eBook impressions and observations
Since the price of the 3rd generation Kindle (now rechristened "Kindle Keyboard") was recently lowered to the point of being within my budget, I sprang for one. Some impressions:
1. I bought the ad supported ("With Special Offers") version. The ads and Amazon offers have been unobtrusive and inoffensive. It's entirely likely that there will be an occasional Amazon offer worth taking them up on.
2. I know I can't expect too much from free ebooks, but you'd think Amazon would have someone whose job it is to make sure the free version of Pride and Prejudice that comes up on top in a search is acceptable. It really isn't. All of the instances of italics are rendered as ALL CAPS. The version from the Project Gutenberg site is also unacceptable: there is an extra empty line after each paragraph. My third try, the version from freekindlebooks.org, looks much better.
3. The annoying feature of the Kindle itself that turned up in P & P was Publicly Highlighted Passages. I don't see why anyone would want this. Luckily, it was easy enough to turn off.
4. Curlyquotes, people! Except for the one large-press ebook I paid money for, and the freekindlebooks.org P & P, every single ebook I've found so far has straight quotes. The Project Gutenberg FAQ still calls for straight quotes, fer chrissakes. (The thing about that is, as long as people were primarily reading the HTML version, or going farther back, the ASCII text version, straight quotes were not wrong. But if you are putting something on an ebook reader, then book typography rules apply.)
5. The combination of navigation via links from a table of contents and numbered chapters is infelicitous. I may wish to reread such-and-such a scene, but have no idea of the chapter number. Were I editing the table of contents for such a book, I would add informative and not-too-spoilery chapter titles to the table of contents. The paper version of Pride and Prejudice in my possession does just this.
6. Baen is entirely too kind. (But would it kill them to use curlyquotes?) The Baen CD material for the Vorkosigan series alone is worth most of the price of an ebook reader to me.
7. Most other publishers could stand to be more kind (in terms of ebook pricing.) In particular, reprints of old stuff could be cheaper. Since there's no used ebook market, the
8. Indie authors are kind, but I still haven't found one up to Big Publisher standards in sf/f. (I haven't looked too deeply yet.)
9. Relatedly, I do like the free sample excerpts. With the free samples, the experience of browsing the Kindle Store isn't that far behind being in an actual bookstore.
10. The actual reading experience is very smooth. I think I prefer it to reading paper books, overall.
11. The default font isn't my favorite. I'd prefer something with a stronger difference in weight between horizontal and vertical strokes. I expect that such a font would look worse at smaller font sizes with the Kindle's resolution; I assume this is why the default font is the way it is.
1. I bought the ad supported ("With Special Offers") version. The ads and Amazon offers have been unobtrusive and inoffensive. It's entirely likely that there will be an occasional Amazon offer worth taking them up on.
2. I know I can't expect too much from free ebooks, but you'd think Amazon would have someone whose job it is to make sure the free version of Pride and Prejudice that comes up on top in a search is acceptable. It really isn't. All of the instances of italics are rendered as ALL CAPS. The version from the Project Gutenberg site is also unacceptable: there is an extra empty line after each paragraph. My third try, the version from freekindlebooks.org, looks much better.
3. The annoying feature of the Kindle itself that turned up in P & P was Publicly Highlighted Passages. I don't see why anyone would want this. Luckily, it was easy enough to turn off.
4. Curlyquotes, people! Except for the one large-press ebook I paid money for, and the freekindlebooks.org P & P, every single ebook I've found so far has straight quotes. The Project Gutenberg FAQ still calls for straight quotes, fer chrissakes. (The thing about that is, as long as people were primarily reading the HTML version, or going farther back, the ASCII text version, straight quotes were not wrong. But if you are putting something on an ebook reader, then book typography rules apply.)
5. The combination of navigation via links from a table of contents and numbered chapters is infelicitous. I may wish to reread such-and-such a scene, but have no idea of the chapter number. Were I editing the table of contents for such a book, I would add informative and not-too-spoilery chapter titles to the table of contents. The paper version of Pride and Prejudice in my possession does just this.
6. Baen is entirely too kind. (But would it kill them to use curlyquotes?) The Baen CD material for the Vorkosigan series alone is worth most of the price of an ebook reader to me.
7. Most other publishers could stand to be more kind (in terms of ebook pricing.) In particular, reprints of old stuff could be cheaper. Since there's no used ebook market, the
8. Indie authors are kind, but I still haven't found one up to Big Publisher standards in sf/f. (I haven't looked too deeply yet.)
9. Relatedly, I do like the free sample excerpts. With the free samples, the experience of browsing the Kindle Store isn't that far behind being in an actual bookstore.
10. The actual reading experience is very smooth. I think I prefer it to reading paper books, overall.
11. The default font isn't my favorite. I'd prefer something with a stronger difference in weight between horizontal and vertical strokes. I expect that such a font would look worse at smaller font sizes with the Kindle's resolution; I assume this is why the default font is the way it is.