Why e-Books Have Flopped
David Coursey of PDFzone expounds on the eight things that are wrong — and two things that are right — with current e-book publishing and technology.
In my opinion, Coursey is 100% right on all counts. That said, the Amazon–Booksurge–Mobipocket deal that Robert Nagle has reported on may have interesting repercussions in the future. Nevertheless, I don’t think any amount of author empowerment will help until the broad variety of e-book formats is narrowed down, and until the books themselves become easier and more enjoyable to read thanks to better reading devices. I doubt that e-books will truly take off until electronic paper technologies are perfected.
(props: I learned of the Kuro5hin story about Amazon’s e-book ambitions from TeleRead.)
