eBooks - Buy or Rent?

Regular readers of this blog will know that I'm a fan of eBooks.  I'm also a bit of a biased observer, given that I have an eBook or six up for sale, but at least I'm up front about that.  I've mooted on several occasions that the days of brick and mortar bookshops are numbered, save for a few specialists, and that we'll be reading our newspapers and magazines on tablets in a few short years.  OK, the timing is part speculation, part based on research in the US.  And the bit about tablets is based on the technological flavour of the moment - there could be some fantastic evolutionary development just around the corner but I suspect the tablet has some distance to run yet.

However it seems there's a fly in the ointment that may play into the hands of the naysayers of eBooks.  It's about what you actually buy when you pay for an eBook.  Or a digital download of a music track, or a download of a movie or computer game.  Now, when I buy a paperback - I do still now and then, just to check out the alternative technology - I can pop it in my bookcase and let other family members read it too. Friends as well, at a push. I don't have the right to photocopy the book and sell that on, nor do I have the right to type the story out and sell it as my own.  But I can let others read it.

When someone downloads one of my eBooks I kind of assume they have similar rights, just as I do when I download eBooks from Amazon or Smashwords.  But it seems that may not be the case.  Recently a Norwegian lady found that Amazon froze her access to her Kindle books after her Kindle developed a fault. Somewhere between her reporting the fault and Amazon replacing the Kindle they decided for some undisclosed reason that she had breached their rules.  That meant that she couldn't access her books on her iPad through the Kindle App and of course, as her Kindle was Kaput she couldn't read them there, either.  Initially Amazon stonewalled her but, in the face of a very public complaint reinstated her access.  There is a technological answer to this, though - run your Kindle books through Calibre to remove the Digital Rights Management code and store a copy somewhere safe.

This isn't isolated.  There was a situation over a year ago where Amazon were slapped for letting someone sell books through the Kindle store that didn't belong to them - as I say, people don't have the right to type out someone else's story and sell it as their own.  Amazon responded by, amongst other things, sucking books off Kindles that had been bought in good faith.  A bit harsh, seeing as the mistake was essentially Amazon's and to be fair they have promised not to do that again.   The point is, once you sync with Amazon, or Apple, or Kobo etc, they can re-write your digital library according to their wishes.

It's even bigger than eBooks - as if anything could be bigger!  No other than Bruce Willis, the star of the Die Hard series, is challenging the rights of Apple to dictate that when he dies, his iTunes account dies with him.  Not literally buried in the same casket, of course, but all those iTunes he has bought over the years will not be available to his family to play.  Now when I shrug this mortal coil my family will have a substantial amount of vinyl records and CDs to play or hawk on eBay, whatever - and I guess that Apple, Amazon and any other digital purveyor will have to get over it.  But anything I've bought on Apple etc may not be available.  Of course, unless I experience a dramatic reversal of artistic fortune I guess that Apple et al are more likely to hear of Mr Willis's demise than mine.  Bruce (I hope I can get away with using his first name) is apparently considering legal action, however at least one commentator reckons that the Apple claim to his music is at best bluster.  I'll leave it to the lawyers, at least it's an honourable topic to take to court.  Way better than arguing about who owns the right to apps bouncing back a fraction.  Or whether a rectangular phone with curved edges is legally cooler than other rectangular phones - with or without curved corners.

But this does need to be resolved.  eBooks are the future of reading, of that I'm sure.  However if there is doubt about legitimate ownership, as opposed to sharks and low-lives hawking other people's work on eBay for an unearned profit in 'compilations', then it will take longer to establish.  DRM probably isn't the answer and anyone who buys a book from Smashwords, for example, get that book DRM free.  Ultimately, the digital sellers have to realise that for years we've all had access to our parents' records and books and perhaps as kids that was what we listened to and read, but in the real grown up world we tend to listen and read our own generation.  Sure, it's a great nostalgia trip to go back to our parents' faves now and then, but most of us don't do that often or even willingly.

For the record, I think we chould be buying, not renting.

--------------------------------------------------------------

I can be followed on Twitter too - @RayASullivan
or on Facebook - use raysullivan.novels@yahoo.com to find me

Why not take a look at my books and read up on my Biog here

Want to see what B L O'Feld is up to?  Take a look at his website here

Worried/Interested in the secretive world of DLFs?  Take a look at this website dedicated to DLFs here, if you dare!

