Category: Kindle

Apple’s Dangerous Storefront Paradigm

What if you bought a Sony TV and then discovered you could only watch shows that Sony okayed ahead of time?  Furthermore, what if Sony decided that anyone wanting to create a show to broadcast to your TV had to pay Sony a fee?  What if some TVs worked with some networks but not others?  How would you feel if you wanted to watch a certain show but discovered that Sony censored that TV production?

Radios, televisions, record/tape/CD/DVD players have always been sold as machines that were universal devices.  They would work with the same content everyone was providing.  You bought a RCA television and it played the same shows as a Sears set.  A GE clock radio would pick up the same stations as any other AM/FM set.

When computers came out there were many types, with different chips and operating systems, and there was no universal system.  Then came the IBM PC in 1981, followed by PC clones, and things settled down, but not quite, because in 1984 the Apple Macintosh came out with all intentions of being different.   The Mac’s market share has always hovered around 1/20th of the PCs.  It wasn’t quite disruptive, but offered an alternative.  But if you bought a Macintosh computer you could buy any Mac compatible software you wanted.

Now, with the iPhone and iPad, and the Apple App Store, Apple is creating a paradigm shift that will shake up things and change the way we do things completely on computers.  And don’t be fooled, smartphones and tablet are computers.

Apple is changing the computer from being a general purpose device that the buyer has control over into one that’s essentially a tiny Apple storefront.  Apple wants to get a cut of the action on any program, service or content that runs on their machines.  Not only that, they want to control what services, programs and content that can be used on their machines.

This is like Samsung saying “If you want to watch The Social Network on our TVs, we get a percentage of its selling price.”  Because computers never completely became universal devices like radios, TVs and DVD players, computer makers can get away with trying something different.

What Apple is saying, we don’t want to be a computer maker anymore, we want to be a retailer that sells products for computers.  They couldn’t do this before because they didn’t have the App Store.  The App Store is a choke point that Apple can control.

Under the old paradigm if you wanted a tax program for your computer you picked out a program you liked and bought it direct from its maker, or from a mail order store like Amazon or New Egg, or a retailer like Office Depot.  Now Apple can say the only way you will get a program for your iPhone, iPad, and soon maybe your iMac is through an App Store they control, and which they charge a 30% cut.  Now some people like this paradigm shift, it does have merits, but I for one find it scary too.

For instance I was going to buy the iPad 2 as soon as it came out.  I changed my mind weeks ago when Apple announced their 30% fee.  I was wanting an iPad to read magazines on, and my first magazine subscription was going to be The New Yorker.  Right now The New Yorker is $4.99 an issue on the iPad.  It’s $2.99 a month (4 issues) on the Kindle, and $39.95 for the PC version, that includes access to the complete back run of the magazine.  I don’t know what the subscription fee will be on the iPad because Apple is just now working out the deals and technology to sell subscriptions.

Now Amazon has a choke point for Kindle users too, and I’m sure Amazon is making something for selling magazines, but I doubt it’s 30%.  But see the difference?  Under the old PC model of buying content we can deal directly with the seller.  $39.95 a year is a great deal.  It’s $3 more a year than the Kindle price, but I would get all the back issues to read while I’m a subscriber, plus I’d see the full magazine page with all it’s ads and illustrations, and not just the content and cartoons as I do on the Kindle.

I was hoping The New Yorker would provide the same deal on the iPad for $39.95, but will it when Apple wants $12 for its share?  Does Apple deserve a share?  Are they really a retail store?  Google has since claimed that sellers on the Android platform will only have to kick back 10% to them.  But is being cheaper any fairer?

See the paradigm shift coming?  Computers are becoming storefronts.  Apple tells its users that programs bought from their App Store are safer than those purchased elsewhere, but isn’t that some kind of protection racket?  And isn’t this also a kind of Monopoly too?  To be legal shouldn’t iPad users have the right to visit any application store they choose?  Imagine if Ford sold you a car but enforced where you bought your gas and oil because they claimed it was safer?

Before Apple announced their shakedown plans I had imagined having an iPad with Rhapsody Music on it.  I pictured in my head what a beautiful app Rhapsody could design for listening to music while looking at appealing visuals, like large size photos of album covers.  But will Rhapsody still develop such an app?  Many content producers are saying they might have to pull their wares from the App Store, but I don’t picture that happening.  I just see them jacking up their prices.

