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.

In any case, here are your six free ebook leads for the week. I haven’t kept up on Random House’s free ebook releases so there are a few (I expect many of you are keeping an eye on this publisher’s Scribd channel yourselves):

The Templar Legacy by Steve Berry (PDF download) is also available as a free (for a limited time) Kindle edition:

The Templar Legacy has pretty mixed reviews on Amazon.com (click the cover image to see for yourself). It’s a Da Vinci Code sort of story. No cost to download and check it out for yourself though.

According to the Amazon.com description A Kiss of Shadows is “a supernatural fantasy with detective adventure and hot sex.” Sounds like a good escape to me especially since I’m not waiting for the last of Karen Marie Moning’s Fever series to come out.

Another book with mixed reviews according to the-online-bookseller-I-dare-not-mention (click cover to see reviews). This appears to be a YA science fiction adventure. If you are familiar with this author, the consensus seems to be that this book isn’t up to the same quality compared to her other books. On the other hand, it’s free for you to see for yourself.

A collection of short stories and poetry covering a number of genres including fantasy, humour, science fiction, and love stories (so I hear, I haven’t actually read this one either although people seem to be pretty happy with it over on, er, that site.

A science fiction novel of the military kind. A group of marines are stranded in an alien desert and have to get to safety 85 miles away across uncharted territory bristling with unfriendly locals (Wouldn’t they be using metric in the future, or will the U.S. always hold out on that? Sorry, it’s late as I write this and my mind is wandering.).

A fantasy novel complete with elves, goblins, centaurs, and giants (oh my!). I think this one is YA, but don’t quote me on that.

#1: Something is up at Amazon (again). Are they forcing publishers to put up searchable copies of their books before the book is for sale?

#2: Interesting statement on the Google Book Settlement, excerpted and highlighted for easy reading. Covers the reasons the settlement has “bad idea” written all over it.

#3: An article on Craigslist and its odd founder from Wired examining why, against all odds and a staunch refusal to innovate, Craigslist continues to dominate online classifieds. The article is much more interesting than I make it sound. Really.

#4: Star Trek fan? John Scalzi ranks Star Trek film directors.

#5: Use Gmail? Here’s a handy Lifehacker article with a number of ways to access Gmail when it goes down.

#6: James Patterson signs 17-book over 5 years deal. Sigh. This is why I often stop reading authors: too many books pumped out over too little time leaving them cookie-cutterish, boring, and predictable. Apparently he comes up with an outline and contracts out the writing of the first draft (which is the most time-consuming and painful part of the writing process for many), so he’s not really “writing” 17 books.

#7: An article on why students aren’t ready for digital textbooks (or as I read it: why digital textbooks aren’t ready for students).

#1: The best Kijiji ad ever. Kijiji is somewhat like Craigslist if you’re unfamiliar with it. Hey, if you’re going to ask for something for free, you might as well make it interesting (seriously, go read it).

#2: You may have heard that news that John Hughes died last week. He was the director of a number of movies, like The Breakfast Club, that defined the ’80s for many people in North America. In the wake of his death, there was a very interesting/touching post on a blog by a woman who was pen pals with John Hughes when she was a teenager.

#3: You know you’re unpopular when hackers trying to knock you off the web take out LiveJournal, Facebook, and Twitter to do it. Something tells me this guy is going to be unpopular with users of those sites for a while. In other news: Georgia and Russia are still not playing nice with each other.

#4: A humorous look at the ups and downs of writing (er, dating) a book from initial idea (first date) to publication (break up) by Libba Bray. Dang, I wish I was this clever.

#5: If you’ve been using Tr.im as your URL shortener, you’re out of luck. The service is shutting down. No word on what happens to all those shortened links people have made.

#6: It was bound to happen: Recent Amazon patent filings suggest ads are coming to Kindle ebooks.

#7: Do you know what it takes to be blocked by William Shatner on Twitter? Hilarious blog post by blockee.

Subscribe to Random House’s audiobook newsletter (see right side) and they’ll give you three free audiobook downloads: Merrano of the Dry Country by Louis L’Amour, Magic Tree House #1: Dinosaurs Before Dark, and Percy Jackson and the Sword of Hades.

Karen Marie Moning has another book out in her Fever series, which means the first book in the series, Darkfever, is free again. Last year it was a free podiobook (still available); this year it’s a free ebook. I’ve enjoyed this series despite some pacing issues (not unusual in a 5-book series). I read the first two books in a single weekend!

