you eDiots!

So here we go again – Amazon is getting ready to launch its own eBook reader.

The good: they are Amazon, and it is an eBook reader

The bad: preliminary pictures show a clunky design with a full querty keyboard, and the projected price will be over $400.


Amazon Kindle

What will make a popular eBook reader?

  • LOW price point. Like $50-$100. Perhaps a maximum of $200, but only if it comes with a coupon for $50 worth of free books or something.
  • Simple, easy-to-use design. If you are shooting for wide acceptance, the average joe wants it to look like a book, not a computer. Tons of buttons and complicated design are intimidating to users. The design should have a minimal number of buttons: a page next, page back, and a 4-way d-pad and select button for navigating menus. Or just a page next, page back, and a touchscreen. The design should be symmetrical, with the buttons on the side, so it can be held by righties or lefties, also so you can switch hands if one gets tired, or if you are lying in bed reading on your side and roll over to the other side.
  • Crisp display. It needs to look like a book. eInk, like on the Sony reader, looks good. But they need how to work out how to make that self-illuminating somehow.
  • Long battery life. Books don’t run out of batteries, eBooks should go a long time without recharging. The Sony reader is pretty good in this department.
  • Rugged. The design should be ruggedized, and if possible, be able to survive a drop or two. Especially if you’re going to get students, teens, and kids using it too.
  • Books. An eBook is worthless without content. Like the DVD format getting studios to sign on, an eBook format needs to get publishers to sign on.
  • Workable DRM. I understand why publishers want DRM, to prevent pirating of content, but it’s got to be a workable system. There needs to be a way for people to lend their eBook to a friend, or even sell it in a used eBook store. Another part of this is that there are tons of different devices and formats. There need to be some standards that are universally accepted.
  • Marketing. Most people have no idea what an eBook is, some have heard of it but don’t understand it, and some actively oppose them. Sony Readers sit quietly in Borders on a lonely little kiosk. There needs to be a major promotional push to get peope excited about eBooks.
  • Reasonable book prices. If the hardcover is $20, the eBook should not be $20. I don’t care what bullshit spin or cost justifications publishers put out there, eBooks are cheaper to make. Period. When a book goes to print, it’s in a digital form already. For eBook publishing, it needs to be reformatted to the eBook file format, and put up on a server. That cost has to be way less than printing a book and shipping it all over the world. And as eBooks are published more often, the cost of format conversion should get cheaper, or even nonexistent, if publishing software offers a pushbutton conversion to eBook formats. So if the hardcover book costs $20, the paperback costs $10, the eBook should be $5-$8. It should *always* be cheaper than the cheapest printed version. Amazon has tried selling eBooks in the past, but often prices would be based on the hardcover book, so the hardcover would be $20, the eBook would be $18 or $20, but the paperback would be $10. And when the hardcover and paperback prices fell, often the eBook prices would remain as they started, so it would be more expensive than the hardcover!

Instead, Amazon will probably have none of those things, and surprise, surprise, it will be a flop. And publishers will say “See? eBooks just aren’t a viable platform!”

Sigh.


Sony Reader

Incidentally, the best eBook design I’ve used so far was the Rocket REB 1150, which is still sold by eBookWise.


REB1150

The design is decently rugged, with two big buttons for page next, page previous and a touchscreen. The design is such that you can use it with either hand, and switch hands easily. The innards of the REB 1150 are kind of outdated, though. It uses the all-but defunct SmartMedia memory cards, has an old LCD screen, which isn’t terrible, but isn’t that great, either. The software for interfacing with it is clunky.

My perfect reader:
REB 1150 case, though slimmed down a bit, and lighter. Sony Reader innards. Bam!