Opinion: David Coursey's column "E-Book Publishing Is Foundering for Good Reason" draws a heartfelt disagreement from Jim Louderback, who reads his REB-1200 daily.Aaah, what does David Coursey know about e-books? In his recent column, he decries the current state of electronic books, citing eight things wrong with e-books and only two right.
But Coursey's view of e-books—why they failed, and what makes a good one—is skewed by his own personal biases.
To David, an e-book is simply a container for words and pictures—an easy way to move it from the publisher to his home printer.
David misses the point—and the potential—of e-books because he can't grok the concept of actually reading something on a computer screen. For him, paper is the only medium for reading, and thus e-books need to be short, concise and easy to print.
I reviewed the first dedicated e-book reader—the Rocket e-book—and many of the flawed follow-ons, including the color REB-1200, the Franklin e-book reader and many more.
After using them to read a wide range of subjects, I concluded that they were destined for failure as well—and so they were.
Why did e-books die? Not because reading on a digital screen is bad, or the form factor poor.
They died because they had no clear advantage over paper books.
Any new technology needs at least two fundamental advantages over what it aims to replace (I modestly call this Louderback's Law); the e-book had but one: you could read it at night in bed without waking your wife.
Read the full story on PDFzone.com: Excuse Me, Mr. Coursey, But E-Books Rock
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