The New York Times plans to sell the online version of their paper for PC users for $15 a month, and charge $20 a month for iPad users.  But to be fair it’s $19.99 for Kindle users now.  If they didn’t have to go through Apple or Amazon, and Kindles and iPads were just generic devices, would The New York Times just charge $15 a month to their users?

Is having the device maker controlling a choke point on sales of content for their devices really needed?  If you buy stuff from Target at their stores or online you really need Target to manage all the stuff they sale, so they deserve making money.  But do Google and Apple really do that much to run their stores?  It’s nice to have one payment system, and it’s nice to have one installation system, but is it really worth 30%.  Their fees should be more in line with what credit card companies charge retailers.  I’d say 3% tops.  And how many retail stores can get away with a 30% mark-up – most live and profit by razor thin margins.

Whether we like it or not, tablet computers are our future, and this is a good thing.  But giving Apple, Google, and Microsoft the right to control all sales on their devices is not.  Microsoft is a dark horse in the tablet race.  What if they came out with a hands off approach, and just sold their OS to tablet makers, would that change the game?  There’s a reason why PCs dominate the market share.  They may be open to attack from hackers, but they are open.

JWH – 3/20/11

How Can Bookstores Compete with Amazon.com?

Last year I had four large bookstores I could visit.  My favorite is Davis-Kidd Booksellers, a chain in Tennessee.  The other three are Borders, Barnes & Noble and Bookstar.  This year Bookstar closed, and the future of Borders is uncertain.  And the parent company of Davis-Kidd filed for bankruptcy, but luckily, the Memphis store was the robust one of the group and is continuing to operate. 

My wife and I were shopping at Davis-Kidd last night because I had gotten an email saying everything was 20% off March 18.   When we went to check-out we found the 20% only applied to its Members club, which costs $25 a year.  The book we were buying to read for our book club, The History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage was $15.95.  We had decided to buy it because of the sale, otherwise we thought $16 was too much for a paperback.  When we found out we weren’t going to get the sale price left the store without it.  The same book at Amazon for $10.56, or $8.61 for the Kindle edition.  We would have paid $13.60 for the book locally, but not full list.

Now I like supporting my local bookstores and buy a fair amount of books from them at full price, but mostly I buy their remaindered books.  Hardbacks have gotten too expensive to buy new at list price, so I enjoy getting a book I want when they are discounted.  We were disappointed to leave the store empty handed and annoyed that we had been enticed to a sale that we weren’t entitled to use.

This got me to thinking, how should local bookstores compete with Amazon?  Are bookstores failing because they charge full price when online retailers are always offering sales?  If the price of the book were the same I would probably always buy locally.  I will buy loads of books when they are for sale at remaindered prices.  But unless it’s something special I need immediately, or for a gift, I just won’t buy books at list price anymore.

The History of the World in 6 Glasses is also available for the Kindle for $8.61.  I have a Kindle but my wife doesn’t.  She does have an iPhone with the Kindle reader.  So we could save even more money by buying the Kindle edition.  By the way, if a married couple both want to read the book on a Kindle they have to buy two Kindles and register them to the same account.

Local bookstores have to compete with discounted books sold online and with emerging ebooks.  Competing will be tough, but I think it will still be possible.  Right now books best read on ebooks are words only books, especially fiction.  But nonfiction books with photos, diagrams, maps, etc. don’t work well on ebook readers.  Any book you just want to flip around and discover things randomly doesn’t work well as ebooks.

Bookstores will have the advantage on selling books you want to look at, and for selling books you don’t know you wanted to buy until you see them, either because of illustrations, or because you are just shopping for a sale like going through the remaindered titles.  But can bookstores make it without selling fiction?  Fiction is perfect for ebook readers, especially for hardcore bookworms that read one book after another.

Amazon has been selling used books for years and I often buy them over new books when shopping Amazon.  I’m thinking local bookstores should start selling used books, especially upscale collector editions.  Local bookstores have online stores beat when it comes to tactile browsing, and thus should succeed with books that are appealing as objects, like special editions, rare editions, or heavily illustrated books.

One of the books we read for our book club is Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture by Ellen Ruppel Shell.  It’s a history of shopping, sales and marketing, and one of the lessons is buyers don’t like to pay full retail, and yet bookstores try to compete with online stores by selling at full list price.  If they want to stay in business they will have to stop that practice.  Davis-Kidd got us in their store last night with the promise of 20% off, but it turned out to only be for their club members.  They need to make 20% off their standard price for everyone and see if they sell more books.  I know I’d buy far less books at Amazon.com if they did.

