The eBook Buyer’s Bill of Rights

This was inspired by a big bunch of Samples I downloaded from Amazon’s Kindle Store. These are not specific to Kindle format. All eBook formats suffer.

People like lists of ten. I have nine here as a work-in-progress minimum.

1) You have the right to a proper cover.
a) The cover should be the same as on the current printed edition.
b) The cover should be large enough to fill at minimum a five-inch screen.
c) A thumbnail of the cover shown for sales or library software purposes should be the same cover as in the eBook.

2) You have the right to a Table of Contents (TOC).
a) The TOC should have links to the matter inside the book so you can jump to each part.

3) You have the right to proper formatting by default.
a) Formatting should mirror a proper printed book.
b) Paragraphs should have indents without spaces between paragraphs.
c) Only after such proper default formatting should a reader be able to mix things up via a device’s software settings (typesize, spacing, margins — in other words, reflow overrides).

4) You have the right to highlight passages.
a) Sharing highlighted passages should be optional, opt-in, and protect privacy.

5) You have the right to set Bookmarks.
a) As many as you damn well want!

6) You have the right to Copy passages.
a) Copyright holders have the right to restrict this to one paragraph at a time to make piracy too time-consuming.

7) You have the right to legible illustrations.
a) They should be zoomable or several sizes should be available via linking.

8) You have the right to proofreading.
a) Any eBook with more than ten typos should be refundable as defective.

9) You have the right not to be assaulted by screens of blurbs when starting a book.
a) Blurbs are unnecessary in eBooks — they’ve already been bought!

From Internet To Touchnet

PadPressed

Turn Your Blog Into An iPad Native With PadPressed

This is very exciting but the wrong way to go.

I said last year that touch would change everything and that web designers should wake up.

But offering this as a plug-in has problems.

1) Those of us using the free WordPress.com service (such as me) cannot use this.

2) Apparently it makes use of iPad-specific features that others — Android and webOS — cannot use.

3) It’s against the grain of the Internet to make parts of it friendly to only specific devices.

While I’m very happy to see someone finally acknowledging how things must change — and has actually made a move to do something in that direction — this approach is not what’s needed for everybody.

Quotes Of The Day

Scribd is farmville for pdfs, a loathsome service designed with the most shallow and brutal interpretation of human nature in mind @mikecaneSat May 08 23:38:46 via webBaldur Bjarnason
fakebaldur

And:

I don’t care if scribd uses HTML3.2 with font-face and CSS2. It’s designed to appeal to the lowest, reptile-brain part of the human psyche.Sat May 08 23:41:13 via webBaldur Bjarnason
fakebaldur

It Takes An Outsider To Grok The iPad

Jerry Del Colliano’s Inside Music Media blog is something I tripped across just last week and immediately put it in my daily reading list.

What’s odd is that I don’t have a deep interest in either music or much of music radio, but both he and Bob Lefsetz have a depth of understanding things that’s totally lacking in tech writing. It must be due to the fact both come from emotional businesses, not scientific ones.