As far as specially preparing a book for the Kindle, my understanding is that there is some DRM capabilities to the device, but I haven’t tested them. One gripe I have is that few books being prepared for the device (including the ones I’ve paid for) have a table of contents that actually works. There is either none, or something that looks like one, but is non-functional. So to get to Chapter 37 of a large work you have to resort to string searches or make guesses using Amazon’s inane alternative to page numbering.

Since HTML is one of the formats you can load directly onto the device (after ridiculously renaming the file to .txt) why oh why don’t they support the use of internal links (using #) that would allow anyone to easily build their own TOC. Yet another example of the “closed for no good reason” that these products are often saddled with.

The problem for authors/publishers is two-fold:

* Amazon is still taking 55% discount. That’s the discount they take on physical books–which makes (more) sense, because there are (more) costs associated with physical product–inventory counts, warehousing, distribution, mailing. It makes less sense on digital products, since most of those costs go away.

From the publisher’s perspective, unfortunately, we still have most of the same costs, with the exclusion of printing. Digital books still need to be envisioned, they still need to be researched, they still need to be written, they still need to be edited. They still need a ‘cover’ even though it’s not physical–nobody will buy a book, even a virtual book, if they can’t see what it ‘looks’ like. They still need to be marketed and publicized. Though there’s no physical distribution, it still requires (significant) staff time to “Kindle-ize” the book and turn its digital format into something the Kindle can handle. So aside from the printing costs–which for the average 250-page book is about $2 when purchased in small-publisher quantities–you’ve incurred all the same costs, and you’re still giving Amazon its 55% discount.

The one thing you’re saving on (presumably) is returns, since it’s unlikely that you’re going to be having to refund money for returned ‘books.’ But that very advantage turns out to be a disadvantage in disguise–which is, quite simply, how does one ensure accountability of sales for a digital product? Yes, there certainly are ways to do this, involving locked pdfs that must be registered to be activated and such. And no, Amazon has not built anything like this into the Kindle. Publishers, quite simply, are supposed to trust Amazon’s bookkeeping and accounts, and there is no–repeat, no–way to verify this. So this week at least seven people have told me they’ve downloaded my “Publishing Game” books on the Kindle this week–and I haven’t yet gotten a check from Amazon–I have no idea how much that check will amount to.

If readers could push Amazon to accept a lower discount, and to work towards locked/registered books, the prices could come down dramatically. But right now, it’s hard to know how that could happen…

/Fern

http://www.PublishingGame.com
http://www.AssociationofWriters.com

I have purchased maybe $50 worth of things from the Kindle store. There are still a lot of public domain things out there I need to catch up on and some of the best science fiction was written before we realized that faster than light travel wasn’t likely to ever happen (never mind Star Trek).

My main frustration with Kindle is that there is clearly a lot of technology there that has been disabled or crippled. There are speakers in the Kindle 2 and the sound is actually quite good, but you can only start and stop music play and have no control over play order, no way to list the files or manage them in any way while actually using the device. You can do “clippings”, but then what? My clippings file is huge and fairly useless both on the Kindle and when downloaded to my PC. It’s just an ever-growing flat file of run-together text. I have experimentally checked my e-mail and even sent an e-mail message using the primitive web browser. My sense of what the device is capable of tells me that it would be a simple matter (maybe a script or something) to allow a clipping to be used in a blog entry.

OK, I know they have a secret deal with Sprint for the wireless service and there are costs associated with transmission of this data. But those costs when averaged out are fairly low I am sure and they (Amazon) do charge for transmission of content other than their own to the device. If they come out with another update to the device that doesn’t allow for the use of WiFi as an alternative delivery mechanism then the people at Amazon are truly clueless. It’s actually puzzling why it wasn’t part of the original, or at least the K2.

I’ll make this prediction, with a fair degree of confidence… If Amazon doesn’t uncripple the Kindle soon, Apple or someone else will come out with a device that will render it quickly obsolete. So far, the screen (which is nice for readability (in well lit areas) but not so nice for speed of update, color rendition, or reading in low light) is the device’s primary strong point. Nothing else it does is particularly unique or noteworthy. Amazon will hide functionality of this device at their peril (compare with cell phone companies crippled phone software prior to the iPhone). As was the case with the iPhone, tagging along later crying that you’ve really unleashed the capabilities of your device NOW doesn’t work so well once a NEW product is out with those features from the get-go. Ask Nokia and Palm.