They also need to get more remaindered books – because that’s what keeps me shopping regularly at their store.  But if they also had a nice selection of used books that would get me shopping more often.  But it can’t be crappy books like you find at the library book sale.  They need to be beautiful books, in near mint condition, great dust jackets, something people would want to own for their physical beauty and collecting appeal.

Davis-Kidd and Borders also sell music, but they have full priced CDs which I won’t buy.  If they priced CDs closer to what Amazon, or even Target does I’d browse their selection every week.  Bookstores might also  consider selling LPs.  LPs are making a comeback and their large beautiful covers could be a big selling point.  If fact, music publishers who want to sell CDs should package them in collector picture books editions that sell in bookstores.

And I think the publishers should make special editions of new books that appeal to the visual buyer.  And they shouldn’t be $99, but priced for impulse buying.  I wouldn’t buy a $19 CD, but it it came with a beautiful book for $19 I would.  Ditto for DVD movies.  However, if they are expensive I’ll just shop Amazon looking for 40% discounts.

I love going to book and record stores, but I don’t buy like I used to.  Bookworms love bookstores, but if it came down to a choice between Amazon and Davis-Kidd, I’d take Amazon.  Amazon is actually far more helpful at selling books because of the customer reviews and other sales information at the site.  The assumption is human help is better than software, but it’s not.  Bookstores are great for browsing the visual and tactile qualities of books, for random impulse buying and instant need.  They need to capitalize on these functions.  Otherwise, books as a commodity are better marketed on the web.

JWH – 3/19/11

Classic Science Fiction Books on Audio, Kindle and Nook

First off, look at the PDF report I made:  Classics of Science Fiction on Audio, Kindle, and Nook.  [Excel version.] What I did was take the ranked list from the Classics of Science Fiction web site and make a spreadsheet adding columns for Audio, Kindle, Nook and In Print.  By “In Print” I meant there was a paper copy for sale.  I then looked for the books on Amazon, B&N and Audible.com web sites, marking their columns Yes or No.

The original Classics of Science Fiction list was pulled from a database of SF titles that had been recommended from 28 different sources.  The final list were all books that had been on at least 7 of the recommended lists.  What I wanted to know is how well these books are represented in ebook and audiobook editions.

Of the 193 titles, 143 can still be bought as old fashion books.  81 can be listened to as audio books, 69 read on the Kindle and 64 on the Nook.  So a little less than half are available as audio books, and about a third as ebooks.  That doesn’t sound too bad.

However, if you use just a Kindle for reading, two thirds are not available, so that does feel bad.  Or if you’re an audiobook fanatic, a little more than half are unavailable.

35 books were not available from any source and 35 books were available from all four sources.  I made the all sources blue, and the no sources red.  Some of the red books might be available from other sources like print on demand, for ebook readers other than Kindle or Nook, or even on the web as public domain. 

Many of the red titles were collections, so I don’t worry about them going out of print.  Often a writer’s short stories get recollected under new titles.  If I saw a new collection that appears to have most of the original stories I counted the old title as being in print.

What’s troublesome is the number of novels that are no longer available.  Should John Brunner’s Stand On Zanibar really be considered a classic if no one is selling it?  Some of these novels do come back into print every decade or so, so if this list was made again in a year it would all be different.  Yet, I would think with the advent of ebooks all books will become “in print” digitally.

Some of the short story collections really should be in print today because they are major collections that deserve to maintain their identity, such as:

  • Adventures in Time and Space edited by Healy & McComas
  • Before the Golden Age edited by Isaac Asimov
  • The Past Through Tomorrow by Robert A. Heinlein

Someday I might reevaluate this list and remove the books that people have obviously lost interest in, and remove most of the short story collections, and titles that really shouldn’t be listed as science fiction, like Gulliver’s Travels and Animal Farm.  They are on here because fans polls or critics included them, but I think they shouldn’t be.

I’m also surprised by how many famous SF books are not available on the Kindle or Nook.  Do some authors not like ebooks and refuse to let their work appear in digital editions, or are there legal problems, or do some publishers think ebooks compete too well with print editions?

What’s fascinating is some books are only available in audiobook editions, like The Lensman series from E. E. “Doc” Smith.

JWH – 9/4/10

Revised 9/5/10:  I replaced the reference to Frank Herbert’s Under Pressure to John Brunner’s Stand on Zanzibar because Chistopher Carey below pointed out that Under Pressure is also known as The Dragon in the Sea.  Thanks for that information.  I also found a little know hardback version of The City and the Stars by Arthur C. Clarke.  I also added an Excel version because of a reader request.

