Two comments:

1) More important is the de-mediation of publishing.

As with music, you no longer have to go through traditional publishing/distribution channels to put a book before the public.

People can choose whether to download a digital copy of your work, or pay for a print-on-demand hard copy that's of equal (physical) quality as most published books.

Which leads to:

2) The Kindle - and any attempt to bottle digital text in a proprietary format - is a dead-end technology. Continuing the previous analogy - it's like the record industry trying to go back to vinyl LPs.

The recent experimentation with personal computing formats - netbooks, Ipods, etc. - begs the question: why shlep around a device that only lets you read text?

Tablet computers already exist. The main limitation was the cost of touchscreens and related controls. Those problems are now being solved.

Who will buy a Kindle when they can buy personal devices that can do much more?

And finally:

3) What's wrong with opening up writing to part-timers?

And why shouldn't writers get (and have to deal with) honest market feedback on how much folks will pay for their product?

We've seen journalism flourish from the democratic influence of blogging... freeing publishing from the bottleneck of the New York imprints will allow many more voices to find their niche audiences.

Baen Books has long offered ebooks. They even offer free ones - often the first book in a series. Since they are still doing this after years, it apparently works to sell more books.

eBooks ought to be a cheaper than standard books by the amount that printing and physical distribution cost. The authors ought to get the same amount - the savings are in printing and distribution costs. Self-publishing authors should be able to get a good bit more - on the other hand, they then must make their own arrangements for editing, illustrations and marketing.

***
Apple, too, is a system seller, and a device company to boot. But it doesn't have to sell a single book for the iPad to succeed. Books are just one app among many.
***

Ummm as an AAPL shareholder I disagree. I'm pretty sure Steve Jobs would like nothing better than to crush Amazon + it's silly Kindle. And God Bless him for that.

Some nitwit at The Atlantic doesn't get to decide what the Ipad does or doesn't need to be a success.

Here is a link to an interesting article on Apple and Amazon's competing models from a future-of-publishing angle rather than a specifically economic angle:

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/kindle-ipad-macmillan-and-the-death-of-a-business-model/

It's a bit difficult to sum up, but the theme is that publishing is going the way of the music industry, an idea I've thought about as my 15-year-old daughter releases a CD available for sale on Amazon and itunes with the help of...no one. No record company. No agent. No recording studio.

And as much as I want writers to be able to succeed, I think the word "ideally" is important in Amy's first sentence, because in the end, what writers are paid will depend on what people (the market) are willing to pay for their work.

To expand a bit on what Robin wrote above, the Pajamas Media article makes the point that book publishers and record labels are structured as manufacturing companies. The cost of the intellectual content only accounts for about 10% of the retail cost of the items they sell. I don't know much about book publishing, but for record labels, their profit margin, last time I looked into it, is around 30%. That's a heck of a lot higher than any industry I've ever worked in. Clearly electronic publishing is a threat to their whole business model. So that's part of what's happening.

The other part is, as Ben David points out, Apple just pulled a fast one on Amazon. There's a potentially huge market for "personal computing devices" that span the gap between cell phones and full-up laptop computers. Amazon had a head start in this area, but failed to exploit their advantage, and now they've been caught with their pants down. If they don't get a Kindle 2.0 out pretty soon, with an open architecture and the capability to run other apps, Apple is going to eat their lunch.

The really ironic thing is, if the reports that I've read are correct, Amazon is actually offering McMillan a better deal than they get from Apple.

I suspect that the traditional publishers are going to have a very hard time in the new world of downloadable books. Companies that dominated at one stage of a technology are rarely the winners...often not even the survivors...at the next stage of the technology. (There were lots of Baldwin and Alco steam locomotives, for instance, but you won't see too many Baldwin or Alco diesels...)

The problem with writer-direct-to-reader, though, is *marketing* from the writer's point of view...how do you get attention for your book among the hundreds of thousands of titles that will be coming out in any given year?...and *selection* from the reader's point of view...how do you find the books that would be interesting to *you* among the flood?

There's a huge opportunity for someone here.

David nailed it.

It's like me in the library - I look at the new books, snag anything by authors I like, if I can't find enough to last until the next trip, I look through the stacks for some title that sounds promising enough to get me to read the intro on the jacket. If it looks OK, I'll at least take it home and start it. I probably finish 95% of the books I check out.

Amazon's "if you like this, you might like these" or user contributed lists are great. I read quickly, but a book is still a significant investment of time. I'd pay for a service that would steer me toward books I might like.

I'd feel a lot better if musicians and authors got more of money for the product they create. (While I am a regular at the public library, I also buy books. I own hundreds, and those are just the ones I kept.)

Amy:
agents weed it out and only present what's right to the particular editor and house.
- - - - - - - - -
This takes me back to a prescient article in Wired magazine about how those who provide the filter/edit function in the digital flood that is the internet will emerge as powerful players.

That's certainly part of Google's power. This is also a function of a lot of small e-communities focused on specific interests.

Specific to books, other posters have mentioned Amazon's user lists, reviews, and suggestion features. My wife uses the GoodReads website and others.

There is no indication that the old way is better. It's certainly less democratic.

Amy:
The Atlantic publishes far smarter nitwits than most other publications.
- - - - - - - -
Love it!
And Ms. Postrel is anything but a nitwit.

MarkD:
I'd feel a lot better if musicians and authors got more of money for the product they create.
- - - - - - - - -
Without a middleman they might.

Without the (artificial) sense of scarcity and permanance created by physical artifacts (vinyl records, paper books) - people may pay less for the art experience offered.

Depends on the perceived value.

MarkD:
I'd feel a lot better if musicians and authors got more of money for the product they create.
- - - - - - - - -
Without a middleman they might.

