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Re: 14.8 million ipads sold (in 9 months) during 2010
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 28 Jan '11

28 Jan '11

just what i thought, jim. you advocate for .html as a master-format. but when it comes time to show that .html can actually _do_ that, you come up empty. you say that people just want to download an e-book and have it work for them, but that doesn't apply if someone wants .pdf... hollow rhetoric, that's all you've got, jim... -bowerbird

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Re: 14.8 million ipads sold (in 9 months) during 2010
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 28 Jan '11

28 Jan '11

jim said: > I have no use nor interest in PDF except it ain't about what _you_ want... it's about what _end-users_ might want. and some of them will indeed want .pdf. > Let me see the HTML, EPUB, > and/or MOBI you generate i think you misunderstand. this exercise is a _competition_ between you and me, jim, .html versus .zml as master-format. not just me jumping through your hoops. so yes, we'll go through all the formats, and you can generate them in whatever order you like, but the one i want to see first up is your html-to-pdf conversion... > and preferably not on a book which > is in your own words “dead simple.” let's start with a dead-simple book, and if you can do that, we'll work our way up. -bowerbird

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amazon-haters should get their knives out again
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 28 Jan '11

28 Jan '11

people who hate amazon's "vague" press-releases touting its success can get out the knives once again... this latest press-release reports on 4th-quarter results for the retailer, and all of the trends are pointing up. this is especially true of kindle stuff, which is at the top of the highlights. the big "talking point" of this release is that amazon now sells more k-books than paperbacks. 15% more, actually. i know, i know. all you haters want to know the _exact_number_, right? guess you'll go away unhappy again... meanwhile, those of us who care about e-books, and their march of progress, have yet another thing to cheer about... > http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&p=irol-newsArticle& ID=1521090 press-release excerpts appended... -bowerbird > * Amazon.com is now selling > more Kindle books than paperback books. > Since the beginning of the year, > for every 100 paperback books Amazon has sold, > the Company has sold 115 Kindle books. > Additionally, during this same time period > the Company has sold three times as many > Kindle books as hardcover books. > This is across Amazon.com's entire U.S. book business > and includes sales of books where there is no Kindle edition. > Free Kindle books are excluded and if included > would make the numbers even higher. > > * The Company sold millions of > third-generation Kindle devices with the new > advanced paper-like Pearl e-ink display > in the fourth quarter and > the third-generation Kindle eclipsed > "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" > as the bestselling product in Amazon's history. > > * The U.S. Kindle Store now has > more than 810,000 books including New Releases > and 107 of 112 New York Times Bestsellers. > Over 670,000 of these books are $9.99 or less, > including 74 New York Times Bestsellers. > Millions of free, out-of-copyright, pre-1923 books > are also available to read on Kindle.

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Re: 14.8 million ipads sold (in 9 months) during 2010
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 27 Jan '11

27 Jan '11

so, jim, have you got that revised .pdf for me yet? oh yeah, and i'd also like to see a version that has perfect justification, rather than the ragged right? i'm not sure which i want, so i'd like to see both, ok? and one more thing, the illustrations seemed to be missing in the version you posted. can you fix that? thanks a lot, jim. and don't disappear on me yet... we're getting to the part when you learn something. *** marcello said: > I already generate PDF from RST in the lab. oh, isn't that just precious... thanks to the little miracle of light markup, marcello is finally able to _do_ something, instead of just pounding his head against the t.e.i. specifications manuals, and he's so _pleased_ with himself, there in his "lab". i am conjuring up shades of menlo park... can't you just visualize the steamy beakers? he's actually _generating_ .pdf. amazing! yeah, yeah, the python community has been using r.s.t. to turn its manuals into .pdf form for a long time ago, but don't ruin all his fun! he is _generating_ .pdf! it must be akin to bringing _frankenstein_ to life! so exciting! dude, you could have been doing this in 2004, if you would have only _listened_ to me then... *** carlo said: > A5 is better than A4. yes, yes, yes, and yes. only an imbecile creates a .pdf at letter-size. seriously. that's my #1 check to see if someone has a clue, the pagesize at which they've created their .pdf... if it's 8.5*11, i immediately dismiss 'em as an idiot. (congratulations jim! you passed that little test...) > It is more similar to the standard book size, > and for print two pages in one is OK. that's correct. and you need to educate the users that that's how they should approach a print-out. also, if someone wants large-print, they can have the a5 page _expanded_ to lettersize on printout. > If one size has to fit all, A5 is better than A4. > ... > But probably several combinations of size, > margins and point size should be provided. like i said above, don't forget justified versus ragged. and you should at _least_ let people choose between a serif font and a sans serif; that's the bare minimum. so how many different .pdfs have we generated now? and you'll still have people whining because they didn't get it the way that they _really_ wanted it... -bowerbird

