The E-Book is one of the most rapidly expanding publishing methods, and one that many people have many opinions on. I know people who are very much against E-Books and what they are and what they entail. Now as a publisher I have to walk the fine line, as I am not "against" the E-Book however I am against what they have become.
Now I know I just said I am against them, however I am not. Have I confused you yet? Let me explain what I mean.
The E-Book has the potential to be something very positive not only for the consumer, but also for the publisher. However the industry has morphed into this arguing and non-standard entity that frankly has taken the fun out of them.
Kindle, Nook, Epub, Ipub, PDF, yadda yadda yadda.... It seems that the creators of the readers are so paranoid that they wont get ALL the market share, that they purposly design their readers to not be compatable with other readers and so on. Who loses in this? Well frankly we all do. What the industry is doing to E-Books and the formats of them, is like me publishing my books using my own written language, that I wont share with other publishers.
What we need is ONE. Yes I said ONE standard format so that we can have a standard to not only use that would make it easier for publishers, but also it would allow the folks who make the actual readers center more on innovation of the reader.
Plus with a standard format, the author wins as they can get their book out to more people in more diverse markets.
I think the E-Book and the reader is a great concept, it is portable, less expensive to purchase books, and you can haul around an entire library. Great things indeed for those that want it, however lets throw something out there.... There is something alot of people are not thinking of here. Without standardizing the language of the reader, you risk that YOUR reader and the format it reads wil one day be obsolete. WOLF was and is a good example....
Now in this writers opinion, the format to go with as the STANDARD is the E-PUB... every reader out there except the Kindle uses it. I say we should make this the one to go with. 2 Moon Press will use this as the standard for its E-Book sales for now on.
I say publishers and authors need to do what they can to ensure that hardware and industry support does not continue to evolve into this miasma of formats that it is becoming.