Without the (artificial) sense of scarcity and permanance created by physical artifacts (vinyl records, paper books) - people may pay less for the art experience offered.

Depends on the perceived value.

Dori's STILL kvelling about Sue's seminar - it's really given her a hot-shot to take the next step and get her books into the hands of agents.

My question about e-publlishing has always been the same - how much does it cost to physically print a book? Because that's pretty much the only part of the cost that goes away if you e-print; editing, layout, author fees, advertising, that all stays the same. So if a Twenty-dollar book costs eight dollars to print, then the price should be able to drop to Twelve dollars with no loss in profit. Indeed, I haven't done the math but the profit margin of the book should increase in that scenario.

The issue is that if the cost of printing the book isn't as big a part of the cost as we percieve it is, the cost of an e-book doesn't drop that much, getting back to the whole "I shouldn't pay that much for something that doesn't exist" mindset that people have. So if it only costs three dollars to print a book, the cost only drops from twenty to seventeen dollars, which doesn't seem like enough of a decrease.

As I understand it, you can't just go to Apple or Amazon directly and offer your book on the iPad or Kindle; they're only working with existing publishers.

It's so easy to get your book published, or more correctly, "printed" nowadays. There's dozens of print-on-demand companies now who'll set up and market your book for almost no cost, save for some setup fees if you choose progressively fancier layouts. But then the onus of publicizing the book is entirely your own. Dan Brown notwithstanding, the number of self-publishing success stories is low; I can't think of any save for Dan, myself. There's a million different opinions about how good an idea it is to go self-published, and everyone will make their own decision. Personally, I'd rather see a book come out from a publisher that will do the work for me. I know there's a lot of pounding the pavement that an author will do themselves - look at Amy's recent "cross-country" tour to tout ISRP. But having a big publisher behind you makes it easier to get pieces in newspapers and signings at bookstores, save for the "local color" pieces you'll get in your hometown paper.

I wonder - do the print-on-demand publishers that Amazon work with count as proper publishers? Are any of the offering Kindle or iPad access?

Some nitwit at The Atlantic doesn't get to decide what the Ipad does or doesn't need to be a success.

She's not deciding what the iPad needs to be a success. She's pointing out that the iPad is a bit more than the proprietary format book reader that the Kindle and the Nook are.

And she's mostly right.

Despite Web surfing capabilities, the Kindle and the Nook are essentially electronic text readers. The iPad purports to be much more than that with a color display, iTunes, apps, e-mail, etc.

The second-generation Kindle may offer more applications and functionality to compete with the iPad. The second-generation Nook may be too late.

The softer screen lighting utilized by the Kindle/Nook may result in fewer tired eyes and may allow them to remain competitive as a reading tool due to this.

====================

LIke the music industry, publishers and booksellers are clinging desperately to a soon-to-be outdated business model. Authors will someday be selling their works directly to the public. As someone pointed out above, the role of electronic sellers will be mainly to organize the chaos by serving as a central marketplace. Their power will be limited by competition.

In this new model, instead of the author getting a small cut, the marketplace will get a small cut. That cut will be to pay for carrying the title on the site and for the use of a proprietary format so copies cannot be duplicated without the author getting paid.

Since the author gets a very small portion of the price of the book today, this new model does not mean the author will have to take a job waiting tables because he can't make money even on a bestseller. The savings for the buyer would be in the large chunk of the price that goes into binding, shipping, inventory, agents, editors, marketing, catalogues, etc.

====================

The music, publishing, movie, and television industries are still sorting out the new technologies. Our great-grandchildren will read, listen to music, and watch programs/movies in ways that will be very different from the ways we did.

How Should Electronic Books Be Priced? Well, ideally, so those of us who write books can earn a living doing it instead of working as waitresses and making writing a hobby.

That certainly seems ideal from an author's perspective, but nothing entitles authors (or any other person) to a living wage. It would sure be nice if everybody could get a job doing what they love, but not everybody can. ("What does the liberal arts major say to the engineering major?" "Would you like fries with that?")

Publishers want e-books to be expensive so they don't compete with physical books, not because publishers care about authors making a living wage (publishers are famously willing to pay starvation rates to authors). As the article says, Apple, not caring how many e-books it sells, but wanting favors from publishers, is willing to let them price e-books higher, to the detriment of the public.

My question about e-publlishing has always been the same - how much does it cost to physically print a book?

I believe the majority are physical costs, which also include shipping, warehousing and refunds for destruction of unsold books. Obviously physical costs vary with the size of the print run and with details like the paper type and number of colors.

E-books also have "physical" costs that physical books don't, such as that for servers and bandwidth.

"E-books also have "physical" costs that physical books don't, such as that for servers and bandwidth."

Which are, I hazard a guess, negligible compared to physical book costs, and will decrease further as technology improves.

In comic books, the average title is either 2.99 and 3.99, and fans, when polled, have said they think 99 cents is a "fair" price for an e-comic. And folks who know the number say that would still allow the publishers the same profit margin

"How Should Electronic Books Be Priced?"

Let the market decide. Why is there even a debate on this?

"Why is there even a debate on this?"

Welcome to the internet.

pseudonym, another thing to keep in mind is that at least in the music industry (I don't know about the book industry), the distribution chain is chock-loaded with middlemen and hence pretty inefficient. Distribution winds up taking a big cut of the retail cost, possibly 50%.

> Let the market decide. Why is there
> even a debate on this?

Because the market –formerly a personal encounter between buyers and sellers– is now a faceless handoff where goods are promptly delivered with no opportunity for billing. The market has lost its power to decide anything at all.