Don’t forget to check out the sidebar on that page to see what other full books Random House has put up on Scribd. A quick look shows full copies of Queen of the Orcs: King’s Property by Morgan Howell, The Brass Bed by Jennifer Stevenson, and The Briar King by Greg Keyes as well as some other books I’ve previously mentioned.

Let me know if you read anything good.

#1: If you enjoyed the link a few weeks back on making unusual bookshelves, you’ll like this LifeHacker round up of bookworm hacks that have been featured on this site (including the bookshelf one I linked to a few weeks ago).

#2 For those of you who are in the UK and dying for a Kindle, you may just get your wish this fall (er, I mean ‘autumn’). No word on when it comes to Canada–but I’m quite happy with my iPod Touch for book reading.

#3: If the idea of destroying any book for any reason gives you hives, you may want to skip this link: Artist Su Blackwell makes art out of old books.

#4: Barnes & Noble recently offered their readers the B&N eReader software for free plus six ebooks. Problem? The six ebooks are in the public domain but B&N has put DRM on them. Say what?

#5: From my inbox (hey, stranger things have happened): If you’re in the US and you’re looking for a used book sale (or having one), there’s a website for that. Let me know if you find it useful.

#1: I can’t imagine who thought this was a good idea, but a publisher convinced Amazon to delete Orwell ebooks that had already been bought on customer Kindles. That’s sure to encourage consumers to buy ebooks…or maybe not.

#2: It’s all very good to have a blurb by a famous author on a less famous author’s book, but designing the cover to fool the consumer into thinking the book was actually written by said famous author? Not cool. Not cool at all.

#3: Remember that speech Sarah Palin gave when she resigned her post as governor of Alaska? Someone has edited, copy edited, and fact checked that train wreck into understandable English. I was tempted to do this myself, but Vanity Fair beat me to it.

#4: I’ve long suspected that Facebook is a privacy nightmare, but I didn’t know that it actually violates the law (at least where I live). Maybe I’ll finally be able to delete my account from my 5 minute foray into Facebookdom (creepy).

#5: Another post on judging a book by its cover. This one from Justine Larbalestier on the US cover of her book Liar where the cover shows a white girl but the lead character is actually black. Confusing to the readers to say the least especially since the book is about a girl that lies and the cover suggests she is lying about at least one thing she isn’t lying about.

When three friends set out on a quest to build a real-life Buck Rogers-style flying machine, their obsession with the Rocketbelt 2000, or ‘Pretty Bird’, shattered their friendship and set in motion an astonishing chain of events involving theft, deception, a bizarre kidnapping, a ten million dollar lawsuit and a horrifically brutal murder.

This book was originally self-published in the UK and then picked up by a UK publisher and now a US publisher. For a limited time (which may have expired by the time you read this), you can get a free paperback copy for the cost of shipping. You can also opt for the free ebook download.

The World Ebook Fair appears to be a yearly event where, for one month only (until August 4th this year) you have free access to the ebooks of participating libraries (normally there is a monthly charge though some libraries included appear to free all the time). They say that there are 2 million books in the combined collection.

The collection includes some sites that are always free and have been featured here before (like the BAEN collection). It looks like there are a lot of older and/or obscure titles included but that doesn’t mean there isn’t interesting reading to be had. If you are a writer (or just the curious type) there are a number of government and academic libraries on the list that look like they have a wealth of information on obscure topics.

Another plus is that you will find books in different languages. I recognized Spanish, Dutch, and French sites, but I didn’t look through the whole list (it looked like there might be some Japanese books as well).

Enjoy and let me know if you come across anything good. With 2 million books to go through it would be great to have some leads to narrow it down!

#1: An update on J.D. Salinger’s bid to block publication of a book based on The Catcher in the Rye. A temporary restraining issue was issued, but the judge reserved judgment on the fair use issues raised.

#2: J. A. Konrath, author of Whiskey Sour and other novels, weighs in on the price of ebooks: “The rules of supply and demand don’t work in a digital world, because the supply is unlimited. You don’t fight piracy with weapons. You fight piracy with cost and convenience.” Exactly!

#3: One of the advantages of the Kindle is supposed to be that your library of books you’ve bought is always there for you to download so you don’t have to keep copies of every single book on your Kindle. Well, apparently the downloads aren’t unlimited. If you download a book too many times Amazon won’t allow the download and you’ll have to pay for the book again. Be sure to read the next article in the saga (linked at the bottom of the first article). It seems even Amazon doesn’t know what’s going on. More on Kindle DRM issues.

#4: A very good assessment on How the eBook Industry Isn’t Like the Music Industry.