[Dragaera] Kindle and SKZB

[Michael Wojcik]

Maximilian Wilson wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 7, 2009 at 9:29 AM, Michael Wojcik <mwojcik at newsguy.com> wrote:
>> It would be nice if I could buy books in an open softcopy form,
>> through an arrangement that sent a significantly higher royalty to the
>> author, with professional publishing. There are high-quality academic
>> publishers that produce softcopy; maybe in time more mainstream
>> publishers will move into the market too.
> 
> Kindle hardware != Kindle store.

Nor did I claim otherwise.

> For instance, you can buy books from Baen through webscription.net and
> have them sent to your Kindle

This would require having a Kindle, of course. I'm not interested in
owning a Kindle. I already have a device on which I can read softcopy
books - my laptop. I could read them on my phone (Symbian based, so
there's plenty of reader software, and I can write my own), if I want
something more portable.

> in PDF format as well for a nominal
> charge from Amazon (on the order of a dime).

According to the webscriptions FAQ, they don't do PDF. They do HTML,
though, which is preferable for many purposes (if it's validating HTML
4.01 Strict - I haven't checked).

But if I understand their documentation - I haven't used webscriptions
- it's a subscription service, and offers four books a month. That's
nice, but it's not exactly competition for Barnes & Noble yet.

All that said, I'd forgotten how aggressively Baen had gotten into
softcopy publishing. More power to 'em. I'll have to look through
their catalog.

> From hearing Baen authors
> talk, I have the impression that 1.) royalties from e-books still are
> dominated by those from paper books, 2.) Baen pays a good royalty for
> e-books.

Good to hear.

-- 
Michael Wojcik
Micro Focus
Rhetoric & Writing, Michigan State University