Comments on: Dear Author’s Big News

By: Dear Author’s Sony Partnership and Giveaway Details | Dear Author: Romance Book Reviews, Author Interviews, and Commentary

Sun, 21 Dec 2008 18:00:25 +0000

[...] you missed last week’s announcement, I thought I would bring you all up to date. The reviewers for Dear Author are being outfitted [...]

By: Mike Cane

Mike Cane — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 18:52:08 +0000

Wow, this is surprising news and really great of Sony to acknowledge Teh Internets.

@Ann Somerville: Avoid any eBook reader that lacks ePub file format capability. So far, only Sony Reader has it. (Well, Stanza on iPhone too.) ETASCO jetBook says they will have ePub next month, but I don’t know if that will apply to hardware currently on sale.

By: Ann Somerville

Ann Somerville — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 00:58:03 +0000

@Justy: Do you know what the Hanlin V3 is like to use? It looks the best option for us downunder, but I'd like some first hand user reports on it.

By: Mireya

Mireya — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 00:12:04 +0000

You are evil… I just had to get me a Sony e-reader… had been itching to get one, even went to the Sony store at the mall to check out the red one… *sigh* Will be delivered before Christmas! *doing the Snoopy dance of joy*

By: Karen Scott

Karen Scott — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 22:53:13 +0000

Oh that’s amazing news! Fabulous!

By: Karen

Karen — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 19:15:54 +0000

Congrats! Don’t need any more reviewers, do you?

Keep us up to date on how the giveaway will work.

By: Justy

Justy — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 16:45:45 +0000

Kaetrin – Dymocks in Australia carries the Cybook eBook Reader which is about the same size as a Sony Reader, in addition to the iRex. It reads Mobipocket format eBooks which are available at many eBook stores.
DA Direct carries the Cybook and HanLin V3 eBook readers as well as the iRex.
Hopefully one of these stores will help you join the ranks of eBook Reader owners. :)

See this site for other options of where to buy eBook Devices: http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Where_to_Buy_eBook_Devices

By: Jayne

Jayne — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 14:10:24 +0000

Yes, Santa, please. With Mac compatibility. Seriously. I would give a kidney for this. Want a kidney Mr Sony Santa?

Well, Kaetrin’s doing a lap dance for one.

By: NatCh

NatCh — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 04:40:55 +0000

Good for you guys! And an excellent move by the Sony folks. :) I’m most pleased for y’all.

By: Miki

Miki — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 01:40:54 +0000

How very cool!

So, did they give you 505s or 700s? I just love my 505. It goes everywhere with me.

And for Rhyss, it might just be possible to update the author/title “meta data” using Calibre. I’ve used Calibre to create Sony LRFs, but I’ve never tried updating meta data on existing DRM’d Sony books.

By: joykenn

joykenn — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 23:22:57 +0000

I think Sony should start including a plugin power cord for the reader instead of just the USB plug. It is a more expensive reader than others but doesn’t come with much–no cover, no plug.

I DO think you are on the right track not requiring Digital Right Management. That is the thing I hate the worst about Kindle. If it dies and I decide to buy a different type, all my purchases are gone! I hate the thought of investing in the amount of books I generally buy and then seeing them vanish if I need to change devices.

By: EC Sheedy

EC Sheedy — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 22:57:53 +0000

Brilliant partnership, Jane. So glad to see Dear Author being appreciated for what it is, a clear and frank voice for all things Romance.

And, oh, just this weekend I was looking at the Sony 700 . . . sigh . . . (Of course, I was smart enough to have at least two near-and-dear family members along to hear said *sigh*.

By: Rhyss

Rhyss — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 22:41:10 +0000

I too would love one of these, as my financial status seems to be going backward then rather forward, it will be some time before I can afford $300. Also, if it doesn't already, they need to add Adobe so, for example, Ellora's Cave pdf's can be read on it (I don't think they are DRM'd)

You can download any pdf file to the Sony eReader and I have many from Ellora, Saimhiam and all of the other epubs. In fact the only files that I can not read on my Sony are the Amazon Kindle books. I have emailed them a number of times asking them if I can buy their ebooks and read them on my Sony and this is their response:

Greetings from Amazon.com.

