Comments on: Google’s Plan for Your Ebook Reading

By: John Soares

John Soares — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 16:10:25 +0000

In reply to Jan. I still haven't purchased an e-reader, Kindle or otherwise. I may eventually make the switch, but I have such a large investment in my print books, both monetarily and emotionally, that I'm not quite ready to make the leap. I still read lots of ebooks as PDF files on my computer.

By: Jan

Jan — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 04:25:46 +0000

I LOVE my kindle. It’s easy on the eyes, lightweight, you can read with one hand while you’re taking a lunch break outdoors (no worries about the wind blowing your pages around), and you can take a large library with you without the weight/bulk of physical books. I can also read those same books on my computer, iphone, and kindle without having to be connected to the internet all the time. I’m an ‘active reader’ (meaning I take lots of notes, etc while reading) and can easily look up those notes later for review. I think I’ll just stick to the kindle for my reading, but of course for publishing purposes will keep my eyes on other methods.

By: John Soares

John Soares — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 16:30:46 +0000

In reply to Juli Monroe. PDFs are definitely not ideal, but they are easy to create and they are universal.

By: Juli Monroe

Juli Monroe — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 12:08:24 +0000

In reply to Michael Kauffmann. pdfs work, but I wouldn't say they work well. Most pdfs don't reflow, and with the small screens, users have to zoom in, which leads to a lot of back and forth on the screen. The Kindle DX handles pdfs the best, but even that's not great. pdfs look pretty on my Nook Color, but I have to zoom in to read the text, and that's kind of a pain.

By: Michael Kauffmann

Michael Kauffmann — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 15:21:52 +0000

John- I appreciate the updates for this new technology. I need to learn more about it – it will be a powerful tool moving forward. I want to know more about formatting these sort of projects. It seems like pdf’s work on most of these devices?

By: John Soares

John Soares — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 19:44:38 +0000

In reply to Fran Grabowski. Fran, you point out some key advantages of reading e-books. And you've also hit on one of my pet peeves about print books. Some of 'em are so heavy that they are hard to hold up when I'm reading in bed.

By: Fran Grabowski

Fran Grabowski — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 05:28:05 +0000

I like ebooks because of flexibility. I can read in bed without a night light and I don’t have to position a 10lb. book on my lap. I can look up every occurrence of a word, which is great for research. I can be reading 10 books and you can open up to the last page read on every one. I prefer the ebook, but I don’t think paper books are going away any time soon.

By: Juli Monroe

Juli Monroe — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 18:24:52 +0000

I like the idea of books being in the cloud and accessible everywhere. And I love e-books. I’ve been reading them for years, starting on an old PalmOS device.

However, I am underwhelmed by Google Books. Right now, I do most of my reading on my brand new NookColor (which I am loving), but the feature I most like about Google Books (reading on multiple devices) doesn’t work with any dedicated e-book reader. And the books aren’t available on Kindle, which is still the biggest selling dedicated device.

So, good concept, but the execution leaves something to be desired. Right now Google Books has no advantage over the Nook Store for me.

By: John Soares

John Soares — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 15:43:50 +0000

In reply to Patricia@lavender-oils. Patricia, I don't think print books are going away; they'll just have less and less of overall market share. I think we'll see more movement to the print-on-demand model for print books and the continued decline of brick-and-mortar bookstores, which is why I argued in an earlier post that publishers should give authors a 50% royalty on net receipts from e-book sales.

By: Patricia@lavender-oils

Patricia@lavender-oils — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 15:16:22 +0000

Hi John

I love printed books but do read a lot of teaching e-books online. Like the sound of Google’s cloud and will probably be trying it out.

They predicted the demise of printed books awhile back and yet there are still plenty around. Will be interesting to see how this all pans out.

Patricia Perth Australia