What would happen if Amazon gave every Ebook away for free?

I recently read this article on the Publishing Perspectives website called “What would happen if Amazon gave every Ebook away for free?”, and it was a thought-provoking read!

Last week, China’s answers to Amazon, Jingding and Dangdang, both gave away around 50,000 ebooks away in celebration of the upcoming World Book Day.

“The giveaway, which the ebooksellers said was being done to help promote commercial ebooks and raise reader awareness, has been criticized by publishers and authors alike. Zhao Chen, from People’s Literature Publishing House, told Beijing News that giving so many books away would “bring harm” to publishers, while Zhang Hongbo, secretary-general of the China Written Works Copyright Society, called the promotion “sloppy,” particularly if the companies had not sought permission of the publishers beforehand (a spokesperson from Dangdang would neither confirm nor deny whether the company had contacted publishers, though said the site would honor requests to stop offering a title if specific complaints were made).”

If Amazon was to do the same thing, it is suggested that people would simply download as many free ebooks to their reading devices as possible and then would be less eager to buy books either in print or ebook form.

The article closes with: “It is, if anything, likely to reinforce the idea that books should be free.“

[For the whole article, see What Would Happen If Amazon Gave Every Ebook Away For Free? - Publishing Perspectives]

I think it is probably correct that people would take advantage of the offer and download as many ebooks as they could while they can. This raises a few concerns for me:

1. I personally like free ebooks when they are on offer, and i will download the classics for free anyway as their authors are long deceased. But if i download too many, the odds are that even i won’t get through them all very quickly. It won’t stop me buying more books in the future, but in all fairness, it never feels like i actually own the ebooks, after all, Amazon could pull the plug and steal back the digital copies quite easily i’m sure.
2. It isn’t fair to the authors who put so much hard work and time into their books, and ultimately get paid through royalties, which are non-existent for every free book that is “sold”. This makes a poor return for all that work.
3. Similarly, it isn’t fair to the publishers who have spent a long time editing and producing the book, not to mention all the time spent working out costings and seeing if it would make money if published and the long marketing campaigns used for it.
4. If these books were free, then people might demand that everyone else should make their books free as well. Print books would go into decline and bookshops would disappear completely from our streets.
5. Online companies would be more popular, however they would lose out on profits if the books they “sold” were free.
6. Sellers of reading devices and smartphones with reading apps would make a lot of money very quickly through increased sales due to demand so customers can download and read the free ebooks. We’d all be slaves to machines. Where’s the fun in that?
7. It will be a sad day for me when all my books are only available as ebooks and end up as a list of files on my Kindle. I like having a mixture of print and ebooks, mainly for when i’m unable to charge up my Kindle or if it’s raining, or if the print book comes out first and i’m desperate to read it without waiting for the ebook! See, even though i have a Kindle and it saves physical space on my shelves, i still prefer print books!

So, there you go, my opinions and speculations on this topic. It seems horribly dystopian if you think about it!

What do you think?

Book Review: The Book of Lost Souls

I have been reading “The Book of Lost Souls” by Michelle Muto. It’s quite good, and easy to read if you want a fast read.

The Book of Lost Souls - Michelle Muto (via Amazon)

I wasn’t sure at first when it started describing how the protagonist, Ivy, is a witch and is friends with vampires and werewolves, felt a little bit Twilight-y there, and then we get the added bonus of demons, trolls and zombies, and so it’s a full house of supernatural creatures!

The plot is quite good, although it felt a little tame, but then it seems to be for a younger age group. It reminded me a little bit of the “Wicca” series by Cate Tiernan with the whole witch-trying-to-prove-she’s-not-evil-like-her-black-magic-abusing-father. The father is a very mysterious guy and although we don’t know all the details of what happened before he disappeared, despite him not being there his influence is felt as Ivy tries to fight her feelings for the son of her father’s friend and tries to convince everyone that she is nothing like her father.

Ivy has some problems to sort out after turning a lizard into a Halloween party date, especially when everyone thinks she’s abusing her powers. She is very aware of what others may or may not be thinking of her, and she tries so hard to fit in, or rather just be invisible. Her best friends keep her on the straight and narrow as much as they can, and they know her so well that they know Ivy better than she knows herself at times. Ivy seems to argue with herself, constantly questioning her motives and feelings, and i felt that i could relate to her character fairly well.

It’s a good story of friendships, love and loyalty, but the strange happenings which occur throughout the book test Ivy and her friends. The supernatural element is quite nice as it is more true to the original traits, with no vampires trying to be sparkly or ‘vegetarian’ (Twilight), although toned down as it’s for a young audience.

