Survey saaaaays....

[elf]

A poll! Because we all need more polls! Or rather, because I looked at the membership list and said, mygods, who ARE all these people, and also, I bet they'd like more ... posts about ... something ebookish.. In order to figure out what kinds of posts those should be, I bring you ... TICKY BOXES! Confirm your ebookish identity, knowledge, and DRM skills!

Poll #5653 Who are you people?

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 86

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What kind of ebook person are you?

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I read ebooks
67 (77.9%)

I buy and read ebooks
58 (67.4%)

I write ebooks
6 (7.0%)

I write and sell ebooks
1 (1.2%)

I convert/reformat ebooks
49 (57.0%)

I don't write or read ebooks (yet?), but I'm interested in them
6 (7.0%)

Your ticky boxes cannot contain my ebookery
20 (23.3%)

Ticky box, ticky boox, e-tickery abounds
30 (34.9%)

If you read ebooks, what do you read them on?

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I don't read ebooks.
2 (2.4%)

Desktop computer
26 (30.6%)

Laptop or netbook.
40 (47.1%)

E-ink dedicated reader.
56 (65.9%)

LCD screen dedicated reader
1 (1.2%)

Phone or PDA
25 (29.4%)

Tablet computer
6 (7.1%)

Something else, which you have failed to describe
3 (3.5%)

TICKY OF DOOM!
21 (24.7%)

Do you have a device/ereader preference? (Or: what do you think you'd prefer, if you don't have one yet.)

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I don't read ebooks.
2 (2.3%)

I don't have a preference.
1 (1.2%)

I prefer to read on a computer
0 (0.0%)

I prefer to read on a dedicated ebook reader.
49 (57.0%)

I prefer a multifunction device (iPad, phone, etc.)
17 (19.8%)

I have different preferences in different circumstances.
16 (18.6%)

I prefer something else.
1 (1.2%)

What do you know about ebook formats?

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Ebook for mats? No, ebooks for bed, chairs, couches ...
5 (5.8%)

There's a lot of them. They're a confusing mess.
32 (37.2%)

One is better than the rest, and it's my preference.
14 (16.3%)

One is better than the rest, and I prefer something else anyway.
1 (1.2%)

They all have different pros & cons; I don't think any is best.
25 (29.1%)

I know which ones work on my ereader.
61 (70.9%)

I know which ones work on most ereaders.
36 (41.9%)

My knowledge of ebook formats exceeds your ticky-talents.
8 (9.3%)

What do you know about DRM?

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What does Dating Republican Men have to do with ebooks?
4 (4.7%)

It's evil.
42 (49.4%)

It's a way for authors to avoid getting ripped off.
12 (14.1%)

I know what kind works on my ereader.
25 (29.4%)

I know what kinds work on most ereaders.
14 (16.5%)

I know how to remove it from ebooks I buy.
14 (16.5%)

I could figure out how to remove it if I wanted/needed to.
43 (50.6%)

I have many thinky thoughts about DRM and can expound on them at length.
22 (25.9%)

It's a damned nuisance. I dunno about "evil," though.
42 (49.4%)

Tickety-tickety-tick tick tick.
29 (34.1%)

Comments

[mackiedockie]

I'm trying to figure out how to add ebooks to our library without breaking the existing (already too small) book budget. Downloading and drm issues are totally fogging the issue--how does one pick a format that doesn't leave a significant population out of the loop? Some devices are unaffordable, others are so laced with access issues only those born with an ipod in their hand can figure them out...*le sigh*.

[elf]

You can start with free ebook sources, which won't have much in the way of currently trendy titles, but can give you experience with downloads, formats, and as much of the technical side of things as you care to explore.

For myself, I don't buy DRM at all. I buy from Smashwords and a bit from Fictionwise (the "multiformat" ebooks), Baen and Samhain, and a few other indie presses. I use Calibre to convert to whatever format I want to read. (Usually epub.)

All the devices will read non-DRM'd, not-purchased-from-their-store ebooks; some try harder to hide that fact than others.

Brief format notes:
Right now, there are 2-and-two-halves main commercial formats: Epub & Mobi are the two; PDF and LIT are the halves. (PDF is a half because it's weird as an ebook format, and it's offered with the same DRM as Epub; LIT because it's Microsoft's proprietary format and is on the way out; few places are still carrying it.)

DRM styles for Epub/PDF are:
1) Adobe Digital Editions (authorize up to 6 devices on an account.)
2) Adobe Digital Editions, Nook Style (which uses your credit card # as a password, instead of locking you to a single set of devices.)
3) Wonky things that require you to be logged in online in order to read the PDF. This is mostly some textbook & magazine readers. Also some Googlebooks.
4) Apple's whatever-the-hell that only works on their mobile devices. My guess: if the app ever runs on a non-iThing machine, it'll be cracked in a week. If they keep their DRM'd ibookstore to iPods & iPads only, they'll keep the DRM lock. (But lose customers who want to read their ebooks on something else.)

