Did you honestly think I’d go without writing a post about the newest cool gadget from Apple? Don’t worry, I’m not turning Brad’s Reader into a fanboy site, but the iPad has tremendous implications for the world of ebooks. Will it be the long awaited ‘Kindle killer’? I don’t know.

For the last year or so (maybe even longer) there have been rumors that Apple would eventually release a tablet device. That day has come. At first glace, iPad is a beefed up version of the iPhone/iPod Touch. But under the hood the iPad is impressive. I want onto the MacRumors blog and here’s what they had to say:

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Book publishers are still struggling to figure out a way to deal with ebook pirates in a way that will not alienate the average ebook reader. The music industry did a very crappy job of this, and they are paying the price.

In general, the publishers believe that ebooks strip sales from print books (of course, print books are more expensive) and that ebooks are so easy to pirate, they need to be loaded with draconian DRM to protect the financial interests of the publishing company and the author.

I think that these publishers are deluding themselves. Ebooks can help drive sales of print books and ebooks, in the end, are more profitable because of the ‘infinite supply’ theory. Furthermore, DRM has done little to stop pirates. DRM only serves to keep honest readers from buying an ebook.

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One of my biggest frustrations with reading ebooks is how they are formatted. I’m not talking about the file type (i.e. Epub, PDF, PDB, lrf, mobi, etc), I’m talking about how the ebook looks on the device’s screen. Like most other things with ebooks, there is no standard, at least not yet.

Right now I’m reading Stephen King’s new novel Under the Dome (aff link) as an ebook – one I purchased from Sony’s ebook store for my Sony Pocket Edition. When I first opened the ebook on my reader, I had to flip through about 10 pages of the usual copyright stuff, acknowledgments, a page with just the title on it (lest I forget what I’m reading between opening the ebook and clicking through those first few pages).

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I’ve always had a crazy dream of self-publishing a book, filling the trunk of my car with as many cases of my books that will fit, and drive around the country selling them to anyone and everyone. I’d hit as many craft fairs and county fairs as I could. Heck, I’d even set up shop in parking lots.

The logistics of a dream like this would be a nightmare – not to mention bankrolling the drive around the country. It’d be hard to break even. But the thought is still nice because it embodies the independent spirit that many of us have pulsating through our veins.

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I just returned from spending a few days in San Diego on family business (hence my lack of posts this week). While my reason for going there was quite sad, it was nice to get away from the cold Chicago winter and spend some time in the warm California sun and visit with my extended family.

There are a two bits I wanted to share with you regarding my trip, both dealing with ebooks.

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Sometimes I just want to throw my hands up in the air and give up. I’m talking about those publishers and authors who are paranoid about their books being pirated if they’re released as ebooks. This ’strategy’ is not very business smart. Why? Because when a publisher/author refuses to release a book in ebook format for fear of pirating, it gets pirated anyway. I’ve pointed this out in one of my most commented-on posts J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the definition of irony.

Now we can add Stephen King into the mix (yes, that Stephen King, the one who wrote an exclusive ebook for the new Kindle he helped promote). His newest novel ‘Under the Dome’ was released in ebook format several weeks after the print release of the book. Publishers didn’t want the lower ebook price to eat away at the higher hard cover price. Within days of the print release, pirated ebooks of ‘Under the Dome’ were circulating around the internet. In turn, this ate away at print and ebook sales.

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The past 10 years have seen a lot of changes in the publishing world. The biggest change of them all is ebooks. 10 years ago ebooks were a still a novelty enjoyed by mostly techies/geeks and were a popular product for online multi-level marketing schemes where ebook topics dealt mostly with get-quick-rich marketing methods and the like. The ebooks were of poor quality and filled with grammar/spelling errors. This probably did more to damage the reputation of ebooks than anything else.

Fast forward to 2009 and ebooks are becoming much more mainstream (still a small segment of the publishing industry, but growing) and publishers are now scrambling to figure out how to deal with this new form of consuming our favorite literary works. Add to that the family of ebook readers from Sony, Amazon and now Barnes & Noble, I think it’s safe to say that ebooks aren’t going anywhere.

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Today I was watching the news and they were giving money-saving tips for the holiday shopping season. One of the tips was saying ‘No!” to extended warranty plans that many stores try to talk consumers into when buying electronics. This got me thinking about ebook reading devices and whether or not it’s worth the extra money for an extended warranty.

Personally, I’ve had a good experience in the past with an extended warranty. When I bought my first laptop in 1999 (a Compaq Presario) I purchased the extended warranty, not really knowing any better. Little did I know this would pay off big time. A few years later the screen on my laptop suddenly stopped working.

I took it into the store where I purchased it and they replaced the screen for free. My laptop also had other problems that required lengthy and expensive repairs – at no cost to me thanks to the extended warranty I purchased.

I calculated the cost of the repairs to be about as much as the laptop was worth when I bought it.  I really lucked out. Since then I’ve had a pretty good feeling about these warranties because, let’s face it, electronics can be fragile and tend to break down at the worst possible times.

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Random House is claiming the ebook rights to a majority of its backlist titles, according to RH chairman Markus Dohle. This move shows, yet again, that authors are better off without a large publishing company. Once you sign over your book to them, they can pretty much do whatever they want.

RH made their intentions known in a letter Dohle sent out to literary agents, which you can find a link to in this Publishers Weekly article (note: link opens up a PDF file). After reading the letter, I found it interesting that the entire first page is filled with corporate marketing propaganda, and then promptly lays down the law that RH has exclusive rights to publish an author’s work in ebook format:

In his letter, Dohle makes clear that RH believes the “vast majority” of its backlist contracts “grant us the right to publish books in electronic formats,” while older agreements “often give us the exclusive right to publish ‘in book form’ or ‘in any and all editions.’

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I continue to be amazed at these large publishing houses who still resist ebooks. Have they learned nothing from the music industry? HarperCollins made a recent announcement that they planned on delaying the release of ebooks for new titles. I really don’t understand their reasoning for wanting to delay the release of ebooks.

In an interview, Brian Murray, chief executive of News Corp.’s HarperCollins Publishers, said that beginning in January or February, HarperCollins will delay the e-book publication of five to 10 new hardcover titles each month. The delays are expected to range from four weeks to six months, depending on the book.

Four weeks to six months? All HarperCollins is doing by making this move is encouraging piracy. I have always maintained that piracy by itself is not the problem, rather it is the symptom of the problem. The problem is publishers not embracing new technology and publishing models and not giving people books in the format they want. If people want to read a new release in ebook format, there is a segment of those readers who will resort to finding a pirated edition.

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