E-Book Formats
I’ve lately been the demise of the CD to family and friends. This is only my interpretation, but it is difficult to find and purchase classical or jazz CD’s in Victoria. So I’ve been thinking of moving over to IPOD technology and downloading music as well as e-books. But a colleague sent me an article reminding me of how complicated e-books are to use and the prolems with the different formats. I did a quick search and couldn’t find e-books on the Barnes & Noble site (it appears they no longer support ebooks), amazon.ca had strange results, and Foyles, God love them, didn’t seem overly sure there were such things.
Am I right in thinking the e-books and audibooks are really fringe and have no future in mainstream legal publishing, outside of initiatives like Irwin Law’s?
The e-book, like your hotel in Amsterdam, is always just around the bend. None do the job now for the simple reason, I think, that the technology can’t produce an experience as enjoyable or as practical as that of reading print on paper. But, as we’ve mentioned on Slaw somewhere, “digital paper” is coming. And I do believe it is. In which case e-books will take hold. And I’m sure I recognize that bridge, so we can’t be far from the hotel now.
By the way, you’ve omitted a verb in the first sentence between “been” and “the,” causing me no end of speculatino: extolling? bemoaning? descrying? This is a very effecting technique for garnering interest, akin only to that of the slow speaking German who will not arrive at the end of his sentence, where the crucial verb is destined to appear. You cunning dog, you.
Promoting? Emailing?…
I wish I could claim to be that cunning, Simon – more like fortuitous mistake. Or as the evolutionists would say, luck not cunning.