At the risk of sounding a little crazy, I have to say that the only reason for anybody to write is because you truly love -- nay, NEED -- to write and tell stories in order to be happy, even if you make little to no money doing it. As all of us writers, known and unknown, can attest, writing is a tough field to get into, so you'd better be in it because you love writing so much, you'd do it just for the fun of it (like me :-)), and not because you think it's the fast track to big bucks. Having writer friends and having worked for a literary agent once upon a time, I can vouch for the fact that there is indeed a tsunami of manuscripts out there trying to find a home, so you've got to do your homework and give yourself every advantage. A great place to start is Susan Shapiro's "Secrets of Selling Your First Book" seminar. I went there last Saturday with my dear longtime friend Rosemarie DiCristo, another talented writer trying to catch a break. We both agreed it was the best 4 hours we'd ever spent at any writing-oriented function. We learned more valuable tips there than we'd learned in all the writing classes we took in college. Amy, I can't thank you enough for steering me toward Sue's seminar. Vinnie, I can't thank YOU enough for urging me to drop-kick my shyness and go to the fab reading/signing/Q&A at B&N with Amy, Sue, and company that eventually led me to the seminar! :-)

Lots of people writing on this today: Atlantic's other resident smart lady, Megan McArdle:

http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2010/02/beware_of_pundits_bearing_pred.php

suggests that the ipad's appeal may be limited by the fact that it doesn't really replace anything, and

[see my next post]

Vodkapundit (awesome handle!) Stephen Green has an idea for an as-yet-to-be-tapped book market:

http://pajamasmedia.com/vodkapundit/2010/02/02/bookim-dan-o/

Personally, I won't pay any more for an ebook than I would pay for a paperback. That said, I still prefer to pay at maximum 2/3 the cost of paperback for an ebook.

Like others have said, the actual physical costs of paper, ink, cardboard, shipping don't apply to ebooks. Servers, licensing procedures, editors, illustrators, layout specialists and proof readers are still needed.

I love my sony ebook reader. I think the epub format that allows me to check ebooks out of the library is great, but for books that I love, and reread, I prefer to have them in my reader. Amy,
how about getting your publisher to offer your book ISDP as an ebook? I'd even pay full price!

Amy's book is available for the Kindle - http://tinyurl.com/yfhuprm

So you just hitched your wagon to the wrong star...

When I first started in the phonecard business (1994), calls to China were about 3 bucks a minute to the consumer. This was because of a few large dinosaurs running the phone business.

16 years and tens of thousands of competitors later, the cost to call China is now less than a penny a minute. The cost to make long distance calls were high a hundred years ago because one needed quite a number of human operators to complete the call. But the big guys like AT&T kept the price artificially high even after it discarded human workers.

Disney and other studios fought against VHS tapes because they didn't know how to market the new technology and they were afraid it would kill the theater business. Now everyone makes money with DVD releases, rentals, etc.

When the music and book business finally wise up and embrace new technology, they will then start to make money.

Telecom companies make more money on calls to China at a penny a minute than when it cost $3 a minute because now everyone can afford to make a call, and when they do, they stay on long, not fractions of a minute.

Similarly, the right price for ebooks, emags, and music singles is in the 1 cent to 9 cent range. At that price, I would subscribe to Time Magazine, a few newspapers, download hundreds of songs, and try out ebooks by authors I'm not familiar with. Otherwise, I rarely spend money on digital products because they cost too much.

Better a hundred million daily customers at 9 cents than a few hundred thousand at $9.99 or even a million at 99 cents.

My book is, strangely, in Kindle in three versions (have to ask publisher to correct that), and I asked that it be enabled for voice for the blind as well.

"That certainly seems ideal from an author's
perspective, but nothing entitles authors
(or any other person) to a living wage. It
would sure be nice if everybody could get a
job doing what they love, but not everybody
can."

Pardon me, but that's rank idiocy. Writing a book takes a very long time and a shitload of hard work. It's not something you knock off in couple of days for fun. If people cannot make money doing it, no one will write books. It's as simple as that. I think it's great that people can get old, out-of-copyright books for free, but they should have to pay for current books or sooner or later we won't have any current books.

. . . And you're not paying someone to "do what they love". You're paying someone because you want their work product. Why on earth should someone be entitled to someone else's work product for free?

I will probably get flamed for this, but I don't think the IPad will replace the Kindle. There are a lot of people who are satisified with an tool that does one thing well instead twenty things all at one time. When I read, I don't want a game or the Internet running in the background. There are already too many distractions in my life. When I read I just want to focus on my book. I love the fact that my Kindle only has books and that it is not backlit. I take it everywhere with me and can read it in any conditions.

" Now everyone makes money with DVD releases, rentals, etc."

Tell that to Blockbuster.

Writing -- no, writing well -- takes buttloads of work. For RUDE PEOPLE, I probably spent seven months writing the proposal, and then I realized I had to change agents, which I did. I can't quite remember how long it took me to write. Maybe two years. Maybe a year and a half, writing every day, no days off ever. Have to look at my calendar to see. It was done when it was done.

This book is also a product of a great deal of research, and wouldn't have been complete without my trip to New Hampshire (including hotel, plane ticket, meals, transportation) to NEEPS, the Northeast Evolutionary Psych Society conference. And then there are all the other conferences I went to and books I bought that went into it. And then, I invested in editing -- a really smart woman went through the entire book numerous times to tell me what I had to make smarter, funnier, clearer, etc.

I have a bunch of chapters and sections I just threw out, and I sometimes will spend an entire day on a paragraph. This is what it takes making one's writing not suck -- unless you are some genius of the page who effortlessly spits out fanastic writing from "once upon the time' to "the end." I've never met such a person, but I sure envy them.