Thank you for writing to us about reading content purchased from the Kindle Store on another eBook reader. At this time, you can only read content from the Kindle Store, such as books, newspapers, magazines, and blogs, on Amazon Kindle.
The Kindle Book Store books have Digital rights assigned. Kindle books are designed to be read on the Kindle reading device. To find out if an ebook has Digital Rights Management or available in a different format, you’ll need to contact the seller.
~~~~~~~~~~~~

So Amazon doesn’t get any of my money…when will they ever learn.

By: Ann Somerville

Ann Somerville — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 22:39:32 +0000

can you please please please please please sell your eReader in Australia?

Yes, Santa, please. With Mac compatibility. Seriously. I would give a kidney for this. Want a kidney Mr Sony Santa?

By: Jane O

Jane O — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 22:31:29 +0000

I’m really kind of ambivalent about eReaders. At present, they seem to me prohibitively expensive, especially since I do the bulk of my reading via the public library and buy only books I am pretty sure I will want to keep. I can see the enormous advantages of eReaders, especially for publishers, and eventually for readers as well, but those advantages seem to be well in the future. I assume everything will eventually shake down and settle on a single format (the way BetaMax gave way to VCR tapes), and that the cost of the readers will come down (the way the cost of VCRs and computers did), and the cost of books will come down.
Why don’t publishers just give the eReaders away, creating a huge new market for their ebooks and thereby increasing the profit margin on ebooks, since it seems that most of the costs are fixed and will be the same whether they sell 50 copies or 50,000 copies.

By: Kaetrin

Kaetrin — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 22:04:41 +0000

Dear Sony (er, I mean, Santa),
thank you for partnering with DA. They are great. Please be nice to them.

Now, for important things, like what I want for Christmas… can you please please please please please sell your eReader in Australia? We read books too. We can only buy the Iliad which is like, a bazillion dollars and, from reviews, not very good. I want a Sony. I love Sony. We have a Sony LCD TV (a big one). I have a Sony mobile phone. See, I love Sony and I like to spend a lot of money on Sony stuff. I want a Sony eReader. (I’d love to win one from DA, but I’m actually happy to buy it) – but it’s not available in Australia and migrating is so expensive and disruptive to my family.

Oh, and no DRM please.

thank you
Kaetrin

PS – will sit on your knee if it will get me an eReader.

By: Shiloh Walker

Shiloh Walker — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 22:00:09 +0000

Wow…cool for you, ladies!

I’m lusting after one of those red readers, but mine still works just fine so it’s one of those things I can’t justify…

By: MaryK

MaryK — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 21:47:03 +0000

@BevQB: "Sony needs to let go of that utopian ideal of people buying the Sony Reader then shopping for ebooks at the Sony store. In real life, we have extensive EXISTING elibraries" This is what's holding me back from buying a dedicated ereader. I'm not going to buy a reader for each ebook format that I own. (And I don't want the hassle of converting them all or the annoyance of reading the resulting poorly formatted books.) I'm going to buy a reader that reads them all. [That sounds like a good slogan - "One reader to read them all." :) ] Dealing with existing libraries is going to be an ongoing problem for ereader manufacturers because as ebooks become more widespread more potential customers are going to have existing libraries. As it is, they're limiting their customer pool to readers just getting into ebooks or those who happened to have always used the Sony format.

By: Margay

Margay — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 21:36:24 +0000

That’s good to know. Thanks for posting!

By: Jane

Jane — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 21:32:03 +0000

@Margay: I know that the Sony supports RTF so I believe you could add any manuscript that was once in a Word doc format. You'd save it to an SD card and then pop the card into your Sony Reader.