Just got a Kindle.

roger said:
Well, every book needs an editor, the digital equivalent of a layout person/copy editor, as another person pointed out you need to negotiate a contract, all to compete with the thousands to tens of thousands of copies of the book selling for a few bucks in used book stores. And that's if they are lucky enough that they (still) have it in a digital format, otherwise add OCR scanning/input into the price.

All these people are currently engaged with current projects in house. It's not like the staff is just lolling around, drinking gin in the afternoon, just hoping for some work to come through their door. There isn't really anyone available to start tackling the huge back catalog, or whatever they call it.

I know an author who has a few books out and his editor is talking about digital versions. They've been talking for a year, I did some layout on the Kindle for them to show how it's done, but the editor wants to go for the Nook because apparently it has much better layout control (n.b. this is for poetry, which has rather strict layout requirements).

For what it's worth, starting with a word document, I turned a 500 page book into a Kindle book in about 8 hours or so. That was to get it to 'usable by me' format - it's still ugly. No TOC, layout all messed up still, etc.

I mean, it's obviously not some overwhelming effort and cost (especially compared to the normal editing cycle), but it's time consuming and uses labor resources which aren't readily available. I'm sure as the learning curve continues things can become much more streamlined, with very powerful automatic conversion tools, etc.

I suspect that over time we will see hugely popular authors converted over (if they acquiesce - a lot are virulently opposed to digital books), and the rest will have to wait for Project Gutenberg once the copyright lapse. I wonder if things like University and high school lit courses will start exerting pressure to get the 'greats' translated. Right now people like Tobias Wolff, Raymond Carver, etc., are heavily taught, but not available on Kindle. (well, look at that - Tobias Wolff is on Kindle now, but still not Carver)

Now I'm rambling - but I bought Raymond Carver's biography in paperback, the first physical book I've bought since the Kindle. I'm hating the reading experience. Heavy, hurts my hands to keep it held open, can't change the font size depending on whether I have my reading glasses on or not, can't search for things in the book or online, etc., etc. I declare: the book is dead. Long live the book!
Click to expand...

OMG, I WANT your job!
 
RobRoy said:
I struggled with choosing which one. Seriously, it took me an incredibly long amount of time to make that decision. Originally, I had liked the “World Tree” in green, as it had a very Tolkien-esque feel to it. But I was also very tempted by the Celtic Hounds in green, as you mentioned, and the “Medici” in chocolate.

A few others certainly caught my attention, but in the end I decided to go with my first instinct, and satiate my concern over choosing “wrong” with the thought that I could always get another cover later on down the line. The cover I have turned out to be even better when it arrived, and much softer to the touch than I had anticipated. I am completely satisfied with it.
Click to expand...
Yes, I read some of the comments, and decided that I'd probably be happy with any of the designs, so didn't spend too long trying to decide which one was absolutely perfect. I ordered the Celtic Hounds in green yesterday.
I can attest that they generally ship much faster than they advertise. As for customs, here's hoping you don't get charged.
Click to expand...
Thanks. :) I'm going to try to forget about it so it's a surprise when it arrives.
AdMan said:
I went for this one:

http://www.oberondesign.com/shop/cart.php?m=product_detail&p=1298

I like the Asian motif. UPS says it's getting here the day after tomorrow! Cant wait. :)
Click to expand...

Ah, yes, the Hokusai wave, very nice; that was my second favourite, in Sky Blue, as I'm partial to a bit of Ukiyo-e. :)
 
AdMan said:
Navy.
Click to expand...

Good choice. :)

zooterkin said:
Yes, I read some of the comments, and decided that I'd probably be happy with any of the designs, so didn't spend too long trying to decide which one was absolutely perfect. I ordered the Celtic Hounds in green yesterday.
Click to expand...

This happens to me all the time. It makes me incredibly hard to shop for because once I start diving into the particulars, I start to build a list that is almost impossible to fill. However, in this case, trying to fill my list resulted in finding Oberon, and that has worked out nicely.

Thanks. :) I'm going to try to forget about it so it's a surprise when it arrives.
Click to expand...