This isn't some cute hobby, like badminton or collecting scarves, but a serious profession. I look at writing I did 10 years ago, and it embarrasses me. And I hammer away, day after day, waking up at 5am, slaving away when I feel like hell, trying to be a better writer and to say things that are funny, entertaining, and worthwhile to read.

People who think writing is easy and fun either (a) don't write, or (b) write badly.

e-book pricing seems to defy anything like reason.

For example: Raymond Chandler's "Farewell my Lovely" is $9.99 via Kindle. In paperback, it is $6 new, and a buck and a half used.

How does that make any sense?

============

The kindle is good at one thing: reading text. Images, not nearly so much, and color is right out.

The iPad is good at everything. The college textbook publishing industry needs to be very afraid.

> People who think writing is easy
> and fun either (a) don't write,
> or (b) write badly.

It's not that you're wrong, it's just that there's no reason that anyone should ever trust you to make that call... Like maybe nothing else in life, it's a matter of taste. And there are probably people who are naturally gifted, just as their are people in every other field who can do ten times as well as most other practitioners with only the same practice and opportunity.

From what I've seen, writers, especially popular ones, are as bitterly loathed by less-sucessful competitors as anyone in any field... Including sports and Hollywood fame. Publishing is just as ridiculous. The poster girl of the year (or maybe the decade just ended) was probably Malcolm Gladwell, right? Well, I read a few of his books, and they were nothing to get excited about. The conclusions were always a little dicey, but they were a breezy read for an airline trip or whatever.... The fact that there were simplistic patterns in them was kind of the point; that's why you'd read a book like that. To be offended would be like complaining that your fries from McDonald's were too salty. Like, if you feel that way, why did you buy the product? But the bitterness from other authors toward Gladwell has been astounding. Perhaps they just resent the fact that he gets more tail than Sinatra and more money than God. But, like, if you (as a fellow author) weren't interested in servicing his oh-so-contemptible readers anyway....

Nobody knows how much people should get paid for writing stuff. It's easier to have an opinion about the music business, which Steve Jobs also revolutionized as if by accident. The record company guys were always completely out of their minds, and everyone knew it. Also, we're told (and I'm happy to be corrected if I'm wrong) that Apple doesn't make money on the music, they just make money selling Ipods. However this shakes out, it would be a surprise if Apple were interesting in substantial middleman profits from publishing... He's already squandered a few opportunities for that.

> The iPad is good at everything.

Except user input. (And hidef video.) I laugh especially at people who think it will be a tool for students; No one who's used a touch screen keyboard has ever reported doing better than 25% of their typing speed on a conventional keyboard. Iphone's interface is good for selecting a from a small series of gaily-colored icons... But that's not very good for meaningful composition or data entry or recording of any kind. Like I said last week, calling this a "tablet" is appropriate: Just like Moses with his tablets, Jobs is completely uninterested in getting input from the people who'll be using them.

It's been a surprise how disappointed Apple users are with the Ipad. It's not just that I don't want one; THEY don't want one either.

Amy:
Writing -- no, writing well -- takes buttloads of work.
- - - - - - - - - -
So does building a scale replica of the Parthenon out of sugar cubes in your basement.

Whether - and what - you get paid for your labors depends on the value potential customers assign to it.

The unmediated digital marketplace at least lets more people take their shot at finding an audience.

You sure about that? More people are enjoying a greater diversity of recorded music than ever before. "THE stuff that's good" isn't the limited, precious quantity that it used to be.

If anyone can publish a book -- if quality controls are removed from publishing -- it will become extraordinarily hard to find the stuff that's good.

Thanks to the internet, anyone can publish a book. Various organizations continue to provide various levels of quality control, but some independent authors do quite well outside of the mainstream publishing industry.

If publishers all go bankrupt and the book world turns into the blogosphere, book reviewers might actually become important again.

People ARE willing to pay for books. But not if they can get the same books for free.

A book isn't like a song. A song is short. You can "sample", and having listened to it once, decide if you want to buy it. If you like it, you will likely listen to again and again. A book is long. Most people will only read it once. If you sample the entire thing, must people aren't going to read it again and again. As for sampling just a few pages -- well, half the people I know are trying to write a novel. If they all get them published online, it would take you forever to sort through all of that crap. And you can't tell much by just a page or two. To get it published by a publishing house, the book is going through layers of review, and competing with tons of other books. That's some assurance that a ton of people who know their stuff thought the book was worthwhile, not just the college sophomore who wrote it.

I repeat, writing may not be a way to get rich (for most writers), but eliminate the possibility of making money (or just a living), and you will eliminate people writing books -- at least, good books, books that took effort and thought. Ask any good author (as opposed to your cousin who writes bad poetry) -- you simply don't put the sweat into a book for fun. You might get satisfaction out of it sometimes -- but then, a lot of people enjoy their job sometimes. Ralph Lauren probably enjoys designing clothes. Scientists may enjoy coming up with new ideas. Football players no doubt like playing football. A taxi driver may like driving and meeting new people. Does that mean we should get all their work for free?

Maybe it's just old age, I think most of the music coming out in the last few years is utter crap. This last Grammy award show was absolutely pathetic. And it's harder and harder to sort through all the crap to find something that isn't crap.

> eliminate the possibility of making money (or just a
> living), and you will eliminate people writing books --
> at least, good books, books that took effort and thought.

Gail, I really don't mean to harsh you, truly, but that "at least, good books, books that" reminds me of reading Halberstam's "The Powers That Be" in about 1980... A very booky book, with lots of commas, short nuggets, tight elements drenched in readerly sincerity.... Like that.

