I do have to admit that I really do like the ability to extract text from a pdf. Especially useful if you want to customize your game heavily, or wish to combine supplements in one document. This also points out a limitation of the pdf, in that it combines the worst aspects of both worlds it's simply a print book on a screen, when you could develop a much better information architecture once you had a stable platform. I think in the future text ebooks (and I include RPGs in that definition) will become expert systems interfaces to an integrated database. Most of this actually being invisible to the user, of course, but capable of navigating through different paths of the document, adding your own notes and marginalia, and (at least in terms of RPGs), providing direct access to useful tools. Of course, this is probably a long way in the future, but D&Di seems to be making moves in the right direction (or at least so I am told by my friends that play 4E).
I think the upside is that people know that Amazon can be contained. That's good news. For all its faults, publishing is a competitive industry that will have to eventually submit to market pressures, so Macmillan's victory is less important than Amazon's defeat.
I think the channel that figures out how to get money from readers to authors is going to gain support from those constituencies, and in turn will succeed in the marketplace. The players who are focusing on ebook reader unit sales as a measure of success are looking at the short term.
Macmillan isn't trying to pin ebook prices. They want to un-pin them. They want to price their ebooks anywhere from $5.99 to $14.99 depending on how old the book is.
The ebook released the same day as the paper book would start at $14.99. As it gets older, the price would go down.
They say. In actual practice, Macmillan's got a pretty bad history in this regard -- many Macmillan books that've been in print for years still have ebook prices higher than the paperback price.
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I do have to admit that I really do like the ability to extract text from a pdf. Especially useful if you want to customize your game heavily, or wish to combine supplements in one document.
This also points out a limitation of the pdf, in that it combines the worst aspects of both worlds it's simply a print book on a screen, when you could develop a much better information architecture once you had a stable platform.
I think in the future text ebooks (and I include RPGs in that definition) will become expert systems interfaces to an integrated database. Most of this actually being invisible to the user, of course, but capable of navigating through different paths of the document, adding your own notes and marginalia, and (at least in terms of RPGs), providing direct access to useful tools. Of course, this is probably a long way in the future, but D&Di seems to be making moves in the right direction (or at least so I am told by my friends that play 4E).
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Of course, when one is offered chocolate truffles, it is gauche to refuse.
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I think the channel that figures out how to get money from readers to authors is going to gain support from those constituencies, and in turn will succeed in the marketplace. The players who are focusing on ebook reader unit sales as a measure of success are looking at the short term.
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The ebook released the same day as the paper book would start at $14.99. As it gets older, the price would go down.
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They say. In actual practice, Macmillan's got a pretty bad history in this regard -- many Macmillan books that've been in print for years still have ebook prices higher than the paperback price.
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