsing. It'd be a pain in the butt to plug in the cartridge and load
> up the book on my bookreader just to scan the back cover blurb and open
> it to a random page, which I do a lot. All those book spines look *nice*,
> too.

I doubt that the books would be physically separate - you'd buy the book
from Barnes & Noble in some physical form, install the file from the
(low-capacity, slow, cheap) medium the book's distributed on to the
(high-capacity, fast, needn't-be-cheap) mass storage you use for books, and
leave the book box on the shelf. Open the book reader and all your books are
there for you; tap the fish on the menu screen thrice and get a random page
of a random book with a bias towards ones you said you liked and haven't
read for a while.

> --Lending. So if I lend out _Startide Rising_, I'm out all the Bs until I
> get it back. And I'm screwed if I don't get it back.

You lend out the medium you got the book on, not the disc you keep your
whole collection on ... it works like a physical book.

> --Changing technology. If my books are saved in Form X, I will have to:
>
> a) hope that bookreaders still read Form X in fifty years,
> b) remember to upgrade my books to Form Y if the new bookreaders switch
> to that form, as well as buying a new bookreader (so much for being
> cheaper and easier), or
> c) hang on to my old bookreader(s) as forms change, so I can read my Form
> X books on a Form X compatible reader and my Form Y books on
> a Form Y compatible reader, and hope that the readers don't break
> down, since nobody in fifty years will know how to fix them.

I don't think that's so much of a problem if you think of it as a library;
software around at the moment will automatically import data from earlier
versions. Maybe the box you got _Uplift War_ in will have broken, but you've
still got _Uplift War_ - and Orbit still have _Uplift War_ on their server
and can make you a copy in the format-of-the-day.

Tom

James C. Ellis

unread,
Jan 12, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/12/00
to
Tom Womack wrote:
>
> But you don't have a big problem reading a file which you originally
> created on an Acorn Archimedes with 3.5" discs, because when you
> upgrade the computer you pull all the content from the old hard disc
> onto the new one.

That's the theory anyway. At work I still have a ghodawful stack of 5
1/4" disks that "may have valuable info on them" to 'reclaim' in my
Copious Free Time.

Unfortunately, I no longer have access to a machine with a 5 1/4"
drive...

Michael Martinez

unread,
Jan 13, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/13/00
to
In article <387cf...@einstien.netscapeonline.co.uk>, "Tom Womack" <t...@womack.net> wrote:
>"Michael Martinez" <Mic...@xenite.org> wrote

>
>> One day, people will have libraries of storage cartridges or disks for
>> their electronic books. Libraries will be much more compact and
>> less expensive to build.
>
>I'm not quite sure this makes sense - I've seen 20MB pieces of software
>distributed on a whole compact disk in a large box, and would not be
>startled if the next-but-twenty Iain Banks book came on some sort of storage
>medium wrapped up in a box looking like the current ones. OK, the copy
>you're reading will live on the disc drive in your palmtop, or maybe on the
>drive on your home server in the basement linked by wireless to your iBook,
>but you'll have a physical object which Is The Book.
>
>Unless the world has changed and the physical object is a credit-card-sized
>bit of plastic with the decryption key for your personalised copy of the
>book from the publisher's server.
>
>That's basically a marketting issue - people would rather buy CDs in a jewel
>case in a box than CDs in a jewel case, and CDs without a jewel case are
>reserved for the lower-budget magazine cover discs and AOL handouts.

I'm not sure of what your point is. You're responding to my prediction that
people will build personal libraries consisting of some sort of small media
for e-books, and you're describing small media for e-books.


Elisabeth Carey

unread,
Jan 13, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/13/00
to
Michael Martinez wrote:
>
> In article <8EB97473354397...@24.3.9.180>, holly-...@home.com.xxx (Holly E. Ordway) wrote:

<snip>

> >c) hang on to my old bookreader(s) as forms change, so I can read my Form X
> >books on a Form X compatible reader and my Form Y books on a Form Y
> >compatible reader, and hope that the readers don't break down, since nobody
> >in fifty years will know how to fix them.
>

> And you'd be lucky to have a paperback last that long. Hardbacks MAY last
> longer, but most of the publishers are still using acid-content paper.

