Thoughts on Literary Quality and eBooks

One of the complaints about ebooks is that they lack the literary quality that books published by the mainstream publishers have.

It is hard to refute that. I just spent an hour browsing through the Erotica section of a major ebook retailer, a lot of that is pretty racy stuff. Now, I'm not criticizing other than to point out that many will point to that as evidence that ebooks are a less respectable lot. To others the criticism revolves around poorly written, or poorly edited ebooks that have gotten published.

I think ebooks right now are in that same market ghetto as direct to video movies are and direct to paperback books used to be not so long ago. In fact the entire paperback publishing industry got it's start publishing erotica (for travelers, heh) and lurid subculture pulps, as well as pulp science fiction, crime and mystery novels (neither of those genres were considered as respectable as they are today). In short the early paperback publishers found under served market niches at the edges of conventional culture and filled the demand. Those early paperbacks were only found on newsstands in hotels, train and bus stations and airports because they were easy to carry and read while traveling. You did not find mass market books in your local library, they were sold to strangers rather than to local residents and that was a very different sales market. But the profits from the more lurid books helped fund the expansion of these publishers into publishing more literary works.

My point is that ebooks are exactly where the early paperback market was back in the 1950's or very early 1960's - at least in everything but price - you will not find many 25 cent novel length ebooks!

With all this said I do not see anything wrong with the current course ebooks are taking. Ebook publishing technology has allowed many new publishers and editors to enter the otherwise fairly closed field of the publishing industry. This in turn has allowed many new authors to get published. I think there is a place for self-publishing too. And I think both the proliferation of small press e-publishers and self published ebooks (and POD books) creates a demand for trusted source reviews and reviewers for these ebooks. As the publishing industry fragments further into small electronic publishers I think the role of the reviewer as a filter for quality will become only more essential.

Robert Nagle Speculates on Amazon's Purchase of Mobipocket

Idiotprogrammer � Blog Archive � What is Amazon planning? An ebook reader perhaps!: "Why has Amazon bought Mobipocket (a leading ebook reader software company and distribution channel) and booksurge (a POD company)?"

My Take:

I'm not sure about the hardware angle, but with surely it would take no great skill for a Chinese manufacturer to come up with a simple dedicated ebook reader that runs Mobipocket, has a SD card slot and a decent display, and do this with off the shelf parts. It could also be that Amazon just want's a third format for ebooks (besides PDF and MSReader) and does not want to pay eReader's high royalty prices. I think Amazon wants to be free to develop ebook reader software for any mobile platform, not just what Microsoft produces.

Source: Teleread

Microsoft to Introduce Tablet/eBook Reader Hybrid?

Tablet PC: The Next Generation?: "Could the hottest new Tablet form factor end up being a mini Tablet/eBook hybrid? Microsoft seems to be betting on it.
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Even though I am a confirmed Mac person I would definitely look at this is they produced it.

Source: MobileRead

$100 laptop project = Universal E-Book Reader?

$100 laptop computer for school kids? This would bring us very close to that $50 e-book reader. If they actually can make a laptop available for $100 it will give the PDF format a major boost.

Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home » E-Ink pioneer excited over MIT’s $100 laptop project

Amazon Buys Booksurge: Been Here Before

The news from Tenebris is that Amazon.com is buying print on demand company Booksurge. It also sounds like more corporate behemouths are sniffing around the POD marketplace.

The thing is none of this is new: iPublish, iUniverse, XLibris are all left over from the last Internet bubble. In fact Amazon rival, Barnes and Noble once had a tab for one of these POD publishers right on their site.


The problem I see is that most of these old guard POD publishers are really just a new twist on vanity publishing. While that may be a successful business model for the publisher, I do not think it is very good for the authors. Newer outfits like Lulu.com and Cafe Press, which work on more of a commission model seem like a better choice for authors. Because these companies do not take the author's money up front they have a greater stake in promoting their catalog and in seeing that their authors have a chance to succeed.