ebooks

Early adopter rage

Moriah Jovan

[2025-07-24: Blackbird Pie plugin no longer exists, nor do the tweets. Text pulled from backups.]

Dear Berkley, I was all set to buy INDIA BLACK on my Kindle, but it was $9.99. No Effing Way.
twitter.com/#!/MoriahJovan/status/22156474088169472

Dear Big-6 Publishers, it’s not that we’re not buying books. It’s that we aren’t buying YOUR books.
twitter.com/#!/MoriahJovan/status/22157961505800192

I like real books

Moriah Jovan

A can of air freshener labeled “Smell of Books: New Book Smell”I like them on my wall
I like them in my hand
(I like them in the bathroom)
I like them on my H: drive
I like them in the car
I like them in a queue
I like them on my laptop
I like them on a shelf
I like them on my keychain
I like them in a library
I like them in English
I like them in bed
I like them on my netbook
I’d like them on a slate, but they’re too heavy.

What is a “real” book, anyway?
“Real” book. As if reading words and being entertained and/or instructed isn’t the point of the damn thing.

I was wrong.

Moriah Jovan

I got a Kindle.

I know. Go ahead and laugh or faint or whatever. I’ll wait until you’ve got yourself back together again.

Long story told in bullet-point lists:

  • Saw a Sony at Target. The screen looked like a dot matrix printer (aka like crap). I decided eInk was not for me.
  • Amazon pulled some crappy things, which confirmed my opinion of crap.

    • Read more →

I got your suggestions right here.

Moriah Jovan

The Pareto Principle.

Also known as the 80/20 rule, wherein 80% of sales are generated by 20% of the customers. When applied to the way publishing gambles on blockbusters to subsidize its titles that lose money, it might be more or less 20% of the authors make 80% of the sales.

Publishers look for and sign new authors in a neverending search for the next blockbuster book that will sustain the 20%. Very often a new author will be taken on in favor of renewing a current author’s second or third book if the sales don’t meet expectations (which could mean that it did, in fact, make money, but not enough to satisfy the bean counters). Read more →

An ebook is not a book.

Moriah Jovan

Three meercats and one marmalade tabby cat standing on their back legs. The cat blends in well. Caption says “One of these things is not like the other … ”Can we find a word other than “book” as a descriptive for the digital version of glue-and-paper? The word “book” is way too loaded for those who profess a love of “that new book smell” and their reactionary hatred of digital delivery.

Print books and digital book are two completely different species. They don’t have to compete. They shouldn’t try to compete. Yes, the content is the same. Yes, the delivery system makes all the difference in the reading experience. Read more →

The handy-dandy all-purpose digital reader

Moriah Jovan

Some time back ago, I said I wanted an Asus EeePC to read digital books because it was kind of an all-purpose device. As time went on, I decided maybe I’d rather have an iPhone or a BlackBerry, but then I found out about their mandatory data plans and I’m a cheap bitch, so no thanks. I wanted something reasonably portable that I could 1) read digital books on in any format I wanted; 2) listen to music; 3) keep my personal data on (now that I have this awesome personal information management standalone app); and 4) to basically be able to haul my brain around with me. I don’t like talking on the phone, so I would rather not have one at all, but must. I want to keep the phone separate from my other tasks. Read more →

A cautionary tale for authors and agents

Moriah Jovan

You know, I shove a tanto in my gut and bleed all over the interwebz about my issues with embedded font evangelism in the name of book designer job security, then I get over it and I think I’m done.

Well, Penguin Books has reminded me this morning that not only am I not done, I’m now pissed off as a reader and not as a writer/publisher/e-book mark-up-er, except … this is really not about Teh Pretteh. It’s about DRM. I’m fighting the wrong battle. The book designers can go figure out their own lives. I’m a reader first, dammit. Read more →

Eating a little bit of crow…

Moriah Jovan

Yesterday, I got a little mouthy (see this post), which will surprise no one.

I was sent an EPUB file that had embedded fonts that rendered perfectly in ADE. I cracked the file open and what did I see? Perfection. The file wasn’t bloated, it was neatly organized, the CSS sheet was reasonably tidy for its detail, and the detail was compact. It worked and it worked beautifully. I can see how it’s done. Read more →

Yo, EPUB evangelists!

Moriah Jovan

For those of you EPUB designer/evangelists who talk about the way EPUB allows you to embed fonts, listen up: It doesn’t make a damn bit of difference.

The only thing that makes a difference is what the EPUB reader has available to it, to wit: Adobe Digital Editions will display one font and one font ONLY.  ITS OWN.

So will Sony reader.

So will FBReader. Read more →