No, for hardcovers, most publishers are using acid-free paper.
Mass-market paperbacks are still on high-acid paper, but not most
hardcovers.



> The formats probably won't be a big problem. I'm not saying there will never

> be a radical change. I'm just saying they probably won't be a big problem.


>
> E-publishing promises to reduce the cost of purchasing books. If that promise
> is fulfilled, replacing outdated technology will be less expensive than

> replacing worn and crumbly books. And e-books are less likely to go


> "out-of-print", so replacing them should be easier.

It's not the cost and the difficulty of replacing them that's the
issue; it's that people will _need_ to pay attention to updating books
to the new format every few years. Any book that falls out of
popularity for a decade or two will be _gone_, permanently, if it was
only ever published as an ebook. That's fine, for trully transient
material. With fiction, though, you don't know what's "truly
transient" until a good number of years have already passed.



> Collecting will probably be affected in two ways: paper book collecting may
> become more expensive if it is ever phased out (and that prospect seems a long
> time away), and e-publishing collecting may never start up. People will have
> to find some way of making e-books unique in order for them to accumulate
> value.
>
> >Now that I think about it, e-books may be great for people who don't keep
> >the books they read. I do, though, so there are a number of reasons why
> >they're not satisfactory to me.
>
> Frankly, I think I'd rather have a box of e-books than a wall of paper books.
> The shelves must be dusted, the books are rotting, and the space could be used
> for something else.

That's a perfectly valid preference, but other people have other
preferences, which are equally valid. Also, these days, only the mass
market paperbacks are decaying. With only moderate care (keep them
dry, keep the spines straight), the hardcovers will last many, decades



> Maybe someone will come up with a flat e-book reader that has two screens, so
> you can hold it in your hand like a book and see two pages. That might help
> people get over some of the discomfort they'll feel in switching.

Um. Strange though it seems to people who prefer ebooks, the
objections of those who don't are not all squishy emotionalism. There
are practical reasons for prefering paper books for a variety of
purposes.

> But probably the revolution will have to come through our school and library
> systems. If kids are raised to read these things, they'll not feel so
> nostalgic about the books. An e-book manufacturer should probably look into
> forming alliances with educational e-book publishers and helping start some
> pilot programs in the schools.

It's not nostalgia, Michael. OTOH, yes, textbooks and reference books
are an obvious and excellent application for ebooks. Also, any book
you _don't_ intend to keep after reading it is a good candidate for
ebook format.

Lis Carey

Elisabeth Carey

unread,
Jan 13, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/13/00
to
Michael Martinez wrote:
>
> In article <8EB98B55054397...@24.3.9.180>, holly-...@home.com.xxx (Holly E. Ordway) wrote:

<snip>

> >[Changing technology]
> >>The formats probably won't be a big problem. I'm not saying there will
> >>never be a radical change. I'm just saying they probably won't be a big
> >>problem.
> >>
> >
> >So, there could be a radical change, but it won't be a big problem? Why?
> >I would have a big problem if I wanted to listen to something that had
> >been recorded on an 8-track tape or a vinyl record.
>
> Because we've gone through numerous radical changes in e-data storage and
> retrieval already. There was a time when data for home systems was stored on
> cassette tapes, and then we went to Apple II floppy disks, and CPM floppy
> disks (radically different formats), and so on and so forth.

And we have _lost data_ every single time we've been through a format
conversion. Some significant part of that data was valuable, and now
it's gone.



> But electronic data was not a consumable item in those days. Businesses have
> had to go through conversions from one format to another. The costs were
> horrendously expensive at first but they came down.

Format conversion is always expensive. Just converting from
WordPerfect to Word is expensive, if you need to keep your WP
documents. We just did this last year, at work.