It may well be that the fracturing of the pop music market has ruined the form, but I doubt it. It's always been more about timbral fashions than melodic invention. People who really, really love music had no business seeking big fulfillment there anyway.

It will probably be the same with literature. A whole industry –and not a particularly admirable one –has grown up around the need to pulp / print / package and ship a pound or two of paper every time someone wants something to ready at the beach. There's nothing special about people in those jobs; they deserve no greater protection from the future than do the autoworkers of Detroit. (I'll never forgot the time I picked up a James Patterson novel on a scuba boat; I'm still pissed off on behalf of the trees that gave their trunks for that turd.)

People will still make books to convey information and for specialized tastes. And I agree that a whole bunch of critical human character is probably going to be lost in the decades just ahead... But I can't imagine what to do to stop it, and Luddite behavior on behalf of the "literature" business is a non-starter.

If anyone can publish a book -- if quality controls are removed from publishing -- it will become extraordinarily hard to find the stuff that's good.

That's where marketplaces (like Amazon or iBooks) come in.

Discussion fora, reader reviews, "you may also like" and "readers also purchased" sections, and best-seller lists will help guide people to books that will suit their tastes and reading needs.

Amy:
If anyone can publish a book -- if quality controls are removed from publishing -- it will become extraordinarily hard to find the stuff that's good.
- - - - - - - - -
This is an inherently elitist argument that runs counter to the wide-open libertarianism you usually embrace. Are you aware of the disconnect?

If anyone can publish a book - more voices will get their chance, WITHOUT stealing opportunity or scarce resources (paper, shelf space) from any other voice.

I and other have already discussed the digital market and the emergence of digital filters/communities/tastemakers to help people find "the stuff that's good" - as defined by themselves rather than a clutch of New York literati.

So:
More diversity, individuality, freedom, democracy - and an emphasis on decentralized initiative and meritocracy.

That sounds like this blog on most days...

What's not to like?

A lotta great literature was written by folks who didn't need/do it for the money. Just like a lotta reliable news coverage and engaging comment is being written by bloggers with day jobs.

> The iPad is good at everything.

Except user input.

I must admit, I have never used a touch screen keyboard, so that part of "everything" was perhaps over the top.

However, I have read a pretty extensive review (sorry, can't find the link), that liked it.

It's been a surprise how disappointed Apple users are with the Ipad. It's not just that I don't want one; THEY don't want one either.

They must be pre-disappointed, since the thing doesn't go on sale for another month.

> They must be pre-disappointed

Just as they were pre-lustful for Iphone and other products

"pre-lustful"

How does that work?

Just like your "pre-disappointed", only backwards.

Just like your "pre-disappointed", only backwards.

Sorry, that's on you. It's been a surprise how disappointed Apple users are with the Ipad.

The users who haven't yet used it.

How does that work?

They say things like this:

"Jeez, this unit has none of the features I'd find essential were I inclined make room for yet another Apple product stream in my computing life...."

–or–

"Golly, as a frequently contended drinker of Steve's Kool-aid, I'm disheartened to see that he's done nothing innovative with the user interface of an unremarkably rendered –perhaps crippled– tablet form-factor... Especially since we'd been told that, in his declining health, this could be his last and perhaps most powerful contribution to an already acclaimed legacy."

I said all that last week, too... Presumably you missed it. We're left to wonder why you're so certain that there'll be some electric sex to the touch of this product. At this point, it's looking more like an Apple TV, or the Cube.

We're left to wonder why you're so certain that there'll be some electric sex to the touch of this product..

Using the royal we, are we?

Perhaps you should re-read my post: it was clearly in reference to the Kindle. The iPad is better than the Kindle at what the Kindle does, and it is "good" -- which my dictionary does not use as a synonym for perfect, great, or magnetically sexy -- at everything else.

BTW, PC Magazine says this in a hands-on review:

"First off, what this thing can do is mind-boggling. Running an OS similar to the current iPhone operating system and powered by a custom-designed Apple 1-GHz processor, the A4, the iPad is lightning-fast. The 1,024-by-768, 9.7-inch LED-backlit touch screen is as beautiful as you would imagine a sprawling iPhone display would be. New apps and games developed specifically for the iPad do amazing things with the additional screen real estate, but if you think it's just a toy, you're wrong."

I said all that last week, too... Presumably you missed it.

As it happens, I did.

Any day I miss something you said has at least one thing going for it.

> my dictionary does not use as a synonym for
> perfect, great, or magnetically sexy

But you don't want people to pass judgment until they've given it a right proper feel-up. It's very important to you. I haven't driven the Toyota Tundra, either... Might I nonetheless affirm that I don't want one, if only because I don't want a pickup truck?

> PC Magazine says...

And we care because...? How much advertising does Apple, or Apple add-on vendors, buy from them?

Dood. You wanna buy one, buy one. Free country!

Amy:
People who can't get an agent with their writing probably don't write books that are saleable.
- - - - - - - - - -
1) These people are easily identified and avoided in the unmediated digital arena - as I and others have pointed out in this thread.

2) This also works in reverse: people whose writing is not salable - or more precisely: scalable - can't get published.

The digital world has already uncovered many small unserviced audiences (AKA markets). You may not have an interest in sugar-cube model-making - but next-to-no resources are wasted in running an e-book up the flagpole to see if anyone salutes.

I think money worries underlay your distaste. I don't discount those worries in any way. But free markets get to "fair" better than monopolies and old-boy networks - and your field is no exception.

There are a lot of solutions.

If you're talking journalism - the Wall Street Journal never gave its hoochie away, and is profiting by delivering information that people feel is reliable and not available elsewhere.

