Filed under: Internet Tools, iPhone
iPhone formatted eBooks by Lulu.com
We were promised many things in the future: flying cars, glass dome enclosed cities, faster than light travel, and electronic books. eBooks are a reality, but they haven't really caught on (mostly because it is tough to compete with the form factor and pleasure that a physical book offers up). Lulu.com is trying to change that by making self publishing easy.I know what you're thinking, why the heck am I reading about this on TUAW? Besides the fact that I am struggling to write the Great American Novel (heck, I'd settle for the 'Best Selling but Mediocre American Novel), Lulu.com has just announced a new service called 'eBook Optimization.' Self publishing authors will use this service, which costs $25, to create PDF files designed specifically for viewing on the iPhone (and the Sony eBook Reader). You can then sell your eBook via Lulu, so everybody wins!
[via MobileRead]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jt Hollister said 7:34PM on 10-08-2007
Cool!
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Joey said 8:52PM on 10-08-2007
The IPhone is the perfect platform for ebooks to explode on. I love reading web pages on my IPhone, I am more likely to read a long article on my IPhone then I am on my PC. That is why I think that I would like reading ebooks as well. Apple should build a ebook reader, with fancy animations for turning pages. Then add ebooks to ITunes, they would crush Sony's ebook reader which does not support Macs. They could also sell magazines.
APPLE if you can hear me ...... an E Book reader would be a killer app.
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Dugnamtar said 3:38AM on 10-09-2007
I am currently reading books on iPhone using Safari and web-based readers (in fact, they are simply file storages), like http://readdle.com. I can't say that even most-optimized PDF is better than iPhone-formatted HTML.
Anyway, the main problem of iPhone reading is a lack of legal DRM-free books. Built-in iPhone PDF viewer does not support Adobe DigitalEditions. Well, Mobile Safari does not support any non-free format. Anyone can convince publishers to sell completely unprotected texts? Probably another Job's open letter would help.
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umijin said 3:41AM on 10-09-2007
Ummm, I'd really like to read pdf's on my iPod touch. I mean pdfs from some source other than the internet.
I don't care if it's though Safari or not - just want to read content from my Touch without having to use a fresh dowload.
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Laslzò said 5:25AM on 10-09-2007
Lulu means "piss" in German. ;)
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Pete said 10:55AM on 10-17-2007
The lack of growth in ebook demand has repeatedly been blamed on form factor. And here it is again.
Dugnamtar above gets closer to the mark with the "lack of legal DRM-free books."
But it's simpler than that. The #1 problem is selection. We'll never see adoption of ebooks as long as 90% of the books we want aren't available. What should we do? Look around for an ebook each time we want a book, fail 90% of the time, buy a printed book, then beat our heads against the problem next time around? Consumers aren't that patient.
The #2 problem is price. Ebook prices are already typically 25% below print, but they need to come down further. They will, at least among mid-priced books, when the market is larger. This problem will solve itself.
The #3 problem, customer experience is already solved. I've read long books on a Treo. It wasn't a great experience, but it had it's advantages. My iPhone screen is at least 100% better and has been potential navigation.
It's about selection, folks. Amazon succeeded in books because of it. Wikipedia wasn't interesting until it was reasonably comprehensive. If Google indexed half the web but did it really well, would you use it?
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