ok, i sure hope jim swings by today...

jim, i was just checking, and you know what?
nook can read .pdfs just fine...  so can kobo...
and so too with a number of other e-readers.
(but long run, those others are likely goners.)

so if the people who own these machines can
quickly and easily create .pdfs _customized_
to the exact specifications of their preferences
-- as they can, with the tool i've developed --
.pdf ends up as a very useful format for them...

maybe someday your kindle can do that too...

on the whole, though, one has to be impressed
with the universality amazon has attained with
its .mobi format.  it created viewer-programs for
all of the major platforms, and they all sync well,
so even though amazon chose _not_ to adopt the
"e-book standard file-format", it sure hasn't hurt
their uptake.  nobody comes close to their share.

i've been waiting for literally 2 years to post this.
since 2 years ago, tim o'reilly (yes, that one), said:

>   I have a bold prediction: Unless Amazon
>   embraces open e-book standards like epub,
>   which allow readers to read books
>   on a variety of devices, the Kindle
>   will be gone within two or three years.
>   http://www.forbes.com/2009/02/22/kindle-oreilly-ebooks-technology-breakthroughs_oreilly.html

see the glaring mistake he made?  that the only way
readers could "read books on a variety of devices"
is if amazon "embraced an open e-book standard".

oops...

a lot of people think tim o'reilly is a very smart guy,
and i'm not about to argue with them, but we need
to acknowledge that he made a very stupid mistake
with this "bold prediction" of his, and it is the same
very stupid mistake that _lots_ of people have made
-- including one guy who used to post here a lot --
which is that if you have "an open e-book standard",
all sorts of magical things will happen automatically.

well, guess what, they don't.

and furthermore, a good number of those "magical"
things can happen even if you _don't_ choose to use
a file-format that's "open" or "standard" or even both.

in such a case, you need to apply the elbow grease,
which is exactly what amazon did, and it _worked_...

it worked _big_time_...  self-published authors are
now making some extremely big money on amazon.
a 27-year old kid (i'm old enough to call a 27-year
old woman a kid, yes, i am) has sold _half-a-million_
e-books through the various e-bookstores out there,
the big bulk of 'em through the amazon kindle-store.
she only made $.35 each on some of those sales, but
she made $2 a piece on the others, so she's closing in
on her first million dollars as a self-published author.
and she had never sold a book before april 15, 2010.
and many others have reached other levels of success.
konrath, one leader, made $64,000 the last 2 months,
and looks to make up to a million bucks in this _year_.
so it's clear to everyone that the kindle is not "gone"...
not by a longshot...  it's here, big, and in your _face_...

so now tim o'reilly has egg on his face.

-bowerbird