If you're talking literature - the visual art world uses all kinds of angles to get people to fork over considerable sums for items of little intrinsic worth or appeal, with less entertainment value than a good read.

I heard that the iPad can't run more than one program at a time. Anybody know if that's true? If so, I'm not sure how they plan to tunnel their VNC sessions through SSH.

For those of you who find it hard to find "good" music due to the digital overload, I have to say I'm having the opposite experience. This is a good place to start: http://www.gnod.net/

Maybe I travel in a different circle, but I would honestly say that the "iPod revolution" has turned me on to a LOT of artists that I otherwise would not have heard of. And, I'm looking forward to the same thing happening for books. I don't think it's going to happen until someone, anyone, gets a corner on the eReader market, though.

Here's an interesting perspective on the winners and losers in the iPad debut / electronic publishing.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/185624-supposed-losers-from-the-ipad-are-actually-winners?source=obx

> PC Magazine says...

And we care because...?

Perhaps because -- last time I looked at one -- PC Magazine is directed almost exclusively at the Windows market, so this is kind of like a BMW car club magazine complimenting an Audi.

How much advertising does Apple, or Apple add-on vendors, buy from them?

For the reason above, SFAIK, none.

I heard that the iPad can't run more than one program at a time. Anybody know if that's true?

From what I have read, that is true.

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Just as interesting as the book pricing issue, IMHO, is that the iPad will turn out to be a game-changer for books themselves.

The Kindle really is just a different way of storing printed pages: it does almost nothing you can't do with a book.

In contrast, the iPad liberates books from the printed page. Imagine, say, Michael Shaara's book about Gettysburg, "The Killer Angels". Battle maps need no longer be static, or confined to a specific page. Instead, the reader could move a map through time to see how the battle evolved, or zoom into a specific part of it.

Similarly, consider learning Calculus. Liberation from the printed page means the student could change a variable, and graphically see how the function changes.

Or graphic novels, for another instance.

The form factor of a book, without the static constraints of the printed page.

Yep, nothing to see there.

Hi Skip.

> last time I looked at one --

Last time I looked, several years ago, when they made money... they'd kind of given up the partisanship.

> Liberation from the printed page means the
> student could change a variable, and
> graphically see how the function changes.

Data input with no buttons, no stylus and icons as fussy as those of an Iphone?

How many digits you wanna key in?

Last time I looked, several years ago, when they made money... they'd kind of given up the partisanship.

Go to their website, like I did at 2:50 this afternoon.

Data input with no buttons, no stylus and icons as fussy as those of an Iphone?

The kind of interaction I am talking about, through a touch screen, requires none of those things.

For instance, getting an expanded view of a picture requires only putting two fingers on it, and moving them apart.

Or a slider to change a variable. Or tabs above an illustration to look at different layers within it.

None of these forms of interaction require data input in the terms you are using, yet provide a vastly different "book" experience using something with the same form factor as a book.

How might books about Frank Lloyd Wright buildings, or race cars, be different absent the stasis of the printed page?

> Or a slider to change a variable

"Data entry", we call that. And a virtual "slider" for every value between on .000000343 and 12,424,477,383,430 (aka an "Obama" number) is really, really cumbersome. Especially when you then have to enter another number like that right away. That happens a lot when people work with numbers. Again, how many digits do you want to key in? How long before you want a numeric keypad?

Overblown faith in the power of computers (and before that, television) for education is not a new problem... It's been going on since I was a little kid. Steve Jobs didn't invent the eyeball. Printed pages present "stasis" only to those without the spirit to read and turn them. Flashy colors don't make people smart.

My own appreciation of Wright is cooking along nicely through the usual methods; this is arguably my favorite chamber in North America, outside my own beating heart. (And whaddya know!... The photo doesn't do it justice. To actually stand in there, and soak in the proportions in a human context, with Central Park joggers hauling past the window, is to be reminded that some men truly have special powers.)

And there's that book from the girlfriend who last visited the Met with me... The pages don't flip themselves (no tabs!), but it's an instructive treasure nonetheless.

Some mockery is timeless:

> They must be pre-disappointed, since
> the thing doesn't go on sale for
> another month.

Relax, hipster, we'll tell you when it's ready.

Data entry", we call that.

No. Imagine a plane intersecting a cone. You can change all the variables there are by moving the plane.

For just one example.

It's not an enchanting example. What insight does it offer that's not available through chalk on a blackboard?

Ok, so what if four dodecahedral solids intersect four planes at staggered angles with different material interactions for each, and you want to change the angle of only one of the planes? I mean, like, let's say you wanted a screen to do some meaningful modeling... Would you, as a software guy, be displeased that the screen isn't a typical showbiz or computing resolution?

I betcha would. Education will be the LEAST of the markets for this. Students learn to think by taking notes.

What insight does it offer that's not available through chalk on a blackboard?

At least one I can think of: by rotating the plane, it is possible to see how the equations defining intersection change. Chalk on a blackboard, just like an illustration in a textbook is static; however, the underlying mathematics are not.

Your example is far more complex. I’ll bet it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to portray it on a blackboard. In a book, it isn’t possible to vary anything. It might not be practical — but it is at least possible to contemplate — changing the angle of a plane on a tablet computer.

Every illustration in a book that is not inherently static, or single layered, could at least potentially be far more effective on an iPad-like device.

As it happens, I have a fair amount of experience with a tablet computer.

Several years ago, I had to lug around a case containing aviation navigation charts and manuals. Total weight, forty five pounds. Every two weeks I would get a package in the mail containing updates, which typically took one to two hours to post.

Then my airline went to an Electronic Flight Bag (EFB), a touchscreen device with roughly the same dimensions as the iPad. Forty five pounds gone. Hours per month of updates (and the associated error potential) gone. Expense of printing and distributing all those updates gone.