I enjoyed the story and it is quite gripping with the ressurrection of two very evil historical criminals which cause havoc in the town when Ivy and her friends live. It’s a typical supernatural story where teenager and friends fight evil and ignore advice of the grownups and make mistakes, like Buffy, like Harry Potter, bit like Twilight (although Bella is a human with no powers).

I’ll give it 7/10 as it is a good read, written well and the characters are believable. I recommend it to any teenagers and fans of the supernatual, although if you’re older than that like me, then maybe you won’t feel it is the best book for you. Nevertheless, it is a good read, and i want to know a bit more about the characters!

Note: I read this on my Kindle, as it was free for a limited time on Amazon! (BTW, I’m not a cheapskate, it’s just nice to have some free every now and then!)

Book Review: Grimm’s Fairy Stories

I have been reading Grimm’s Fairy Stories on my Kindle and really enjoyed re-reading stories from my childhood!

Grimm's Fairy Stories - Brothers Grimm (via Amazon)

These are the early versions of the stories we know and love, although they are a bit darker than the modern Disney versions we know, but that makes them much better i think!

My favourite stories include: “Catherine and Frederick”, “Briar Rose” and “The Six Swans”.

It’s funny how a lot of them have evil stepsisters and stepmothers! And they all seem to be rescued by a prince or a king! No hint of fairy godmothers though, that must be the Disney influence!

I love these old stories: they reward the hardworking underdog and punish the lazy and jealous people!

10/10!

Note: I read this on my Kindle as it was free, and there are a few little niggles with the ebook – the stories are all stuck together and don’t start on a new page; you can’t navigate to one particular story; and my version is supposed to be illustrated but there aren’t any. There are also a few mistakes grammatically, and a few other errors, which ruin the ebook a bit.

The search for the perfect Kindle cover

I recently acquired a Kindle 4 for Christmas and am eager to avoid it ending up scratched and bashed like everything else (phone, mp3 player, etc all blighted by unsightly dents and blemishes) because i live by my personal mantra: “if it ain’t tough, it won’t survive”! So clearly it is very important to find a case which both protects my new gadget but is also not boring!

I have looked around and found some frankly rather boring Kindle cases provided by Amazon itself and a few others. Although i think they’re supposed to be more like a book cover, I’m concerned that cases like the one below will not protect the edges of my Kindle and will accidently open in a bag:

Kindle Leather Cover, Wine Purple (via Amazon)

This case style isn’t one i’m willing to waste my money on, even if it is my favourite colour purple! Amazon seems to charge a stupid amount of money for these cases, nearly half what the Kindle costs! There is also this one which isn’t too bad colourwise and has a nice clippy thing to keep the case closed, but i’m still not sure about it:

New Kindle Purple SD Folio Case – SD Tabletwear (via Amazon)

I did find some nice, less boring versions of that style, such as this Kate Spade one which is quite funky:

Kate Spade New York Kindle Cover (via Amazon)

There are the quite nice but extremely pricey designer ones, as shown on Pretty Shiny Sparkly’s blog:

Reader Chic: Designer Kindle Cases

Even though i’m not sure on this style, i do actually LOVE the pattern on this one:

Wild Rose Kindle 4 Cover – Oberon Design

It’s really beautiful, and they have many more different designs on their website for all Kindle models and also cases for other devices too, see Oberondesign.com.

And maybe this one is quite nice too:

Flower Kindle case – Lente Designs (via Amazon)

And then there are the sleeves for Kindle, such as this amusing one inspired by “Baby Got Back” by Sir Mixalot! (and that song got stuck in my head when i saw this!):

I LIke Big Books Kindle Sleeve – Cafepress.co.uk

Or maybe this simple one:

Belkin Knit sleeve for Kindle (via Tesco)

I would rather have a slip-on case which covers the whole thing and keeps it all safe and bash-free, maybe one like this:

SD TabletWear Leather Style Amazon Kindle Slip Pouch – Purple (via Gearzap.com)

Or there is this nifty reversible black and red one:

Forefront Cases NEW KINDLE 4 Black / Red Reversible Neoprene Case (via Amazon)

I am still undecided as to what to buy as i haven’t found anything that i like enough to buy. If there is nothing i can find that i like then i may have to design my own, either through one of these websites, medgestore.com, or bagsoflove.co.uk. Or i might just sew my own (looking like the easiest and cheapest option to get something personal and more attractive!

I will keep looking for now though, you never know when someone will bring something nice out!

Apple launches iBooks 2 app

The hottest news of the week in the publishing world was the announcement by Apple that they were launching the iBooks 2 app.