> Presumably, once a format
> becomes predominant, it will either be maintained well past the introduction
> of a new format intended to replace it, or there will be significant demand to
> lower conversion costs.

Even if the costs get very low, not everything will get converted to
the new format, because some things _at the time of the conversion_,
will be considered unimportant. And once something misses one format
conversion, it's chances of ever getting a second chance go way down.
Any books published _only_ in electronic format are at risk.



> And don't forget that 8-track cartridges were once all the rage for music
> lovers (I never liked them because you couldn't rewind them, but for several
> years stores carried thousands of them).
>
> VHS won out over Beta (a bad choice, according to most observers, but that was
> the way the market went), and now even laserdiscs are being put on the
> endangered consumables list, if they aren't being phased out already.
>
> Electronic consumer goods DO change formats. People keep consuming them. DVD
> is the next big thing. Something will come along eventually that makes DVD
> look old and stale.

Yes, it will. That's the point. Anything which is popular or
considered to be of enduring value _at the time of the conversion_
gets converted. In every conversion, though, some things don't make
the cut of being considered important enough _at that time_ to spend
the resources on for conversion. And so things are lost, that might
have had a resurgence in popularity if they hadn't become
technologically obsolete.

There are major, major gains to delivering musical and acting
performances in electronic format, including making them available to
many more people than could ever experience them in non-electronic
form. With books intended for reference, that's also true--you gain
significantly in functionality by having them in electronic format.
When the purpose of a book, though, is simply that someone is going to
sit down and read it, for enjoyment, what you're delivering is text,
and in electronic format, you're still delivering text, and the gains
weigh much less heavily against the disadvantages and risks.

<snip>

Lis Carey

Evelyn C. Leeper

unread,
Jan 13, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/13/00
to
In article <387D3ED1...@mediaone.net>,

Elisabeth Carey <lis....@mediaone.net> wrote:
> Michael Martinez wrote:
> > In article <8EB97473354397...@24.3.9.180>, holly-...@home.com.xxx (Holly E. Ordway) wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
> > >c) hang on to my old bookreader(s) as forms change, so I can read my Form X
> > >books on a Form X compatible reader and my Form Y books on a Form Y
> > >compatible reader, and hope that the readers don't break down, since nobody
> > >in fifty years will know how to fix them.
> >
> > And you'd be lucky to have a paperback last that long. Hardbacks MAY last
> > longer, but most of the publishers are still using acid-content paper.

We have paperbacks dating back more than fifty years. Except for the
Lancer books whose bindings consistently gave out, they're all readable,
and even those were readable, just not in one piece any more.

The older pulp magazines are probably readable, but I'm not sure.

Hardbacks up to over a hundred years old (and since then) are fine.
--
Evelyn C. Leeper, http://www.geocities.com/evelynleeper
Don't ever save anything for a special occasion. Every day you're
alive is a special occasion. --Ann Wells

Elisabeth Carey

unread,
Jan 13, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/13/00
to
Evelyn C. Leeper wrote:
>
> In article <387D3ED1...@mediaone.net>,
> Elisabeth Carey <lis....@mediaone.net> wrote:
> > Michael Martinez wrote:
> > > In article <8EB97473354397...@24.3.9.180>, holly-...@home.com.xxx (Holly E. Ordway) wrote:
> >
> > <snip>
> >
> > > >c) hang on to my old bookreader(s) as forms change, so I can read my Form X
> > > >books on a Form X compatible reader and my Form Y books on a Form Y
> > > >compatible reader, and hope that the readers don't break down, since nobody
> > > >in fifty years will know how to fix them.
> > >
> > > And you'd be lucky to have a paperback last that long. Hardbacks MAY last
> > > longer, but most of the publishers are still using acid-content paper.
>
> We have paperbacks dating back more than fifty years. Except for the
> Lancer books whose bindings consistently gave out, they're all readable,
> and even those were readable, just not in one piece any more.
>
> The older pulp magazines are probably readable, but I'm not sure.
>
> Hardbacks up to over a hundred years old (and since then) are fine.