Along with those advantages came liberation from the stasis of the printed page. Searching for terms in the rules & regulations manuals became both fast and complete. I can switch between colors that work best during the day and those that work best at night. It became possible to view charts at different levels of magnification and de-clutter the presentation by selectively removing information layers. Entering the flight plan, via on-screen keyboard, which automatically selected all the relevant charts, was very fast because the EFB “knows” airways, navaids and fixes as a linked network. Embedded information (e.g., sector frequencies, airfield information) became instantly available with two touches on the screen: selecting the info function, then the item for which the information is desired. Jumping between en-route, arrival, approach and ground charts is essentially instantaneous.

I could go on, but those examples make my point. A touchscreen tablet computer does everything paper does, plus offers a whole host of things that paper could never hope to do.

Similarly for college textbooks. Why would I want to lug around a ten pound physics book instead of a 1.5 pound physics book? Why would I want to have 60 pounds of textbooks instead of 1.5 pounds? Or go to all the expense printing, distributing, and stocking textbooks? And for any information that varies with scale, depth, or time, the printed page is a prison.

So, just as tablet computers will kill paper aviation charts (IMHO, in less than five years), I would be very surprised if tablet computers don’t substantially replace paper textbooks in the same time.

And students will still get to learn by taking notes.

Yours is the voice of an awestruck (farmhand) visitor to the 1939 World's Fair; the huckersterism, blind admiration of consumerist impulse, and transparent hatred of toil engendered by that show warped pop culture for much of the remainder of the century— Well into my childhood, when it was given a booster shot by the '64 show. By the 1980's, the reeking mold of this frogwash was plainly apparent in a visit to Tomorrowland in Orlando, where the sponsoring international conglomerates didn't even bother their best PR people to put up a reasonable kiosk... Americans had figured out that while ('automatic!') washing machines certainly make life better, they don't transmit greater meaning through clothing. For that, you had to go see Michael Jackson wearing a jacket with extra zippers in the 3D movie showing in the next pavillion.

> it is at least possible to
> contemplate — changing the angle
> of a plane on a tablet
> computer.

It's plenty easy to contemplate without a computer. Humanity figured out how to do conical sections without a computer... Hence all those little elliptical marvels you and I have forgotten about since astronomy class. And it was done ('contemplated') that way for millenia, as people around the globe changed the angles of planes for one chore or another.

> it would be very difficult, if
> not impossible, to portray it on
> a blackboard.

Who says "portrayal" is where the action is?

My earliest years were in a laboring city, but after kindergarten I moved to a university town where the grade school was operated by the U's School of Education. In the 1960's! In the trendiest decade of one the trendiest sectors in public life, we saw it all: 'Learn at your own pace', students grading teachers, and every kind of computer frogwash that could be imagined for a mainframe. Huge treasures from the public wallet were squandered on computerized education, as two or three superficial, rote, batch-rendered lessons from this-or-that field were coded into software... And once the money was spent, schools were compelled to insist that the kids give at least a couple of hours of lab to it every semester, lest the sponsoring academic be compelled to confess that he'd wasted a slice of the endowment. Things haven't improved; if they had, we'd know... Such instruction would certainly dominate the web (as does pornography in reality), as education correlates so closely with enhanced income and opportunity. Education is and will always be a fleshy, personal, challenging business.

Your belief that somehow education can bring better enrichment by being more graphically distracting is misplaced. The abstraction you seem to fear is itself an important component of the process. It dares and intrigues the very minds that can be improved by it. Amusing the less-capable thinkers isn't the point, because they were never going to do the reading anyway.

These aren't the words of a killjoy: I've given my entire career and a majority of my leisure life to flashy electronic distraction. But decent confectioner recommends a balanced diet with lots of green veggies.

> could at least potentially be
> far more effective on an iPad-
> like device.

Not more effective, just more diverting.

> the stasis of the printed page.

Nothing is going to shake your attachment to that concept.

> A touchscreen tablet computer
> does everything paper does

Preposterous. Paper teaches all sorts of disciplines, and holds the original words of hundreds of generations of disciplined thinkers, transmitted at a universal cadence favoring no man. Computer graphics are colorful and busy.

> Why would I want to lug around a
> ten pound physics book instead
> of a 1.5 pound physics book?

Why would a guy who's paid to teach you physics worry at your distress over "lugging" books around if you'll one day be responsible for flying human hides?

> And students will still get to
> learn by taking notes.

But not on the Ipad, right?

Pretty icons, though.

PS— By "Tomorrowland" in the preceding comment, I mean this thing.

Golly! Aren't computer graphics wonderful? Don't you feel like your morning has been, like, completely enriched, and your understanding of my insights has been like entirely ennobled, through the use of these audio-visual aids?

Sure you do!

Two more things...

First, sorry for the double frogwash earlier, but this is a topic that summons my favorite sarcastic terms.

Springtime after springtime in that grade school, we'd be toiling away on some kind of dry, difficult material for hours while the magnificent sunlight shone on the playground through the window... A perfectly good day for play going to waste. And I'd look at my friend across the room, and he'd look back with a grimace of loss, knowing that our morning enthusiasm for softball was not going to survive until recess.

And then the teacher would say something about a film, or a new ("fun!") kind of test, or some other experimental program from the University, and we'd know we were coasting for the rest of the day. There was going to be something with bright colors and dancing forms and some kind of amusement for the remainder of the lesson... Some obviously worthless material with which even the teacher would soon grow bored. The learning was already over.

And your example of a plane cutting a cone is precisely the problem. These easy lessons are the ones that people imagine for computers, because anything more worthwhile is a terrific pain in the ass to convey through software.