DRM for Mobi is:
1) Mobipocket DRM, limited number of devices, many ebook stores;
2) Kindle, which is Mobi DRM with a different Magic Number buried in the middle; Kindle books aren't readable by Mobi-blessed devices, and vice versa, without playing DRM-hopping games.

DRM for LIT is
Microsoft's special must-use-Internet-Explorer DRM, which was cracked years ago by a program that'll run from a flash drive. (ConvertLit. Easily googled.) The hassle with Lit is that you need Windows & IE to use it at all.

[jumpuphigh]

I don't know if it is LIT, calibre, or just my own personal brand of bad luck but it seems to me (not a scientific study by any means) that converting LIT to epub causes bad things to happen to formatting and just generally makes me grumpy and more likely to delete the ebook in its entirety than try to sort out the formatting so that I can read it with any sense of ease.

That may be the longest sentence I have ever written.

[elf]

Calibre's supposed to *like* .lit; that's supposed to be its favorite source format.

If it's not working for you, maybe get a copy of convertlit & use that; it explodes the file into HTML.

[maryavatar]

ABC Amber LIT converter has given me good results in the past.

[mackiedockie]

Thank you for your thoughtful and detailed reply. It will definitely help me explain the parameters to the "Buy Ebooks now!" faction, whose only exposure to ebooks is on prepaid kindles.

[isis]

I don't know where you are, but our library belongs to two different consortia which provide downloadable books to members. (Netlibrary has, for our library, mostly audiobooks and a few ebooks, but the Across Colorado Consortium has a really large selection.) I don't know how much that costs but I imagine less than the price of buying and providing individual books. Also, our library has just started offering a couple of Nooks for check-out, which I would have thought sort of weird but they are very popular.

[holyschist]

Holy crap, I would love that--if I were going on a short trip where taking books was impractical but didn't own an ereader, or to be able to properly try out eInk before I commit to buying an ereader. I wish my library did that...I don't *think* it does.

[isis]

Yeah, it's a brand-new program, just started Dec 10th. They have 6 Nooks "preloaded with bestsellers, or add titles from our downloadable services". Users need to take a short orientation before being certified to check them out. Currently they are all checked out or on the holdshelf, and there are 16 holds, so VERY popular.

[holyschist]

Part of my reservations about getting an ereader is still that I'm not sure I'm actually willing to read whole books on one, and I don't know anyone locally who has an eInk reader they'd be willing to loan me for a few days. Being able to check one out of the library would be brilliant.

Evidently not my part of Colorado, though. :-/ (I also found out recently that the Boulder library system doesn't let you put holds on things unless you physically live in Boulder County, which I don't. That makes me grouchy.)

[elf]

You could try wading through the incredibly huge "see a device in a café near you" hookup thread at MobileRead. (There's a link to a map, but it's broken; the map site stopped being available to free users a long time ago.)

I was nervous too; I got a free secondhand Clie PDA, and read books on that for two years before it clicked that yes, I *will* read on a hand-held battery-operated screen instead of paper.

After I got my Sony, it took about two months to decide I never want to read on paper again.

[holyschist]

I am fairly confident I will not give up paper entirely--I really don't want to read in the bath on anything electronic, I definitely like paper better than eInk, and there are still a lot of advantages of paper books that make me more willing to spend money on them (plus I read a lot of heavily illustrated nonfiction that just doesn't work so well on a small screen, if it were even available digitally, which it's not). I want an ereader for some very specific purposes as a complement to my paper library, not as a replacement for it.

The problem with the idea in that thread is that I can play around with one in a store fine, but I really need to be able to borrow one for a few days, and I don't see a stranger doing that. I sure wouldn't.

[elf]

I really don't want to read in the bath on anything electronic

Ziplocs are the ultimate ebook reader accessory.

There are plenty of areas where ebook readers aren't as good as paper. They're *atrocious* for academic study, and lousy for anything image-heavy. What they're best at is casual leisure reading, and I suspect they'll start to erode the pop paperback market soon. But the schools and publisher that are getting starry-eyed at the concept of "every student with a Kindle..." um, not gonna work; the hardware has severe limits and the software development isn't pushing in the direction it'd need to go to make them academically useful for most students.

I do know that more libraries are starting to have ereaders to loan out, and I can hope that something near you will have some soon. Or that you find a friend or acquaintance that's upgraded their K1 to a K3 and doesn't mind loaning out their older one for a few days.

[holyschist]

The thought of trying to read a screen through a ziploc makes me rather unenthused. And, uh, a lot of my casual leisure reading is academic books.

I'm not holding my breath on the library thing; my local system doesn't even have an effective electronic reminder system; the system I actually use doesn't allow out-of-county people to put holds on books (!) so I wouldn't have a prayer of getting my hands on an ereader; the place I'm going to live for the next year is in the Middle of Nowhere and I am not optimistic about their libraries, period.

I just don't know many people offline who use ereaders, period.