I know that several of you are ebook readers. I have been reading ebooks for several years. All the way back to the original Palm Pilot.
One of the concerns that I have is the future direction of ebooks. I do not want to get stuck with a bunch of books that I can no longer read. So to combat that that fear I remove DRM from some of the books or I stay with the biggest sellers figuring they will be the safest to survive.
I want to address 3 of the providers. Amazon (Kindle) Ereader.com and Fictionwise. Amazon is HUGE. They have already shown a willingness to offer a reader on iphone so they do not seem to be married to pushing hardware in the same manner that Apple does. This is good for us. They have recently released a reader for the PC. All steps in the right direction. I would not be surprised if they have a droid reader sometime in Q1 2010.
Fictionwise purchased ereader.com a coupe of years ago. I always suspected an incestuous relationship there simply because they supported the same format and because the prices were almost exactly the same. Recntly ereader released an Android reader. It will work with erader and Fictionwise books. Now, what makes this so intersting is that Barnes & Noble bought this company late last year. Because ereader has released a Droid reader that means that by default so has Barnes & Noble. B&N also released an ereader for the iphone mid 2009.
These are all good signs for us because it means that there will be two major players competing to get our $$$. Amazon will put a lot of pressure on B&N because Amazon puts the NY Times bestsellers on sale for $9.99. B&N (ereader and fictionwise) offer "micropay rebates" which lowers the cost of future purchases.
An example of how this helps us is that there is a new James Patterson book that B&N is advertising for $17.99 pre-rebate. Amazon offers it for $9.99. because both have demonstrated a propensity to support Android devices and their format we should be able to take advantage of both worlds instead of being trapped into the Nook or Kindle.
BTW, I own a Kindle but I read on my phone because it is more portable.
One of the concerns that I have is the future direction of ebooks. I do not want to get stuck with a bunch of books that I can no longer read. So to combat that that fear I remove DRM from some of the books or I stay with the biggest sellers figuring they will be the safest to survive.
I want to address 3 of the providers. Amazon (Kindle) Ereader.com and Fictionwise. Amazon is HUGE. They have already shown a willingness to offer a reader on iphone so they do not seem to be married to pushing hardware in the same manner that Apple does. This is good for us. They have recently released a reader for the PC. All steps in the right direction. I would not be surprised if they have a droid reader sometime in Q1 2010.
Fictionwise purchased ereader.com a coupe of years ago. I always suspected an incestuous relationship there simply because they supported the same format and because the prices were almost exactly the same. Recntly ereader released an Android reader. It will work with erader and Fictionwise books. Now, what makes this so intersting is that Barnes & Noble bought this company late last year. Because ereader has released a Droid reader that means that by default so has Barnes & Noble. B&N also released an ereader for the iphone mid 2009.
These are all good signs for us because it means that there will be two major players competing to get our $$$. Amazon will put a lot of pressure on B&N because Amazon puts the NY Times bestsellers on sale for $9.99. B&N (ereader and fictionwise) offer "micropay rebates" which lowers the cost of future purchases.
An example of how this helps us is that there is a new James Patterson book that B&N is advertising for $17.99 pre-rebate. Amazon offers it for $9.99. because both have demonstrated a propensity to support Android devices and their format we should be able to take advantage of both worlds instead of being trapped into the Nook or Kindle.
BTW, I own a Kindle but I read on my phone because it is more portable.