Please note, Evelyn, that you are replying to Michael Martinez, not to
me. You have snipped out all my words, and left in only words from
Holly Ordway and Michael Martinez, and the attribution to me.

I agree with the substance of what you say, but, even though it feels
like letting down the side, I'm going to point out that printing
hardcover books for the popular market on high-acid paper persisted
well into the twentieth century, and even during height of use of
cheap paper, "good" books were printed on acid-free paper. So the
class of hardcover books likely to decay slowly into dust on your
shelves can't be quite that easily delineated by time; you also have
to know what the publisher was thinking when they published it.

Lis Carey

Michael Martinez

unread,
Jan 13, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/13/00
to
Well, my news server has decided it just lost 1000+ articles for this group,
so I'll have to followup through Elisabeth.

In article <387D5C90...@mediaone.net>, Elisabeth Carey

<lis....@mediaone.net> wrote:
>Evelyn C. Leeper wrote:
>>
>> In article <387D3ED1...@mediaone.net>,
>> Elisabeth Carey <lis....@mediaone.net> wrote:
>> > Michael Martinez wrote:
>> >>
>> >> And you'd be lucky to have a paperback last that long. Hardbacks MAY
>> >> last longer, but most of the publishers are still using acid-content
>> >> paper.
>>
>> We have paperbacks dating back more than fifty years. Except for the
>> Lancer books whose bindings consistently gave out, they're all readable,
>> and even those were readable, just not in one piece any more.
>>
>> The older pulp magazines are probably readable, but I'm not sure.
>>
>> Hardbacks up to over a hundred years old (and since then) are fine.

Well, I have old books going back more than fifty years, too. The secret to
their preservation has not been acid neutralization, however, but keeping them
out of the sunlight and only reading them occasionally. I have a Penguin
paperback I acquired many years ago that is literally falling apart, and I now
keep it bagged in plastic, though I don't know why, as I may never read it
again for fear of ruining it even further. There is, so far as I know, no
resale value in the book (a little history book, BRITAIN UNDER THE ROMANS by
S.E. Wingate) and will probably never be printed again. I sometimes wonder
why I keep it.

And I have other old and crumbling books, passed on from older family members,
which I find it difficult to peruse because each time they are opened they are
damaged a little more.

But books were made to be read, not preserved as if they were holy artifacts.
If one cannot read a book, one cannot enjoy it, unless one takes pleasure only
in the accumulation of things. An e-book, at least, should never go out of
print while the publisher lasts. And which is more important, the medium
storing the knowledge (or story) or the knowledge (or story) itself?


Kristopher/EOS

unread,
Jan 13, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/13/00
to
Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes wrote:
>
>> Even if handhelds do drop in price a lot of people will
>> continue to prefer paper for aesthetic reasons.
>
> I don't believe it. There will be fanatics for a few years,
> but they'll eventually die off, just as horse-and-buggy
> fanatics died off, and the vinyl album fanatics are dying off
> (though not before being bled for $10,000 blocks of wood to
> hook up to their system or spiritually cleansed cables).
>
> One palmtop can display any book or books, and a big HD is a
> lot smaller and cheaper than a house full of bookshelves.
> That's the killer application.

Tape, and then CD, basically did that same thing that vinyl did,
only far better. E-books won't ever be *real* books. That's
the difference -- E-books don't do what *real* books do.



>>> What do you want from a printed document that HTML doesn't do?
>>
>> Something that looks like a printed page. If you know of one
>> on the web I'd like to know of it (genuinely). I've yet to
>> see typographer's quotes in any html doc yet, for instance,
>> or anything that looks like normal book typography.
>
> They have text on a piece of paper. That's a printed page.
> They've even got page numbers and titles on each page, so you
> know where you are. Typographer's quotes are non-trivial, as
> they're not in ASCII and most systems don't do UNICODE yet,
> so any use of them is OS- and browser-specific. But if you
> don't mind cutting your readership down to 25% or so, you CAN
> go ahead and use a ton of typography tricks, including quotes,
> in bog-standard HTML. Clever use of style sheets can even
> allow you to have some typography for printing and still be
> pure HTML for browsers and handhelds, though few web designers
> are that clever.
>
> However, are you claiming that you'd throw out a printed book
> that had straight quotes and didn't have 15 font changes per
> page? Pardon me if I find that incredibly shallow.