This app allows anyone to create their own ebook. It is mainly for authors wanting to create textbook ebooks for studying, with the app allowing them to upload content such as videos, images, Word docs etc into the app, which then works out how best to lay out the content.

This app will potentially lower the amount of huge heavy print books which students have to lug around campus and makes it easier to find what you are looking for. Although i guess you’d need to have an iPad in the first place which isn’t cheap, although if these ebook textbooks are cheaper than the paper versions then maybe you could afford one (or possibly not with the recent hiking up of tuition fees).

Publishers have already made use of the iPad for children’s books, and there are some beautiful ebooks out there for the iPad which i’ve seen and tried out for myself, although i still would be a little reluctant to give my expensive iPad to a small child to use, wouldn’t you? The pictures and animations are really lovely, colourful and appealing, which makes a children’s book more special.

Textbooks seemed like the next obvious target by publishers to try to digitise, as they contain far more content than other books and have always seemed rather dull. I guess with the iPad app we can now create beautiful ebook versions of these textbooks which we can interact with and make learning more enjoyable. We already have seen what can be done with textbook content in apps, the most famous being The Elements app:

Textbook ebooks look like they could be pretty big if done well, and it will be interesting to see how this works.
Here is a video explaining about the iBooks 2 app:

The video points out some interesting points about the old print textbook: They are outdated almost as soon as they are published, as new discoveries are made all the time, and the time-consuming process of publishing a book means that a textbook can be up-to-date upon its induction but by the time it reaches the shop it can be several months out of date. The ability to update the content of an ebook as new information is discovered would allow students to keep on top of developments. It may make it a bit harder to keep track of quotes a student may take from a book if new content is added, making referencing a little bit harder, but we’ll see how this works. Another point is that print textbooks are static, so if you are studying science, then ebooks make it possible to show images as animations so they look more like the real thing they are describing.

However, according to the Guardian, the textbooks will only be available in the US for now, which means the rest of us will have to wait! My main concern is that with tuition fees going up by massive amounts, students will be unable to afford to buy these textbooks, whether or not they have an iPad (and i can’t imagine many will do, i rarely saw them when i was at uni not long ago), so one hopes that libraries will buy them in so students can borrow them, but i guess that in itself will conjure up a load of trouble with lending, as we’ve already witnessed with other ebooks.

These textbooks can open a whole new way of learning, which is an exciting prospect. They look more interesting than print books, and the ability to interact with the content within the book makes it a more compelling reading experience, and if i was learning a subject as heavy and information-packed as medicine or something, i would want a more exciting way of learning about it! And it also makes it easier to take notes by simply highlighting text with your fingers and pasting it into your notes, which seems a lot easier than writing it all down by hand! I only wish i’d had this when i was at school/university, would have made life a lot easier, even though i was only studying literature and language and not science or anything!

I wonder what you think of iBooks 2? Feel free to comment!

Articles consulted:
Telegraph.co.uk: Apple iBooks 2 app lets authors make their own books

Engadget.com: Apple ibooks 2

Guardian.co.uk: Apple unveils ibooks 2 textbooks ipad

The Wallee – a wall-mount for the Ipad

I found this strange contraption today while surfing the internet, the Wallee.

It is a hardback case for the Ipad, which can be mounted on the wall with a special bracket.

Now, i find this a bit odd, as the point of the Ipad is that it is a portable computer, and attaching it to a wall kind of defies the point. Still, i guess it could be useful if you are using your Ipad for recipes and have nowhere to put it while cooking, or if you don’t want it lying around on your desk or something… but this wouldnt really work if you’re watching films on your Ipad…. its still too small to be a good viewing from a distance! There are photos on the their website of it being attached to the dashboard of a car, but i think that just adds danger to the product, as it wouldn’t be any safer than using a mobile phone in the car while driving.

I have to say, it looks kind of tacky in the colours available!

You decide what you think! See this product for yourself at The Wallee website.

Or watch the Youtube video manual:

Ipads in society

Image via Wikipedia

I was in a restaurant a few nights ago (celebrating my graduation from university, might i add!) with my parents, and my mum spotted a woman on a table behind us who had brought her Ipad with her to dinner.

Now we thought this to be quite an interesting, but odd sight, particularly as it was only the second time i had been in a room with someone who actually owns one of these devices. For some reason she kept wandering round the restaurant with her Ipad, maybe she was showing it off, i don’t know! We thought it was a bit strange to bring such a huge device into a restaurant,  as it barely fitted into her handbag!