Google Was Invented By Douglas Adams

It's taken a while to work it out, but Google have let the cat out of the bag.  They've launched a new project to solve potentially any problem, using radical thinking to address 'big' questions that need unusual solutions.  Such solutions may involve the development of radical new technology.

You can see why Google are keen on the concept - they've been pretty upfront about developing solutions to problems we didn't even know we had for some time now, at their own expense and often gifting the results to the planet - well, sort of gifting, anyway.

The Google Maps project was one such gift; the ability to see your own house without stepping outside is a solution to an unknown problem that we've all enjoyed - come on, of course you've looked up your own house, probably while sat in your own front room.  In the process you've probably also enjoyed the solution to the previously unknown problem of how you got from work/pub/shops to your house, again from your favourite seat.

And of course there are a few tertiary problems that Google maps have been used for - getting a gander at the hotel you're visiting for the first time so that you recognise it as you sail past at fifty miles an hour - at least you now know you've passed it; without knowing what it looked like, we all drove on for tens of miles previously.  The saving in fossil fuel since this was rolled out must be equivelant to the net worth of the Facebook IPO at least!

And of course as Google will know who you are looking at, and know where you are, they can develop cross selling intelligence for sale.

Then they invested in developing a driverless car - as science fiction-y as you could imagine.  I'm guessing here, but I reckon some of the drive (no pun intended) of the Google maps project was always inteded for the driverless car.  It's not as mature as their other projects yet, but I reckon a lot of car manufacturers are either talking to Google or trying to work out how they can do the same thing without having to pay too many licence fees to the giant.  When the cars become mainstream you won't need to do the virtual journey from the pub to home; your car can do it for you.

But the new project is aimed a bit higher than that - it's attempting to solve those problems that have previously been considered impossible - the moonshot problems as Google calls them.  Presumably the first item on their list will link all the way back to the Google Maps project I mentioned at the top of the blog - am I the only person to notice that all the Google Maps street views have black bin bags awaiting collection?  We only collect every other week in the UK, so that implies their drivers followed the bin wagons or something went statistically very wrong on the project.

So what has all this got to do with the late, lamented Douglas Adams?  Well, I hope most of you don't need reminding that Douglas was the author of The Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, which featured a book that provided information on pretty much anything in the universe.  It didn't claim to be 100% accurate and as far as I know it didn't bother overmuch if its citations were a little tardy.  Which is why I prefer to think of your basic Google as the front-runner for the Hitch-Hikers Guide Earth-bound variant instead of the seemingly more obvious Wikipedia.

However the new project by Google, fantastic as it may sound, is actually a bit 'been there, done that', and again it's thanks to Douglas Adam's initiative.  Because he was doing this several years before he died an untimely death.  You can see what I mean here.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I can be followed on Twitter - @RayASullivan or email me on raysullivan.novels@yahoo.com

Visit my books on Amazon (for Kindle owners) and Smashwords (for access to all other formats and access to Apple iBooks, Barnes and Noble, Sony and many other good ebookstores).

For quick access to the various Kindle, Kobo, WH Smith and Smashword links please use the table below to view my books

To View My books In....

Kindle US Store

Kindle UK Store

Kindle DE Store

Kindle FR Store

Kindle IT Store

Kindle ES Store

Smashwords

WH Smith

Kobo

Fahrenheit 451 in the eBook Age

Fahrenheit 451, an iconic Sci Fi story about a United States that has outlawed books, written by Ray Bradbury in 1953, has been published as an eBook for the first time, pretty much against the author's wishes.  The publishers, Simon & Schuster have allegedly told the author's agent to either allow eBook versions of his works or there would be no contract at renewal, and ultimately Mr Bradbury has agreed.  The eBook is retailing at $9.99 (£6.35 in the UK).

This raises a number of issues, in my mind. First and foremost, Ray Bradbury is publicly against the eBook concept, in fact, from reading quotes he has made over the last few years, he's a bit anti-technology.  That's fine, it's his opinion and I think it should be respected.  And let's be honest here, Fahrenheit 451, icon that it is, is unlikely to sell more than a few copies at $9.99 for an electronic copy when there are potentially ten million paper copies in circulation.  OK, a large amount will have been recycled years ago, but a quick look at eBay shows that there are dozens of copies for sale right now for much less than the asking price of the eBook version. 