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OverDrive adds 15K PG titles for mobile users
by Marcello Perathoner 26 Jan '11

26 Jan '11

http://overdriveblogs.com/library/2011/01/25/overdrive-apps-updated-plus-pr… -- Marcello Perathoner webmaster(a)gutenberg.org

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Re: 14.8 million ipads sold (in 9 months) during 2010
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 25 Jan '11

25 Jan '11

jim- i've had examples online for years now, jim. and the tool will be coming out very soon... indeed, it's "ready enough" now for anyone who wants to request a copy backchannel... and -- in a new as-yet-announced twist -- the thing will also be available as a web-app. no need to download anything to execute it, just point to your text and graphics online, and set up parameters for your preferences, and the output formats will be generated... of course, this tool is aimed at new writers, creating new books, and they might be a bit reluctant to upload their book to a website -- can't be too careful! -- so i'll also have cross-platform downloadable programs... the current example i'm using is "the jungle", by upton sinclair. a drop-dead simple book, from the standpoint of formatting, but i am willing to upload samples of _my_ output if jim is also willing to upload samples of what _he_ created and considers to be worthwhile. shall we start with the .pdf version, jim? -bowerbird p.s. if .html worked as an _input_ format, p.g. would already be using it in that way, but as anyone who actually, ya know, _tries_ to do that will quickly discover, it don't work. there are too many flavors of .html, and _far_ too many ways to accomplish the same thing, so inconsistencies in the .html files preclude any programmatic use of them as input files... do you think marcello adopted a light-markup position because he _wanted_ to do so? right. he had to eat his words, years and years worth of bitter, hard, cold words, and agree with me. because his alternative was to remain paralyzed.

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Re: 14.8 million ipads sold (in 9 months) during 2010
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 22 Jan '11

22 Jan '11

michael said: > I don't mean optimize for one machine at the expense, > to the exclusion of others, and bb should know that by now. i can appreciate that you didn't "mean" that. but each machine carries a different footprint these days, so you have to "optimize" for each one, unfortunately... or, to put it more bluntly, and also more correctly, if you expect to run out a file for one machine and have it work on another machine, you are likely to be quite disappointed. and it's not just the _machines_ that have different quirks. so do each of your human readers, and they want their files to conform to their preferences, or else they won't be happy. so what you are talking about just won't work. oh, all right, it will "work", at some level, it just won't be the _best_ level. but this is outside the hands of both of us now. marcello will be the one, along with maybe rfrank, who determines the level at which performance of your files pleases users. whether you "meant" to do it or not, you put him in charge. i hope it works out for you. -bowerbird

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Re: 14.8 million ipads sold (in 9 months) during 2010
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 21 Jan '11

21 Jan '11

michael said: > I think I sent the messages just to bowerbird ok, could've been. > the site I was reading for iPad data, > numbers, descriptions, etc., was not good.... also coulda been... > When I got better data, it was more obvious-- > but since I had never even seen an iPad then, > I had no other data to work with, and Apple, > IRRC wasn't saying much in the early days. that's correct, to a large degree. apple _did_ make an announcement right off, on april 3rd, that they'd already sold 300,000, but that included pre-orders and channel sales. > http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/04/05ipad.html > http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/04/ and right at the time of our bet, apple released its second-quarter numbers, but it did _not_ comment on the number of ipads sold, which _might_ have led some observers to cast doubt. > http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/04/20results.html > http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/04/20ipad.html so yeah, there was a lot of rampant speculation... but shortly thereafter, on may 3rd, apple said that it had sold one million ipads, in 28 days... > http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/05/03ipad.html > http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/05/ and then, again, on may 31st, apple reported that it had already sold its second million ipads. > http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/05/31ipad.html so yeah, like you say, michael, once we received that data, the nature of the phenomenon became clear to everyone... but before then, everyone underestimated it, often to a degree that -- in hindsight -- is embarrassingly bad, as john gruber pointed out in an entry on his blog: > http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/01/18/claim-chowder-ipad-sales-2010 -bowerbird

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Re: 14.8 million ipads sold (in 9 months) during 2010
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 21 Jan '11

21 Jan '11

michael said: > As for bowerbird's bet, I will remind him, yet again, > that this was based on faulty data and that I said so earlier, > not that I won't still buy him lunch any time he comes by.... hmm. that's weird. i don't recall any discussion of "faulty data", and i reviewed some of the posts earlier today, so i could retrieve the actual date of the bet... it was on april 21st of this year, if you care. and i keep archives of this list on my site... > http://z-m-l.com/gutvold/ > http://z-m-l.com/gutvold/2010-04April.txt the april archive doesn't even contain the word "faulty". nor did i find synonyms for it around the word "data"... > not that I won't still buy him lunch any time he comes by.... not if i buy you lunch first, you won't. i know you, mr. hart. ;+) -bowerbird

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14.8 million ipads sold (in 9 months) during 2010
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 20 Jan '11

20 Jan '11

apple didn't update the announced total of ipads sold for a long time, but they were still selling lots of 'em... to date, they've sold 14.8 million, half in the last quarter. this surpassed even the wildest expectations. congrats! you might recall that michael and i have a friendly bet on when the ipad numbers will surpass the kindle numbers. (can't remember if it was just the kindle, or all of the dedicated machines; nook has done surprisingly well.) anyway, amazon still isn't releasing specific figures, but there were reports they had ordered 4.5 million chips for delivery in the first quarter for use in kindle3 machines, which indicates they still believe strongly in the product. with that kind of chip order, they will get a deep discount, and amazon is very good at passing along the savings, so we can look for kindles to get even cheaper than the $139. 2012 might be the year that we finally arrive at sub-$100. i predicted april 21, 2013 as the date when ipad will "win" the numbers race. we'll see how that turns out... whatever the case, as i said in an earlier post, 2010 was the year that _writers_ started making money, sometimes _big_ money, by selling their work directly to their readers, disintermediating publishers in the process. they still have amazon as a middleman, taking 30%, but amazon performs necessary services for their cut, so it might be a fair share. the important point is this: there has now been formed a critical mass of readers who are willing to buy e-books from authors "directly" (i.e., via amazon), so that authors no longer need publishers. this is a very beautiful thing. for a long time, i pooh-poohed project gutenberg because it was just "all those old books", when i was more interested in the _new_ books that were coming out from _new_ writers. but since the publishing industry had all of those new books tied up in its system, the only place i could really work with e-books -- develop them, do r&d on them, and so forth -- was here at project gutenberg. so i really appreciate the big opportunity which presented itself here, thanks to michael... that's especially true because it was hart's insistence on the "plain-text" version of e-books that led to my discovery that plain-text is actually _the_ superior file-format for e-books. you just have to store the styling and formatting information in amongst that plain-text, which isn't hard to do, not at all. but you then have a file-format which is very easy to work on. since even marcello, the most rabid of the x.m.l./t.e.i. diehards who'd attack me regularly, has converted over to light-markup, the bulk of my work is pretty much finished here, i would think. there was no announcement here, but over at d.p., rfrank said: > Project Gutenberg and DP management > have approved RST as a master format. and with that, i issue a loud "i told you so" and a big laugh... meanwhile, new authors with new books are now calling me... because the corporate publishing industry was in charge, and they wanted to make e-book creation as difficult as possible -- so as to make it more difficult for newbies to compete -- we are now stuck with jon noring's stupid complicated .epub, as "the standard" no less! except, just as i always predicted, the absence of an open-source authoring-tool prototype app and an open-source viewer-program means that we now have a bunch of different implementations of the .epub "standard", which means we're reliving our "web-browser incompatibility" nightmares all over again, except it's with e-books this time... great. that's just what we needed. of course, this is just what the corporate publishers _wanted_. they have been dragging their feet on e-books since the start, stalling things out whenever they could, so this was the tactic. but we knew they were doomed anyway. and we were right. and now we have a critical mass of readers who want to buy, and authors who want to sell to that critical mass, so there's a new opportunity now to make the e-book world a bit smarter, by adopting a better format, just like i made p.g. a bit smarter. i'll still hang around on this list. and i'll still have things to tell you that _would_ make you smarter if you would listen... but for the most part, my attention is now on the new books. the ones that'll be born digital. good luck with the old ones. -bowerbird

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