It doesn't matter HOW good it gets, it won't FEEL like an
actual, real book. Not to mention that long documents get
impossible to read in HTML/PDF/online. I almost always
have to download them and convert to Word, where they are
at least marginally readable. Often, though, I have to do
some serious reformatting first.



> I read real paper books printed in what you must classify as
> "the dark ages" (the '50s and '60s) all the time that have
> straight quotes and a single font, sometimes even...
> monospaced (it's pica, back from the dead to devour the living!).
>
>>> I'm quite serious - I'd like you to name a useful feature PDF
>>> has that you can't do with HTML in 1% of the network bandwidth,
>>> disk space, and CPU time.
>>
>> Big file size agreed (a 160 page B-format book just off to the
>> printer is 750 kB). CPU time? Give me a break -- it takes about
>> 1second for this file to load and display on a P233/64M Ram.
>
> CPU time is VERY relevant on palmtop devices; most are 10-20x
> slower than your machine. And they usually have tiny amounts
> of hybrid memory/storage space - 4-16MB are common; 32MB is an
> unnaturally large amount. PDF is completely unsuitable for them.

Who cares, PDF stinks even more than HTML for serious reading.



>> Desktop POD machines will arrive in the future for the same
>> price as desktop printers now.
>
> Which is twice the *current* price of a Rocketbook or your
> favorite PDA. And you can buy a Rocketbook and ebooks *today*.
> Not in some mythical vaporware future.

I *hate* PDA's. **LOATH** them.



>>> Printed books display one document, and only one document.
>>> They have no search mechanism at all, and your bookmarks
>>> can fall out. And yet they seem pretty popular. Most of
>>> us here spend the current price of a Rocketbook in a few
>>> months on what are essentially one-use books... and
>>> electronic devices get smaller, lighter, faster, better,
>>> and cheaper with every iteration.

But they will never be *books*. They will never sit on a
shelf and say something about you as a person. They will
never smell, feel, or sound like *books*. They will never
conjure up the feelings, the memories that a real, actual,
paper book will when read in bed at 3 AM.

But what do I know, I get my news from radio and I don't
own an MP3 player, Luddite that I am. Whatever.

>>> So the current Rocketbook is pricy, for the early adopters.
>>> But it won't be for long, now that one that's pleasantly
>>> usable is available.
>>
>> I've already said I can see a niche palmtop market, but it
>> won't be on the Rocketbook. The minute a similar functionality
>> is available on another platform (Psion, Palmtop, take your
>> pick) the Rocketbook is going to be dead. If it doesn't spear
>> in before then, that is.
>
> Specialized hardware is a lot cheaper than a more general-purpose
> machine.

That's not always the case, as demonstared by the widespread use
of 486 chips in what used to be specialty-chip applications. The
higher cost of the GP chip is more than offset by the shear
number of chips and the ease with which they handle the functions
in question.

> I expect Rocketbook, or something very much like it, to survive
> quite handily... and at the very least match printed books in
> sales volume in, er, some years ("it's very hard to make
> predictions, especially about the future"). Sooner or later,
> print will die.

Yeah, sure...sorry, but to a great many of us, it's not *real*
until it's on paper. Note that the computer has actually
*increased* the amount of paper going around the average office
or home. So much for the "paperless office."



>> Also, having had a look at the Rocketbook site, there is
>> currently have a major problem with software. If I was
>> into Edgar Rice Burroughs or Jules Verne, I'd be fairly
>> wetting myself with excitement but there's not much else
>> is there?
>
> That's what this discussion *started* by discussing. It's
> been a chicken-and-egg problem since the pathetic Sony Bookman
> long ago, and it's finally starting to change.

