Winter, 2002 Bulletin

Reading and Writing in the Digital Age: An e-Publishing Overview

By Rachel R. Hartman

© 2002 Rchael R. Hartman

The year 2000 has come and gone and we still don’t have our personal jetpacks or flying cars or Luna City. But the average computer user has more processing power available on his desktop or in her briefcase than NASA had for Apollo 11. We’re using our computers to balance checkbooks, store addresses and phone numbers, write everything from thankyou notes to novels, manage our appointments, play games, and read books

Read books? Aren’t e-books just another flash-in-the-pan, victims of the dotcom bubble, gone the way of the 8-track? It’s hard to consider e-publishing a mere flash in the pan when you remember that Project Gutenberg started in 1971, with the posting of the Declaration of Independence. In those early days of the Internet, e-books were typically read in the simplest of text files, with no illustrations, no options for changing the font size or type, limited search capabilities, no hyperlinks, and no bookmark function

Yet Project Gutenberg gained supporters, and today is still cited over and over again as the best source for e-versions of public domain works. Its example eventually inspired university and public libraries to offer e-books to their patrons

With the growth of the Internet, especially the explosive popularity of the World Wide Web, it is no surprise that ebooks were discovered by users who never needed to learn Unix or GNU. But the mainstream wanted more than the early simple text files. Back in 1998, Roger F

Fidler, journalist and designer of a tablet reader prototype, wrote an article describing his attempts to read e-books. As the title, “Electronic Books: A Good Idea Waiting for the Right Technology,” indicates, he was not an instant convert to ebooks, but was intrigued by their potential

In his opinion, e-books would be most likely to compete successfully with print books when they incorporated most or all of the following qualities: portability, simplicity, readability, durability, longevity, portrait orientation and multipage format, standardization, affordability, reliability, and personalization

Fidler’s concerns did little to slow the hype. Richard Curtis, known as a literary agent long before he founded e-reads in 1999, admits, “E-books were overhyped after the introduction of the Rocket eBook and the SoftBook in 1998, and I’m afraid I contributed to the euphoria.” But Curtis was not the only one eager to explore the potential of e-books, or even the first to found an e-publishing company

Bibliobytes was founded in January 1993 and Alexandria Digital Library (commonly known as AlexLit) was founded in July 1996. In addition to the founding of e-reads, 1999 also marked the launching of Lone Wolf Publications, which offered a unique multimedia approach seldom duplicated to this day (see “Jewel Box Fiction” by Michael T

Huyck, Jr., Bulletin Spring 2000), and Simon & Schuster released Stephen King’s Bag of Bones simultaneously in print and e-book editions. The year 2000 saw the beginning of Rosetta Books in January, Embiid Publishing in May, Fictionwise and Bookface in June, and Scorpius Digital in August. On March 14, 2000, Stephen King’s Riding the Bullet was released solely as an e-book. In June 2000, pleased by the response to Riding the Bullet, King announced the installment plan for The Plant, a serial novel paid for chapter by chapter by its readers. Random House established Modern Library eBooks in July 2000

But the boom could not last, with Bookface and Bibliobytes, both primarily supported by advertising, closing their electronic doors, much to the dismay of SFWAns who had signed on. In November 2000, King stopped posting new installments of The Plant because only 46% of its readers were paying for it. Technological problems were still not solved. In Fidler’s 2001 article, “The e-Bookstore: Overcoming Fatal Application Errors and Other Annoyances,” he praised the number of free e-books available via the Web, enjoyed the technological advances in his HP Jornada Pocket PC, but was still disappointed in the difficulties he had finding e-books he wanted to read, paying a reasonable price for them, and annoyed by the poor quality of technical and customer support for readers who wanted to buy e-books

Scroll ahead to July 2002. The Open eBook Forum announced that Random House, Inc. and HarperCollins had noticeably increased their customer bases, with Random House’s March 2002 revenues being the highest since 1998 and HarperCollins’ PerfectBound imprint selling more e-books in the first half of 2002 than in all twelve months of 2001

Simon & Schuster’s e-book sales grew by double digits from the first six months of 2001 to a comparable period of 2002 Palm Digital Media’s 2001 sales numbered just under 180,000 e-books, representing an over 40% increase from sales in 2000. McGraw-Hill Professional ebooks sales for 2002 were up 55% from sales in 2001. Unsurprisingly, Random House, Simon & Schuster, and HarperCollins declared their intentions to increase their e-book offerings

Public and university libraries are investigating, unveiling, and improving ebook services for their patrons. In 2001 Operation Outreach-USA, a non-profit organization working to improve literacy in elementary-level students, began distributing e-books as well as printed books to children, citing the economical advantages and wide variety of e-books. Ebooks are sold on Amazon.com, the Barnes & Noble web site, a plethora of epublisher web sites, and even eBay. Yet there is no Digital Books in Print, and finding e-books can still be frustrating to a reader who is interested in reading ebooks but unsure about where to find familiar authors and titles

The confusion is understandable

Fidler’s desire for standardization has not been satisfied. There are dozens of devices and formats available to the reader interested in e-books. One of the more obvious hardware choices is the personal computer