What this represents is virtually the blackmailing of an author to include eBooks in the distribution options.  I very much doubt that any newly signed author could avoid having to agree to such terms, but Mr Bradbury has been selling books, earning a living for himself and the whole publishing machine, for half a Century.  My guess is that Simon & Schuster stand to gain much more than Mr Bradbury out of the deal.  First, I doubt if the economies of electronic publishing will be reflected in larger royalties per sale to Mr Bradbury.  Second, it could remove the impetus for Simon & Schuster to produce print copies of any of his books now the contract has been signed, unless it's a new book.

This is happening increasingly in cases where the author has passed on but the book is still in copyright - the estate of the deceased author are being railroaded into e-published versions, by all accounts.

Should we be concerned?  Well, I personally sympathise with Ray Bradbury - his books are probably his pension and without a deal that's a big issue to him.  However I'm not certain that he's going to sell a great deal of books in any format - as I've said, the eBook price is high and the incentive to produce print copies is diminished. 

But it's a changing world out there. I firmly believe that in ten years, probably much less, virtually all reading - of books, newspapers, magazines - will be electronic.  e-Readers will become faster, more functional and cheaper.  Formats will standardise, making economies of scale easier to achieve.  I see a world where every schoolchild carries his or her schoolbooks on a school-provided and populated e-Reader, with textbooks procured as ebooks on a licensing deal that sees the owners of the work compensated.  No more dog-eared, out of date books covered in wallpaper (do they still do that in schools, or am I showing my age?)

But the cost will be the decline, then disappearance of, bookshops and newsagents.  Will we need physical libraries when they could be virtual?  I'm sure all people who love reading will miss browsing bookshops, but realistically they will have to go, or at least find a new way to trade.  I'm sure the demise of candle shops was lamented when electricity started to take off, but nobody complains about it now.  Not even candle makers.

So I truly sympathise with Ray Bradbury, it sounds like he's been treated shockingly.  If he wasn't so resistant to the medium he might have done what other mainstream authors have chosen to do and told the publishers to stick their contract where the sun don't shine - and self published on Amazon, Smashwords, Apple, Kobo, Sony.

In the meantime I'm working on a story about a world where eBooks are banned.  Does anyone know the auto-ignition temperature (in degrees Celsius, please) of a Kindle?

Blue Sky Thinking - Part Two

OK, so now we've got all the electricity we need to run our houses at minimal cost, what next?

Well, electrical efficiency will still be needed to be a major consideration, if only to help minimise the amount of power each household needs to buy off the grid.  If you look around your house right now it's probable that you've got dozens of electrical devices, and many of these probably didn't exist ten years ago.

For example, how about your large screen TV set, your Sky box, hard drive recorder, iPad or Android tablet, Kindle, iPod dock, wireless printer, X Box, Wii, other gaming consoles?  And that's just touching on your leisure devices.  There are dozens of devices ranging from washing machines through to stoves and standard lamps dotted around the average household.  Add to that list all the fixed electrics such as your lighting circuit.  So, what's my point?

Well, you may recall from my last Blue Sky Thinking post I mentioned that during the evolutionary process most devices go through various phases including ones where they are essentially ugly and disjointed but starting to converge.  I think it's fair to say that domestic devices are having 'Form' put on a higher agenda than in years gone by, possibly thanks to the likes of Apple who have always driven the aesthetic agenda.  But our devices are disjointed and essentially stand-alone.  This is where my wish list starts to kick in.

For starters, I think that all electronic devices should be able to be monitored and, where appropriate, controlled remotely through independent devices such as the iPad or other tablets.  As an absolute minimum we shouild be able to determine the running time of any given device and know its power consumption.  At a very basic level this would allow you to anticipate a device failure, so limiting the opportunity to be left high and dry by a failed device at the only time you ever really need it to work.

So, in my utopian world, you'd know when any device was running, when it stopped and how much power it consumed.  This is fairly standard data collated in industry, so we're not necessarily talking about major development work here.  The trick part is getting an open standard agreed so you don't have, say, Sony's proprietary system running on their equipment and Apple's take on the process running on theirs. 

I also see that data as the starting point.  How about being able to programme your hard drive recorders from your iPad, perhaps when away from home?  A good start would be the ability to have a common programming interface - sure, let the device makers determine their own look and feel when hooked up to your TV if we must, but let the consumer choose one interface product to run on their tablet that allows them to programme different makes of hard drive recorder in a common way - no need to relearn a different interface when you change devices or have different makes in various parts of the house.

