I just finished reading “What Are Enhanced Ebooks?” over at Booksquare. Kassia’s answer is that nobody knows, but that some publishers feel “enhancements” are the cure for low ebook prices. Apparently, they think that consumers will pay more for an ebook with enhancements than they will for a hardcover.
I think they’re delusional.
When I went through my first technology upgrade after buying ebooks ten years ago, I didn’t realize that my ebooks would become so many useless 1s and 0s. You know which enhancement I want? Ebooks that I can read in five or even ten year’s time. When I buy a book, I expect a DVD-like permanence, not a one-time movie pass.
In the last ten years, I’ve noticed that the quality of ebooks has actually decreased when it comes to formatting, layout, and editing. Many are quite hard to read and some are downright unreadable. So guess which other enhancement I would like? Ebooks with proper layout and formatting.
For those publishers that don’t know what that means, let me spell it out: no double-spacing, no headers or page numbers in the middle of the page, no funky justification issues, and no incomprehensible words due to an uncorrected OCR scan. Punctuation would also be nice. I’m not asking for the moon here, just give me something I can read where I don’t have to spend half my time figuring out what’s going on with the layout. Because dealing with the layout isn’t the reader’s job; it’s the publisher’s job.
Another thing that’s not my job to deal with, as a reader, is copy protection. Seriously, if it takes me thirty minutes and enough personal information to steal my identity to open the ebook, then you, the publisher, have lost a paying customer. Readers (those would be your customers) who have paid money (that would be the stuff your accountants are so fond of) should not have to jump through hoops to open an ebook. Would you sell a hardcover with a padlock on it? Here’s an enhancement: let readers actually read the book that they paid for.
I don’t want bells, whistles, videos, or soundtracks. I especially don’t want “enhancements” from publishers that can’t get the substance of an ebook, the text, right. Can you imagine what they would do to multimedia? I don’t want reader guides, online maps, author interviews, soundtracks, or any of those other things. Those things mean I can get fewer books on my iPod. I don’t want to need an Internet connection just to read a book. Books are the things I read to get away from the Internet so don’t drag me back onto it with “enhancements.”
Maybe I’m just bitter because I lost my collection of Star Trek ebooks to the ravages of technology creep.
What about you? Are there any enhancements that would make YOU pay more than the price of a hardcover for an ebook?
I’d really like to know, because I can’t think of any.
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>>>When I buy a book, I expect a DVD-like permanence, not a one-time movie pass.
Wow, are you in for a shock there. CDs rot, so do DVDs. None of that is *permanent*. (And, um, paper rots too, so not let’s get all reactionary.)
I burned a CD-R four years ago. It’s been read from maybe four times. It was kept in a bin away from temperature extremes, out of light, and in a jewel case. And surprise! It ROTTED! 770MBs of data gone to Digital Hell.
I just wanted to address this issue for you, not the others.
I didn’t mean to imply that DVDs lasted forever, just longer than ebooks. After I wrote this post though, I realized that the comparison is flawed because it compares format (ebook) to media (dvd) instead of format to format.
A better comparison that (I hope) makes clearer what I meant is that I want a standard in formats like there is for digital photography so that I can still access the ebooks in 10 years time. If digital photographs became inaccessible with every technology upgrade, few would have adopted the format. Until that issue is addressed for ebooks, I’ll favour paper over digital files.
You and I have discussed why your CD-R “rotted.” Commercially-produced DVDs and CDs do last longer but, like I said above, that wasn’t the best analogy for what I meant.
Anysia´s last blog ..Enhance This, Publishing Industry
Layout definitely does seem to be an issue with e-books!
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