E-books are available in web pages’ Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), ASCII text (.TXT), rich text format (.RTF), or Adobe Acrobat’s Portable Document Format (.PDF), all of which can be read on a desktop or laptop computer

But it’s hard to carry your desktop computer in one hand, and laptops can be tricky to balance on the subway or an airplane snack tray. For readers who value portability, the personal digital assistant (PDA) can act as a handheld e-book reader device. PDAs can be purchased for as low as $80 to $200, with Palm and Handspring Visor models dominating CNet’s “Editors’ Top 5 Budget Handhelds” list for 2002. Consumers on especially tight budgets may be willing to put up with a PDA’s small screen and appreciate a PDA’s ability to perform multiple functions

Those willing to spend more for a truly lavish PDA may wish to look at Sony’s CLIÉ line (models ranging from $150 to $400), or at Casio’s Cassiopeia series ($280 to $600), or at HP/Compaq’s iPAQ offerings ($500 to $750)

But for readers who crave portability yet are dissatisfied with the cramped dimensions of a PDA screen, there are dedicated e-book devices, somewhat larger than a PDA but smaller than many laptops

Popular models include the Franklin eBookMan ($50), the hiebook models ($200-289), and the Rocket/Gemstar REB 110 or REB 1200 ($300 and $600)

The relatively high cost of a dedicated ebook reader often leads the average consumer back to the PDA aisle, but fans of such devices say that the reading experience is worth the money

While the cost of hardware can range from reasonable to intimidating, the cost of software ranges from free to reasonable

Choices are available for a variety of devices and platforms, though many readers simply use whatever free reader is included on their PDA or e-book reader

Palm users who want something other than the free Palm Reader may try the free Adobe Acrobat Reader or Mobipocket, or buy iSilo (available as freeware or in a more sophisticated version for $17.50) or Aportis Doc ($30). Popular e-reading software models, in addition to the above, include Franklin’s proprietary FUB for the Franklin eBookman, hiebook’s Reader (.KML), and the Rocket eBook Reader (.RB). Different e-book readers offer different features: bookmarks, the ability to change font size and type, display of imbedded images, hyperlink support, automatic scrolling, editing, and searching

The cost and learning curve associated with e-book hardware and software often discourages readers who are loathe to spend even more money and effort on a new technology for reading material

Though some PDAs and dedicated ebook readers come out of the box already loaded with one to two books, many consumers read free e-books, usually in the public domain, “though I don’t do so with excitement,” says Kayla Wishall, a recent University of Texas-Austin graduate working as an administrative assistant

Wishall has read free e-books on the Web, but prefers the Microsoft Reader: “It at least looks like a book, and you can set bookmarks.” She’s mildly interested in trying out a portable e-book reader, hoping it would be easier on her eyes and more portable than her desktop computer, but is understandably concerned about the price. She is not overly eager to make the jump, stating, “I just like reading actual books. There’s something very comforting about them.” Fellow UT graduate Bethany Miller is more enthusiastic about e-books, though she dislikes Acrobat Reader, “which doesn’t seem intuitive to me at all,” and wishes a universal, branded reader would appear. Currently, she prefers to read non-fiction e-books: “As a reader, you are faced with the usual physical ailments that come from sedentary activity and repetitive strain when working with a computer. You have to sit at the computer to read an e-book and you have to stare into the glare of the monitor. This might be fine for short, informational books— but fiction? No way.” She also is unhappy with the physical discomforts involved in reading an e-book on a desktop: particularly eyestrain and the sedentary position

“The only solution to this that I can imagine would involve using a laptop or some other portable device you could hold in your lap—be it on the couch, in bed, etc.” Most readers of e-books agree with Wishall and Miller. While some prefer the larger screen size of a desktop monitor, many more prefer the portability and light weight of a laptop, PDA, or portable e-book reader. Melisa Michaels of Embiid Publishing read e-books on her Palm until she discovered the joys of a Rocket eBook, which led Embiid to offer their Embiid Reader for the Rocket as well. “The Rocket is, for me, the absolutely ideal reading device. I never want to read a paper book again,” declares Michaels. On the other hand, Vonda McIntyre likes to read on her Palm 505

“I like to read in bed. I don’t have to arrange a book, a lamp, and myself. I can read till I fall asleep, and then it turns itself off. It’s also great for traveling, since a lot of airports don’t have enough lights on to read a book comfortably, and I can fit a lot more text in the machine than in the suitcase.” Richard Curtis also prefers the Palm, using the PalmReaderPro software, on which he has carried as many as 21 books at a time. Curtis expects that the younger generations of today and the future generations will be far more comfortable with e-books than their parents are: “Look at all the young people who don’t leave home without their cell phone, pager, GameBoy, Walkman/Discman, etc

