Monday 28 March 2011

ebook complaints

I'm a great fan of ebooks and have been for about 8 years. My Dell X30 pda had Microsoft Reader on it and I downloaded and read many books on it.
Last November I purchased a Sony Pocket ereader (PRS-350), which is amazing. The screen is electronic ink, so it's clear and uses so little power that a battery charge usually lasts for weeks. The minus points are:-
* the ridiculous stylus, which is so flimsy that it broke after a couple of months;
* Sony's useless Library Software, which only recognises the ereader occasionally;
* and the lack of a backlight. I can manage without the backlight, because it would reduce the battery life.
Kent Library Service has a number of electronic books that one can borrow for 21 days, so I haven't needed to buy any books yet. These include best-sellers soon after they are published, like Lee Childs' 61 Hours.
This brings me to my complaint. The ebooks are full of errors, I can't remember the last time that I read a paper book, which had spelling mistakes and other typographical errors, but most of the ebooks do.
It's almost as if the electronic version of the book is produced before the final version of the manuscript. I recently read a book called Shards of a Broken Crown, by Raymond Feist. This has so many mistakes that it's difficult to follow the plot. Amongst them is the variation in the way one of the characters (Jimmy Jameson) name is spelt. Sometimes it's Jamieson, Jameson, or Jamison.
The other problem with ebooks is DRM (Digital Rights Management), which is supposed to stop piracy. It is a pain in the neck. Adobe Digital Editions software keeps ignoring my ereader, which prevents me downloading ebooks to it. Adobe's solution was to do a hard reset on the ereader, which temporarily cured the problem, but meant that I had to recopy all of my books.
When you consider that most booksellers charge MORE for electronic books than paperbacks, this is wholly unacceptable. Ebooks are the future of publishing, but DRM issues and bad editing will not persuade people to buy.

N.B. These comments only apply to my experience with the blue Sony Pocket Reader (PRS-350). I will happily write a review, if anyone would like to lend me any other sort of ereader.