TITLE OF PAPER: Ebooks: Neither E, Nor Books URL OF PRESENTATION: _URL_of_powerpoint_presentation_ PRESENTED BY: _names_of_the_participants_ REPRESENTING: _name_of_the_company_they_represent_ CONFERENCE: _name_of_your_conference_here_ DATE: _date_of_your_conference_here_ LOCATION: _venue_and_room_in_venue_ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- REAL-TIME NOTES / ANNOTATIONS OF THE PAPER: {If you've contributed, add your name, e-mail & URL at the bottom} Lessons and intuitions about e-books based on the release of two books online and under the creative commons. Alternative title: Ebooks: You're Soaking in them 1) Ebooks aren't marketing giving away ebooks DOES sell more paper books giving away previous installments makes the new books sell more the number of people who read the ebook and then bought the paper version But not JUST marketing fewer people read paper more are reading screens When those two meet then we have to figure out what to do 2) Ebooks complement paper books Easier to do term papers if they can cut and paste Concordances using search / replace 3) Unless you own the ebook, you don't own the book Viewing the book as a practice rather than as an object That you can do something WITH the text which you couldn't do before Cory writes in plain-text This can be converted into massive different amounts of versions Brewster Kahle can turn an e-book into a paper book in ten minutes for a dollar owning a paper book is going to seem like only owning a PART of the book itself 4) Ebooks are a better deal for writers The normal amounts paid for a short-story is miniscule. It's not an insult, it's quaint' Given that most people don't get published or make a lot of money out of it, it almost makes more sense that the other stuff that you get from publsihing - prestige, kudos, infamy, satisfaction etc. etc - comes to the fore in ebooks Even the trolls work for him - directing people to download the book and read it to see just how bad it is... 5) Ebooks need to embrace their nature The distinctive nature of ebooks is ORTHOGONAL to that of paper books It's about copying, transmitting and the like It's NOT about the same criteria of paper books - it'll never look as NICE, but you can't search paper books, nor can you send them away to friends in brazil for nothing. 6) Ebooks demand a different attention spam (but not a shorter one) Our attention spans are diferent, but they're not necessarily shorter Warren Ellis' stories demand people's attention for FIVE YEARS JK Rowling's novels are longer 7) We need all the ebooks The vast majority of paper works have been lost or aren't easily available in shops or libraries We need to save all the ebooks because we're ALL EDGE CASES A large collection also DIFFERS from a small one. The Web - none of us can hope to read all the pages, but by analysing the connections between them - Google can squeeze out the great stuff for us. 8) Ebooks are like paper books Marketers say that people need to come into contact wth something seven times before they're reading to buy it. Downloading a text isn't the same as buying. In some ways it might just be one of those initial 300,000 people downloaded it, but "only" 10,000 were bought. Is that good or bad? if 300,000 would be bought, and that went down to 10,000 - then that would be terrible but if 1 in 30 people who downloaded something went and bought something they woudln't otherwise - then that's great... Earning a living First and hardest task is to get a book under the right person's nose with the right pitch. Books HAVE CHANGED Hand-written, composed and illuminated books have changed into post-gutenberg printing making books almost disposable HISTORY: People were stating that both: 1) ebooks were a failure 2) ebook piracy was a great problem There's an enormous collision here, right? Brief digression: Ebooks "Legitimate e-book ventures in proprietary format" or "Pirate versions - scanned and OCR'ed into print" Some other authors actually took ISPs to court to try and force them to get rid of these Usenet groups. CORY'S THEORY OF E-BOOKS: More people are reading more words off of screens every day versus. Fewer people reading fewer words off of paper every day. APPARENT ARGUMENTS AGASINT E-BOOKS Screen resolutions are too low to effectively replace paper Doesn't seem convincing since everyone seems to read more off screens anyway People want to own physical books because of their visceral appeal You can't take the your ebook into the tub you can't read an ebook without power and a computer file-formats go obsolete, paper has lasted for a long time ADvent of the printing press: Luther v. Monks Luther Bibles lacked the manufacturing quality of illuminated bibles Luther bibles were unsuited to the traditional use-case for bibles was supposed to make the person who read it sound important the user-experience of luther bibles sucked no incense! no altar buys! Luther bibles were less trustworthy monks had an entire papacy to check these manuscripts BUT - WHY LUTHER BIBLES KICKED ASS They were cheap and fast They were in languages that non-priests could read They birthed a printing-press ecosystem in which lots of books flourished ALL OF THESE VIRTUES ARE ORTHAGONAL TO THE VALUES OF THE MONKS WHY EBOOKS KICK ASS They are easy to share Particularly for those of us who no longer have physical connections with many of our friends They are easy to slice and dice ---------------------------------------------------------------------- REFERENCES: {as documents / sites are referenced add them below} ---------------------------------------------------------------------- CONTRIBUTORS: {add your name, e-mail address and URL below} ---------------------------------------------------------------------- E-MAIL BOUNCEBACK: {add your e-mail address separated by commas} vizions (a) mac.com, ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTES ON / KEY TO THIS TEMPLATE: A headline (like a field in a database) will be CAPITALISED - This differentiates from the text that follows A variable that you can change will be surrounded by _underscores_ - Spaces in variables are also replaced with under_scores - This allows people to select the whole variable with a simple double-click A tool-tip is lower case and surrounded by {curly brackets} - These supply helpful contextual information. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright shared between all the participants unless otherwise stated.