And what about being able to identify which lights are still on and doors still unlocked before you blow the virtual candle out as you turn in at night?  Checking on the status of the washing machine when at the shops? 

None of this is difficult technologically, the biggest struggle is in deciding how it is implemented.  Nobody wants anyone to achieve total market dominance, hence my point above about open standards.  If this was tackled then in a generation we could have all but a minority of legacy devices controllable remotely and being monitored to check their health.

It's got to be worth thinking about.

I can be followed onTwitter - @RayASullivan

email me on raysullivan.novels@yahoo.com

Visit my books on Amazon (for Kindle owners) and Smashwords (for access to all other formats and access to Apple iBooks, Barnes and Noble, Sony and many other good ebookstores

Now on WH Smith!

Blue Sky Thinking - Part One

I have a view is that most major technology evolutions, or even revolutions, are initially a little ugly in hindsight, functionally over ambitious and destined to be hi-jacked by others in the same field who don't have the same emotional investment.  I think we also see a progressive merging of technologies over time and eventually get to a state where the end product is more than the sum  of its parts.
With that thought in mind I'm going to discuss some of the daft ideas I have for a brave new future - I'm expecting some rolled eyes and critical comments, bring them on!

For today, I'm going to look at the issue of power - electrical power.  We all know that the country is heading for an energy crunch and we've seen how vulnerable we are due our dependancy on gas from abroad.  Now there's been a lot of development in roof mounted solar panels in recent years and a scheme, about to be canned next April by the Government, has encouraged people to have solar panels fitted to their house roofs.  The scheme allows power generated in this way to be used by the household with the panels, with anything not used being sold back to the national grid at four times the cost of buying units.  The householder pays for the purchase and installation.  Some commentators say the payback period is twenty-five years, others claim  just four.  The crux of the issue to me is two-fold, regardless of the payback period.  First, the scheme only works because of an unrealistic subsidy (which is going to cease soon) and second, the finished panels are aesthetically awful.

Now my view is that the core idea has a lot of merit - look at any street in your city, town or village and think about how many square metres of roofing there is.  The current scheme of plonking a few ugly panels almost at random is only scratching at the surface of the potential (if the electricians don't mind the pun).  Here's my view on how the scheme should run:

First, there should be development of tiling materials that are individual solar panels but mimic the look, feel and weatherproofing capabilities of current (sorry, electricians) ceramic tiles.  I can foresee ceramic tiles manufactured using traditional methods being treated post manufacture in a suitable voltaic material, preferably one that looks natural from the ground.  In time, I would expect the tiles to be manufactured with the voltaic capabilities in one manufacturing step.

An obvious objection to be raised here is that the average electrician probably doesn't have the life disregarding temperament of the average roofer; the average roofer probably shouldn't be let anywhere near an electrical generating device with the potential to burn down a house if not installed and maintained correctly.  This implies a re-skilling process is needed, especially as I would consider such an installation would need certifying on install and on periodic maintenance.

I also don't think the roof should be installed by the householder, nor paid for by them.  In my blue sky world the initial target for the roofing material would be new build houses, with the roof installation paid for, and owned by, the energy companies.  The owners of the houses would own and be responsible for everything up to and including the soffits, but the roof would never belong to them.  Their responsibilty would be limited to not doing anything that could compromise the roofing and ensuring appropriate access for maintenance.

The benefit for the householder for relinquishing the ownership of the roof is that any power generated would be allocated to their house before anything else.  Any surplus would belong to the energy company owning the roof.  Additionally, any power drawn in excess of the instantaneous generation would be paid for at the normal rates.  Which means the houses should be self sufficient in energy terms during the day, even in the winter, but would incur energy costs out of daylight hours.  At least that's a starting point.  As we're discussing new build at this point they would be designed to optimise the electricity generated to minimise their need to buy power back.

Over time there could be a retrospective programme to address the existing housing stock.  Couple this with energy storage schemes, the amount of energy needed to be generated in the long term by power stations could be a fraction of the present amount.

In the next blue sky blog, I'll be moving inside the house, briefly.

I can be followed onTwitter - @RayASullivan

email me on raysullivan.novels@yahoo.com

Visit my books on Amazon (for Kindle owners) and Smashwords (for access to all other formats and access to Apple iBooks, Barnes and Noble, Sony and many other good ebookstores.

Now on WH Smith!