Comments on: Someone’s Impersonating Me!

By: Ron Morgans

Ron Morgans — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:48:25 +0000

For Kat J.
I, too, have a Sony reader. Your mum might try http://www.BooksOnBoard.com They have good titles at cheap download prices. Also try http://www.girlebooks.com A great site that puts brilliant covers onto Gutenberg classics for free.
In an experiment for my blog I found 112 good e-books for under five pounds in total! Cheap and free e-books are out there. Good hunting.

By: CatWake

CatWake — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 04:22:02 +0000

Color (or colour) me paranoid, but since I learned about the EULA on the Kindle, and the whole retraction of sold books, I’m a little leery of the entire e-book concept.

I used to have a book club subscription when I was in high school, but it wouldn’t be practical for me right now, unless I got a larger living space or started hating the public library.

I have to say, the “all-you-can-eat” idea is really appealing, but at the end of the day…I just don’t enjoy reading on a screen. Even when I’m critiquing or proofreading, I prefer to print things out and red-pen them, then transfer my comments into the electronic version. Maybe it’s because my associations with “words on a screen” are all tied to academia or work, but it’s just not the indulgence and escape that reading a book comprises.

By: Agent

Agent — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:33:05 +0000

Thank you!

The subscription model is something that the music business has been busy exploring. I don’t know whether it’s working for them, yet. There were rumors that Apple’s iTunes was going to move to an “all-you-can-eat” model, but it hasn’t happened – yet.

The thing is, I don’t remember authors ever making any money directly from book clubs. They increased the print run, and brought down the unit cost to publishers, but any benefit to authors was indirect.

And… in the UK at least.. book clubs have mysteriously shrunk over the past few years…

By: Kat J.

Kat J. — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:41:18 +0000

Peter,

I really like the idea of a ‘book club’ type download for an e-book reader. It makes perfect sense to me.

My 86 year old mother bought the Sony E-book because she has trouble reading small print. She LOVES her e-book. The challenge had been finding affordable downloads.

You are right about price resistance. She is not willing to pay ten dollars (US) for a download. We mostly get her books from the Project Gutenberg website.

However, I could easily see myself getting her a subscription to a mystery e-book club for Christmas. I hope your idea catches on, quickly.

We chose the Sony e-book for her because it was something we could see and play with before we purchased it at a local department store. The fact that it was nearly a hundred dollars less than the Kindle (at the time) didn’t hurt.

I’ve been listening to Litopia for several months now. I followed Mary W. Walters here, from Authonomy, and have stayed to listen ever since.

Good luck with the new software for the Colony!

Kat J.