How so? The Rocketbook is at least as pathetic. IMHO.

Kristopher/EOS

Kristopher/EOS

unread,
Jan 13, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/13/00
to
Michael Martinez wrote:
>
> In article <8EB97177C54397...@24.3.9.180>, > holly-...@home.com.xxx (Holly E. Ordway) wrote:
>>
>> I don't think I'm a fanatic. I do like books though,
>> physical books, and I can't see electronic books
>> replacing them. Supplementing them, possibly (easier
>> to bring on long trips?), but not replacing them.
>>
>> I like my house full of bookshelves. I like being able
>> to browse through the books on the shelf when I'm
>> thinking about what I want to read next.

Same here.

> One day, people will have libraries of storage cartridges
> or disks for their electronic books. Libraries will be
> much more compact and less expensive to build.

Thank you, Mr Future. Now stuff a sock in it.

**plonk**

Kristopher/EOS

Justin Bacon

unread,
Jan 13, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/13/00
to
In article <85iavh$17s...@news.uswest.net>, Mic...@xenite.org (Michael
Martinez) writes:

>>--Changing technology. If my books are saved in Form X, I will have to:
>>
>>a) hope that bookreaders still read Form X in fifty years,
>>
>>b) remember to upgrade my books to Form Y if the new bookreaders switch
>>to that form, as well as buying a new bookreader (so much for being cheaper
>>and easier), or
>>

>>c) hang on to my old bookreader(s) as forms change, so I can read my Form X
>>books on a Form X compatible reader and my Form Y books on a Form Y
>>compatible reader, and hope that the readers don't break down, since nobody
>>in fifty years will know how to fix them.
>

>And you'd be lucky to have a paperback last that long. Hardbacks MAY last
>longer, but most of the publishers are still using acid-content paper.

I own paperbacks going back to at least 1950. So what you're saying is that the
software format for bookreaders won't be changing until 2050.

Smoking crack again, huh, Mikey?

Justin Bacon
tr...@prairie.lakes.com

Christopher L. Taylor

unread,
Jan 13, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/13/00
to
Elisabeth Carey wrote:
>
[snip]

>
> It's not the cost and the difficulty of replacing them that's the
> issue; it's that people will _need_ to pay attention to updating books
> to the new format every few years. Any book that falls out of
> popularity for a decade or two will be _gone_, permanently, if it was
> only ever published as an ebook. That's fine, for trully transient
> material. With fiction, though, you don't know what's "truly
> transient" until a good number of years have already passed.

[snip]

Personally I'm not going to jump on the ebook bandwagon until
I can buy a reader for less than 50 bucks and the ebooks cost
less than paper books. But I don't think the changing format
will necessarily be as big a problem as you suggest. I would
guess that there will always be places like libraries which
keep the capability to read older formats. This problem has
already occured, for example, in scientific applications where
data are archived for many years, and have to be transfered to
the new popular medium. Of course the task of transfering
every book published to a new medium every 20 - 30 years is a
whole lot bigger than copying an observatory's data archive
(the example I have witnessed), but should ebooks ever become
a significant format for publishing, I suspect at the very
least the Library of Congress will maintain machines for
reading its collection for as long as possible.

-- Chris Taylor

Michael Martinez

unread,
Jan 13, 2000, 3:00:00 AM1/13/00
to
In article <85ccsh$duv$1...@newstoo.ericsson.se>, "Niall McAuley" <Niall....@eei.ericsson.es> wrote:
>Michael Martinez wrote in message <858gvl$1u0...@news.uswest.net>...
>>I redesigned one of my Web sites to make it easier for people to print out
>[snip]
>>So, I took off all the weird backgrounds, changed the colors to black on
>>white, reformatted the essays to as close to page-length as I could, and put
>>the site back up.
>
>
>.... and accidentally made it more pleasant to read online in the process.

Oh, how clever, a Web design flame. Gee, I was just sitting here wondering
how long it would take someone to start a new flame war.


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