My mum pointed out that anyone could see what she was doing on it, what with her waving it around for the whole restaurant to see and the fact the screen was quite bright and therefore stood out in the dimly-lit restaurant.

I wonder how practical these Ipads really are, as they are quite large and cumbersome…. its not like an Iphone which is smaller and more practical.

To be fair, anyone who can afford to buy an Ipad while they are still uncommon in everyday life is bound to show it off, even at the risk of showing everyone what they are doing on this stupidly expensive and large device. And showing off is exactly what this woman was doing, parading it around the restaurant. She was with a fairly big  group of people, so why she had brought it with her i don’t know. I would have thought a restaurant was hardly the sort of place where you need to check on stuff like emails and so on, its more a place where you want to relax and enjoy your dinner without worrying about stuff.

No-one else seemed to need gadgets at the dinner table (there was the odd person on their mobile but that’s fairly common these days), and it seemed like the woman was distracted and a bit distant from her group because of this device which made her stand out. This doesnt seem like a good thing, and i for one would be annoyed if someone i was dining with decided to bring their Ipad and fiddle with it all through the meal, when i want to talk to them with their full attention focused on our conversation.

I really hope that Ipads don’t start to invade our lives too much, as they are only isolating people from real life, and at the moment they are so expensive that very few can afford one comfortably, and once people have got used to them, i’m sure the novelty will wear off.

I am quite divided because Ipads do seem more practical and less cumbersome than a laptop, but less practical than a mobile phone. I think its ok if you want to use it purely for working or whatever while travelling, but they shouldnt really be used in restaurants and other places where you don’t really need them.

What does everyone else think of this?

Going Digital: Is it all it’s cracked up to be?

Image via Wikipedia

Is going digital all its cracked up to be?

Like everything else, digital does has its downsides, and although the following are more speculation than anything else, they are things to think about if we carry on down this path.

How empty is our world going to be in the future, if we no longer have books cluttering up our bookshelves?? If books are replaced by Ebooks, the world will seem very strange.

Maybe one day every human will have one machine that does and has everything:

• Able to read any book in existence as an Ebook, whether its the Bible or the latest bestseller.
• Able to watch videos of anything in any place
• Able to listen to music from anywhere in the world
• Able to access TV channels and programmes from anywhere in the world
• Aable to order stuff from anywhere
• Able to access news and information from anywhere about anything

and the list goes on!

Interestingly, the mobile phone started as a huge brick-like contraption (just like the first computer was huge too), and has gradually shrunk over the years as technology has improved. However, now touchscreens are the big thing and seem to be getting bigger and bigger in size! The Iphone is pretty big as it is, but then we have been introduced to the Ipad and the other copycat devices, all with large touchscreens. Maybe one day there will be a touchscreen which is the size of a wall!

The possibilities seem to be endless.

But one wonders if we are spending too much time and effort on these technologies.

For one thing, we are losing out in other areas, for example music records, LPs, and CDs are being phased out….we are losing the actual physical object which we can hold and have signed by the artist. The same thing is happening with books, with each Ebook that is released, we are losing the physical object.

Another worry is that we are becoming increasingly dependant on devices which need a whole lot of energy, and that energy isnt all coming from green sources. I can’t imagine how much fuel is needed to make the electricity to charge these devices. Poor Mother Nature must hate us for our greedy sucking-the-Earth-dry approach to living. What happens when the fuel sources run out? What happens when there’s long term powercuts and we will no longer be able to access all this information on our phones and various other devices?

Something else to consider is that with all this technology, we are slowly losing our ability to think creatively, and losing our imagination. I think that maybe digital technology could destroy the creative mind and not allow the brain to construct mental images as you read a book.

Is our evolution as a species being prevented by this abundance of technology which we rely on? We humans haven’t changed or evolved in thousands of years!

There is also the worry that our ability to interaction with other people in real time is being affected because we can find out so much about people from their online profile, such as Facebook, and the use of email and IM means we don’t see each other’s reactions. The way we interact with our children is different now, with mobiles and computers taking us away from each other, and computer games and so on making us less inclined to sit and chat properly with each other.

It could be that the introduction of special enhanced Ebooks for children – with features such as being able to record the parent/grandparent/carer’s voice reading the story and pictures and games – could destroy the vital bonding between the parent and child,  especially if the parents just leaves the child with the ebook to read by themself, while the parent goes off to bed or work (obviously the child won’t be fully abandoned, i just mean, that the interaction will be much less).

I’m not saying that these things are definite, but it is important to consider the implications and potential consequences of our actions now.

It’s something to think about, certainly, and i wonder what others think of these, and if you have any issues to add to the list.