Years ago, there was a spate of wireframe models in commercial animation— Not because that's what the advanced computers were capable of, but because those were the simple, introductory designs the young, green animators had just learned in classes the previous year. And their new bosses, not much older, ate it up... unable to distinguish "elemental" from "elementary".

Recently, in my late forties, I realized that while I'd favored manual transmissions for my last seven cars because they were sporty and macho, I had no clue how they worked. So I went to Youtube, certain that within seconds I'd be selecting from a choice of rotational, exploded-view, cleverly-shaded 3D renderings of the mechanism in action.

Nope... Try it!

The best clips are from dank garages, where shy mechanics with no talent for public speaking hold up rusty pieces of unrecognized iron with unremarkable but impenetrable names... Nonetheless, they provide the best understanding.

That's how it works. People who really, really care about that stuff either dig into the books or they pull the physics in through their own fingertips... Cartoons won't cut it.

It's plenty easy to contemplate without a computer. Humanity figured out how to do conical sections without a computer…

Of course humanity figured out all sorts of things without computers, and for some, perhaps many, people, such visualization is easy. The reason I picked this example third semester calculus (that would be 24 years ago now), a subject I really liked. And, no matter how I worked, just couldn’t manage any better than a high B. I remember struggling over one concept, which came together in a flash.

Three months after the final.

If there was an image I could have manipulated — because I simply could not attain the mental construct anywhere soon enough — I would have gotten at least that one thing a lot sooner.

That is why I think static images may not necessarily the best we can do. After all, the images are there in the first place to assist visualization. That said, I can certainly see your point that visual gimcrackery is always a possibility.

> A touchscreen tablet computer 
> does everything paper does

Preposterous. Paper teaches all sorts of disciplines, and holds the original words of hundreds of generations of disciplined thinkers, transmitted at a universal cadence favoring no man. Computer graphics are colorful and busy.

I think you missed my point. Without computer graphic one, a tablet computer (or my Kindle) does everything a book does: it is in the form factor of a book — that is indispensable — and displays pages sequentially. There is simply no difference between reading from it, or reading an actual book. All those original words will be exactly as readable from a tablet computer as they are on paper.

Why would a guy who's paid to teach you physics worry at your distress over "lugging" books around if you'll one day be responsible for flying human hides?

No reason. But students might. And colleges want to attract students. Additionally, why would a college want to maintain a bookstore if it doesn’t need to? I think the logistics and economics alone will drive colleges towards adopting tablet computers.

And students can still take notes on paper.

Recently, in my late forties, I realized that while I'd favored manual transmissions for my last seven cars because they were sporty and macho, I had no clue how they worked. So I went to Youtube, certain that within seconds I'd be selecting from a choice of rotational, exploded-view, cleverly-shaded 3D renderings of the mechanism in action.

Nope…

Try this. I think it could be made better by highlighting the gears transmitting the torque (and it doesn’t stop the output shaft in neutral) but other than those two quibbles, it appears to do exactly what you were looking for. (BTW, I have never owned a car without a manual trans.)

+++++++++

My predictions:

The Kindle DX is dead at its current price point.

Simply because of logistics issues, Universities will be the first to drive tablet computers as replacements for books. Within a year, there will be colleges issuing tablet computers to new students (and using that for marketing).

Tablet computers will drive disintermediation of publishing as digital music has for the recording industry. Sell any stock you have in publishing companies.

Because the barriers to entry will come down, there will be more authors. More supply will lead to lower prices (and authors income).

Book reading will become more like reading on the web. The tablet form factor is the critical change from the existing keyboard/display format. The size and shape of a book is so, well, right.

Tablet computers will succeed this time, but only moderately.

+++++++++

There is one downside, though. When you walk into someone’s house, the books they have on the shelve says something about them.

A Kindle laying on the table says nothing.

Darnnit. Try this manual transmission depiction instead.

> colleges want to attract students.

Burger shops want to attract carnivores, airlines want to attract travellers, musicians want to attract listeners. But you're taking the big picture from the wrong angle: We want colleges to teach the BEST people well, not just to get kids onto the campus.

> Try this manual transmission depiction instead.

Clear as mud. How could such scheme ever, ever work? (I want a revolving view around the mechanism, not just parts in motion.) I'm certain of it now: Auto mechanics around the globe use black magic to propel our cars.

> Universities will be the first to drive tablet
> computers as replacements for books

Naw... The textbook industry is huge and tentacled, and Steve's given them no new cause for fear. Battery life on tablets just isn't that great.. They're not even an order of magnitude better than laptops, and again, you can't take notes on one, certainly no better than on the pseudo-keyboard of the kindle, which DOES have some battery life... Three charges could get you through a semester. But I'd hate to get my whole education through such a tiny screen, whether it was a good one or a bad one.

Microsoft's had somewhere between three and seven iterations of tablet support: that's what my doctor uses. But it's mostly about checklists and five-word notations (prescriptions, tests etc.) She always sits down after the exams to type the big notes, perhaps on the same unit by flipping over a keyboard... I can't remember. At this point, tablets are only fit for certain vertically-integrated enterprises, and Ipad does nothing innovative to change this, and is in fact a step backward.

I think.

I mean, I really think you're wrong about this, and not just about this Apple product. If you buy one, I hope you like it and are fulfilled. But there just doesn't seem to be enough magic here to change computing as Steve has done four times in the past.

Shit, that was a link to the same survey.

But still...

Education ("Edjumication", Jody!) doesn't come to grown minds by selecting from a 4x7 grid of playfully-colored icons.

Hello Some good thought provoking content on here. Good work.