I also changed the totals in various places.  I don’t know if it’s going to be practical to update the essay every time I update the spreadsheet/pdf report.

Kindle 3 and Science Fiction Short Stories

My Kindle 3, the wi-fi model, arrived Friday, August 27th.  I had bought a Kindle 1 when they first came out, but sold it a few months later to a lady friend who reads and travels more than I do.  At the time I was mostly listening to books and discovered I didn’t read much with my eyes any more.  Well, this year I joined four online book clubs and I’m doing far more eye reading.  Many of the books we read are out of print, with no Kindle editions, but a few are, so I thought I’d try another Kindle.

After unpacking my new toy, I was immediately struck by the Kindle 3’s elegant design.  The Kindle 1 had been clunky to hold, and much bigger and heavier.

kindle

kindle2

The new Kindle 3 is very light.  I couldn’t tell the difference between it and the weight of two books I’m comparing it to above.  The Catcher in the Rye is a trade paperback on the small size, so the Kindle is just a tiny bit taller and wider than the mass market paperback on the right, but much thinner.

My main purpose for the Kindle 3 is to read free science fiction short stories, especially free ones off the internet.  The first short story I loaded was “The Island” by Peter Watts, which I found in .PDF format.  I plugged in the Kindle 3 and found the documents folder and dropped it in.  It appears very sharp on the Kindle 3, even though it had a very tiny font.  Readable, but not font resizable.  If you read it online, the text looks larger, maybe 10-11 pt, but on the Kindle 3 it looks like its 8-9 pt.  Of course on, my 22” monitor, the page is much bigger.

This brings up the whole problem of getting content on the Kindle.  Books bought at Amazon are breeze to load and read with all the options.  These books have a DRM that protects them.  DRM free ebooks in the .MOBI, .TXT and .AZW formats can be copied directly to the Kindle with the USB cable, or with networking via Amazon.  With .MOBI or .AZW all the reformatting features work, but not with .PDF.  You can magnify the page, but that’s not very reader friendly.

Most .PDF documents are formatted for 8.5 x 11 paper – but if people wanted to create .PDF files specifically for ebook readers they should create a custom page size to fit ebook readers.    The Kindle screen is roughly 3 and 5/8th by 4 and 3/4th inches, which explains why the words are so small when reading a normal .PDF.

So I will prefer to avoid PDF stories if I can unless they have larger typefaces.  There are converters for PDF to MOBI but I don’t want to mess with a converter if I don’t have to.  I’d like to plug in my Kindle and just do a Save As to its documents folder.  There are websites like ManyBooks and Feedbooks that offer a variety of ebook formats that are directly Kindle compatible.  That’s nice.  So the second short story I got, “The Altar at Midnight” by C. M. Kornbluth, in .AZW was font adjustable, unlike the .PDF story.

In my online book clubs we’ll discuss short stories in addition to the novel of the month if they are available online and free for anyone to read.   (It’s too much trouble for everyone to track down a paper copy.)  I wanted the Kindle so I could read these stories not at my desk, but in my reading chair.  Now that I have the Kindle, I’m trying to find the easiest way to get these stories off the computer and onto the Kindle.  If they are too much trouble I won’t get around to reading them.

It’s a shame there isn’t just one format that all ebook readers to use.  Amazon really should support the unencrypted .EPUB format.  That would save a tremendous amount of work for web sites putting free ebook content online.  .MOBI seems to be the go-to format for free Kindle ebooks and it’s easy to get novels that way, but free short stories online tend to be in .HTML or .PDF, which if I want resizable fonts would require going through a converter.

It’s going to be a while before there’s enough people with ebook readers before a popular format will emerge to replace .PDF online.  Sorry Adobe, but .PDF just isn’t ebook friendly.  I tend to think .EPUB will be that universal format, but we will need Amazon’s help.

Besides the free content, there is a wealth of science fiction short stories to buy for the Kindle.  My first purchase for my new Kindle was The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Seventh Annual Collection edited by Gardner Dozois, which turns out to have “The Island” by Peter Watts.  The annual Hartwell collection is available for the Kindle, but not the Horton and Strahan, but I expect that to change.  Amazon offers several years of previous editions of these anthologies too, so my Kindle will become a short story reading machine.