But it does solve the mystery of why you spell certain words incorrectly: “favourite” for example. :D
 
RobRoy said:
This happens to me all the time. It makes me incredibly hard to shop for because once I start diving into the particulars, I start to build a list that is almost impossible to fill. However, in this case, trying to fill my list resulted in finding Oberon, and that has worked out nicely.
Click to expand...
Oh, yes, that happens to me sometimes, but this time I realised I could live with any of the options, so went with the one that caught my eye first.

But it does solve the mystery of why you spell certain words incorrectly: “favourite” for example. :D
Click to expand...

:p The location wasn't a clue, then?



Anyway, one other question, are there any book lights that work well with the Oberon cases?
 
RoboTimbo said:
lendle.me may not be available anymore. There are murmurings on Amazon's Kindle board that they've shut down or been shut down.
Click to expand...


Interesting. What do people think the reason for this could be?

Here's another similar site. They're popping up quickly, so I'm sure many of these won't survive if they don't get critical mass, or if Amazon or the publishers find a way to legally take them down.
 
AdMan said:
Interesting. What do people think the reason for this could be?

Here's another similar site. They're popping up quickly, so I'm sure many of these won't survive if they don't get critical mass, or if Amazon or the publishers find a way to legally take them down.
Click to expand...

Here's the link: http://www.amazon.com/tag/kindle/fo...dThread=TxMHNDGFY6PMS7&displayType=tagsDetail

I note "Amazon has revoked Lendle's API access" and

Lendle does not "serve the principal purpose of driving sales of products and services on the Amazon site."
 
RoboTimbo said:
I note "Amazon has revoked Lendle's API access" and

Lendle does not "serve the principal purpose of driving sales of products and services on the Amazon site."
Click to expand...

And this makes sense. Amazon is not a public library, it’s a business out to make a profit. Lendle, and similar sites, take advantage of the lending system so that eReaders don’t have to buy books, and can borrow them for free. Where the limited number of friends/family members you have would likewise limit the number of books you can borrow, Lendle, and similar sites, allow for an unlimited number of borrowers and lenders, thus eliminating the natural limitations.

Unfortunate, but I totally understand where Amazon is coming from. Hopefully, they will take note of these sites popularity, and look into the possibility of subscription lending, or limited book “renting”.
 
I'd be more convinced that Amazon had a reasonable point if they didn't limit lending to one time ever per book. Or if the price of the kindle version reflected the fact that, unlike a hard copy book, I can't lend it out to a list of friends who want to try it. Sure, it may cut into sales a bit to allow strangers to exchange loans of books, but it's not like the floodgates are wide open.
 
RobRoy said:
OMG, I WANT your job!
Click to expand...
Not a job, I just did it to make some stuff readable for myself, and shared it with the guy that gave it to me because his editor wants to publish his work as an e-book, but they had little experience with Kindle.
 
RobRoy said:
I assume almost any clip-on light will work fine.
Click to expand...

I was wondering about the M-Edge Eluminator, which is designed to work with their own Kindle jackets, but might work with the Oberon ones too. I have a voucher for a shop near me that sells them, but it might be best to wait until my case arrives and I can be sure.
 
I have a question for Calibre users.

I have set up some scheduled downloads of news to my computer and it works well if I manually save the output to my Kindle - is there a way to have this automatically sync with my Kindle to remove the need to manually save to the Kindle directory? (without using the Whispernet since it costs money!)
 
DrDave said:
I have a question for Calibre users.

I have set up some scheduled downloads of news to my computer and it works well if I manually save the output to my Kindle - is there a way to have this automatically sync with my Kindle to remove the need to manually save to the Kindle directory? (without using the Whispernet since it costs money!)
Click to expand...

I'm not sure what you've set up, can you explain a bit more? I've got Calibre set up to get a couple of its news feed daily, and send them to my Kindle via the free.kindle.com address (which is delivered via wifi only).
 
I take it you've got a 3G version?

You could still use the email address but use the "free" version: kindleusername>@free.kindle.com so it will only use the wifi network to send the news feed.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom