Survey! Talk to publishers!

[elf]

(Crossposted with permission)

This month, the Tools of Change conference will take place. Jane from Dear Author along with Sarah Wendell from Smart Bitches Trashy Books and Editor Angela James from Carina Press will be presenting.

Their presentation is what readers want and it is based on conversations they've had with ebook readers for over four years on their blogs, in email, and on message boards. But folks like hard numbers along with anecdotes so they've put together a survey and would love for you to fill it out. If you do fill it out, you'll be entered to win $250.00 toward books or an ebook reader of your choice.

Survey Link Here

It's an opportunity for your voice to be heard.

Comments

[wide_worlds_joy]

Thanks. That helped.

I wish there was a company out there that was brave enough to do like a lot of print books are doing, giving them away.

I don't have an ebook reader. I have my laptop and that is it (unless you count my daughter's Nintendo DS in that, but I don't). It would really REALLY make me likely to buy books from the publisher/store if I could get an ereader along with a couple books. Say, the complete book series of Narnia, Lord of the Rings, or Harry Potter, boxed set with this ereader. I'd pay $50 or more for that. They would get their money, I'd get a reader, and I'd be VERY likely to buy their books because of that.

Fat chance.

[elf]

The cost of the devices hasn't dropped enough for that; e-ink is still very expensive as electronic widgets go, and the other types of screens haven't had enough demand, as ebooks, for anyone to figure out the optimal arrangement & produce enough to drop the price.

That said, the ebookwise is down to $89. It only reads .IMP books, but the conversion software (included) is easy, and Mobileread has a huge collection of public-domain & creative commons .IMP ebooks.

I don't think dedicated ebook readers are ever going to hit $50; by the time the tech has gotten that good, inflation will have changed the value of the dollar. But I think that, like computers, the price will drop little bits at a time as inflation grows. (20 years ago, a decent-not-great desktop was $1500. Now it's $500.)

The Narnia ebooks are apparently exclusive with Amazon (bleh); LotR are all over the place, and still annoyingly expensive for ebooks; Harry Potter has never been released as legit ebooks because Rowling is anti-ebook; she wants people to read her stories on *paper*. (Erm, or listen to them as audiobooks. Or watch them as movies. But certainly not read them on a screen.)

The Jetbook comes with a set of public-domain classics; it's a nice gimmick, but there are better-formatted versions available for most of what they include. A savvy ebook device seller could put together a solid collection of free ebooks (which customers could get online, but they'd have to track them down individually).

My current preferences is for the Astak Pocket Pro: $200 for an e-ink reader that reads all the major filetypes.