I can also get Analog, Asimov’s, F&SF, Interzone and Lightspeed magazines for the Kindle through Fictionwise, and Analog, Asimov’s and Lightspeed through Amazon.

Finally, Amazon offers a many reprint, theme and original story anthologies for the Kindle too.  The Kindle 3 will hold 3,500 books, which could mean 40,000 short stories.  That’s pretty nifty, when you think about it.

JWH – 8/29/10

Update: The 2010 Rich Horton collection is available at Lightspeed Magazine Store for $7.95.  Unfortunately, I see no sign of what formats are available.

Special thanks to Ignacio, whose comment below convinced me to try Calibre.  It solved the PDF conversion problem.  This elegant program does wonders with dicing and slicing ebooks.  http://calibre-ebook.com/

Ebook Ethics

Everything we do in life has ethical considerations, even something simple as buying books.  Ebooks represent a change, and that change has good and bad consequences.

Bad

  • Ebooks will put a lot of people out of work.  Bookstores may disappear like record stores.  This is a horrible consequence in these bad economic times.  The digital world is just more efficient than the analog world and that kills jobs.
  • Ebooks will also kill competition, reducing the number of businesses in the marketplace.  Amazon and Apple could theoretically take over all the book and music business from tens of thousands of small businesses.
  • Ebooks are anti-social.  Instead of buying books at a bookstore and meeting other people you order books directly.  Instead of sharing books with friends, readers are locked into a closed world of DRM.
  • Ebooks could damage cultural heritage and history.  Printed books can last for hundreds of years, and people value them, but ebooks probably have no lasting power at all.
  • Bookstores might become extinct which would be a huge cultural loss.
  • Book ownership is probably a deceptive concept and sellers like Amazon shouldn’t describe their ebooks are “for sale.”  To be honest, sellers should claim they are long term rentals until DRM copy protection is removed.

Good

  • Ebooks are extremely environmental.  Wood pulp technology uses lots of water, energy and chemicals, and those chemicals get into the environment.  Printing takes both energy and chemicals.  Distributing books creates lots of carbon and other pollutants.  The carbon footprint of ebooks is almost zero.
  • Ebooks could mean more money for writers, editors and publishers because ebooks could do away with the used book market.  As long as DRM technology is successful, more readers would actually buy books, instead of borrowing them or buying used, which is more ethical for the writer and publisher.
  • Ebooks might encourage more reading and literacy because of their convenience and possibly make reading more appealing to young people because ebooks are available on smart phones, an essential device for kids.
  • Ebooks could enhance cultural heritage and history.  It’s quite easy to load up an ebook reader with the great books of the western world.  Every child or family could have their own library of thousands of free books.

Ethically, the primary conflict is jobs versus the environment.  But that will be true of all industries and businesses as time passes.  If all books, magazines and newspapers were read on digital readers it would have a positive impact on the environment, but at a terrible cost in jobs.

The secondary ethical concern is which format is better for promoting literacy, knowledge and culture?  This is much harder to judge until after ebooks have taken over.  We won’t know their full impact for a very long time.  But consider this:  What if you could hold a device that had every book you ever bought or read in your entire life with annotations, notes, and supplemental reference essays and reviews?  Would such a superbook library have a positive social impact?

I already miss record stores and LP album covers, but I don’t miss LPs.  I don’t even miss CDs, but I do miss shopping for music at record stores.  I have a subscription to Rhapsody Music and can listen to as many CDs as I can cram into my month for $9.99, but the fun of discovering new albums is gone.   From about 1965-1995 I bought 2-4 albums a week.  I loved going to record stores, but that activity is as ancient as horse and buggy rides. 

I’ve been going to bookstores 1-2 times a week since 1965.  It’s about the only shopping I still like to do recreationally.  I’ve bought far more books than I have ever read, or will ever have time to read.  I will truly miss bookstores if they disappear.

On the other hand, I discover all my books and music now from the Internet.  I’m in four online book clubs.  I’m far more involved with books, authors and readers then when I only shopped at bookstores.  Most of my friendships are based around talking about books or music.  I never really went to bookstores or record stores to socialize with the staff, or ask them for recommendations, although I’ve always liked meeting other book and music fans.

Amazon, with its supplemental content and customer reviews has been a quantum leap in helping me discover new books to read.  It’s far more social in helping me make book buying decisions than bookstores ever were.  Web 2.0 technology is a different kind of socializing.  It’s intellectual over physical. 

JWH 8/21/10