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Premium E-books
Feb. 4th, 2010 12:53 pmWhat would constiture a premium e-book?
Much of the discussion I've seen in the last week takes as a given that e-books (even without DRM) are inferior to hardcopy books (and therefore should have a cheaper price). This is by people who read them: I have to assume that people who don't have an even stronger view on the subject.
What would have to be the case for an e-book to be considered a premium product?
I'll note that there's a limit to how far you can "improve" a work of fiction. It's text. Plain text, maybe with a few illustrations (which will have a higher dpi on the page, in any case).
For non-fiction books I see a few possibilties.
- Interactive maps with zoom capabiltlies
- Manipulable diagrams
- Hyperlinked indexes (this is a pretty minor upgrade)
- Primary materials bundled, with links from the text. (Particularly useful where there are extensive primary materials).
- Embedded primary materials where these are archival film clips
I get the feeling that to be considered a real premium product, in many of these cases, is going to require colour and embeddable applications ... which leads to interesting thoughts about the iPad versus e-Ink based readers.
Much of the discussion I've seen in the last week takes as a given that e-books (even without DRM) are inferior to hardcopy books (and therefore should have a cheaper price). This is by people who read them: I have to assume that people who don't have an even stronger view on the subject.
What would have to be the case for an e-book to be considered a premium product?
I'll note that there's a limit to how far you can "improve" a work of fiction. It's text. Plain text, maybe with a few illustrations (which will have a higher dpi on the page, in any case).
For non-fiction books I see a few possibilties.
- Interactive maps with zoom capabiltlies
- Manipulable diagrams
- Hyperlinked indexes (this is a pretty minor upgrade)
- Primary materials bundled, with links from the text. (Particularly useful where there are extensive primary materials).
- Embedded primary materials where these are archival film clips
I get the feeling that to be considered a real premium product, in many of these cases, is going to require colour and embeddable applications ... which leads to interesting thoughts about the iPad versus e-Ink based readers.