They are all primed to read electronically

And as multiuse devices make their way into their hands, they will be our electronic readership.” Many writers who have explored epublishing for their books have already joined the electronic readership, to varying degrees. Modean Moon, whose romance novels are published with Embiid, reads “some e-books. Right now I’m limited to desktop (too much like work) and laptop (better but still not really convenient). I fell in love with a friend’s early Rocket, but that was before the GemStar implosion. I keep toying with the idea of a Palm device, but wonder about viewability.” Laura Underwood, another Embiid author, prefers a laptop for reading e-books because she can adjust the font to a personally comfortable size. Steve Miller, who co-authors the Liaden Universe books with his wife Sharon Lee, reads e-books on a laptop as well as his Visor, and even started his own e-publishing company in the early 1990s. “Of course, in those days we were doing what we called ‘disk-top publishing,’ and there were maybe a dozen of us (mostly individuals working from home) who made up the bulk of it.” Other authors, however, have little to no interest in reading e-books themselves, but get involved in e-publishing for business reasons. Sharyn McCrumb reports that her agent advised her to authorize Rosetta Books to publish an e-version of her Bimbos of the Death Sun, which did more to persuade her than any personal experiences she has had with e-books. “I don’t read e-books. I rather like the tactile experience of holding a book to read…maybe, decades from now, e-books will be quite normal but not with those of us who grew up loving books and loving the prowl through used bookstores

When I studied in England and as a college student, I spent most of my allowance on used books and shipped them home. I still have them. Old leather books. Long forgotten tomes of German mythology. Beautifully illustrated Victorian works.” Similarly, Selina Rosen and Bradley Sinor do not care for e-books but have worked with Brian Hopkins of Lone Wolf Publications

Both Rosen and Sinor cited their admiration of Hopkins’ professionalism and their friendship with him as primary reasons for contributing to Lone Wolf ’s CDROM anthologies. Rosen has no longterm interest in e-publishing, though as editor-in-chief of Yard Dog Press, she is working on a multimedia CD-ROM with the Torque City Blues Saga, currently available in monthly installments on the Yard Dog web site. “It brings people to the web site and gets them shopping,” she shrugs. Sinor has pondered a collected short fiction e-book, but was not seriously pursuing such a project at the time of this interview. “I don’t read e-books myself . . . I have no objections to ebooks

It’s just that I spend a lot of time in front of the computer writing and prefer to have an actual book in my hand.” Short-story writers tend to be interested in e-publishing collections of their works. Carrie Richerson, whose collection Something Rich and Strange is published by Scorpius Digital, points out, “The general wisdom is that most major print publishers aren’t willing to publish story collections unless there is a novel in the package also . . . I knew going in that it was an experiment for me. I was willing to give it a shot. My sales have been low, but there are a number of reasons for that, including my own sorry efforts to promote myself,” she adds with a grin

Another Scorpius Digital writer, Howard V. Hendrix, accepted Bridget McKenna’s offer for his collection Mobius Highway because “I remained very fond of my short fiction and had no desire to see it disappear once the magazines and anthologies had finished with it. For me, the important thing was that e-publishing would allow my short fiction to continue to circulate even if in (what some might view as) the ‘spectral’ form of e-text . .

I’ve generally heard positive things from readers about the e-versions, especially on the fact that, for the Scorpius Digital edition, I included a general introduction, story introductions, and a general afterword —none of which can be found anywhere else.” Interactions with fans can do a lot to drive a writer to consider e-books for novels as well as short fiction collections

Bud Sparhawk, who has approximately twenty stories available or forthcoming from Fictionwise and two stories with MindsEye.com, says, “I get more fan mail from my e-books than ever through the original magazine sales.” Lawrence Watt- Evans says he doesn’t really have time to read e-books, but has several Wildside titles available as e-books (via Fictionwise) because “I like to keep my fans happy.” When he discovered that some of his books had been pirated on alt.binaries.ebooks, his complaint was met by a complaint from the pirates, who responded that “they wanted e-book editions and would steal them if they couldn’t buy them—but would prefer to buy them. I wanted to call their bluff.” Additionally, when John Betancourt of Wildside first brought up the possibility of e-book editions, Watt-Evans was intrigued by this new outlet for his work, “and I like to keep my publishers happy.” Lois Tilton agrees, stating that she works with Wildside and Fictionwise “for the chance of picking up a few more readers,” even though her primary computer isn’t suitable for reading e-books and she doesn’t have a portable reader. Leslie What was interested in e-publishing with Wildside “because it allows people to read my work who would not otherwise have access to it. I’ve gotten mail from Cubans who can’t buy US books, for example, and have some Canadian readers for whom the price makes book buying a luxury.” She is, however, reluctant to learn the new skills required to become a reader of e-books, and though she has not ruled out the possibility of future e-publishing ventures, she feels that there is “still more legitimacy in publishing in paper first.” Certainly money is not a primary driving force at this point in the e-publishing industry. As Barry Longyear, whose Dark Corners is available through Scorpius Digital, puts it, “The main concern about e-publishing is how to make money at it, and this has not been resolved at all . . . I believe this has mostly to do with this particular mode of publishing being way ahead of the market

Most folks simply don’t have the means, the expertise, or the patience to wade through all that must be done to become an e-book reader.” He also suspects that the tactile joys of reading paper books continue to exert a powerful pull on readers, a pull he himself admits he feels. “So, are we waiting for a market to catch up? Or, do we need to educate and create such a market? Or is the e-book the Betamax of electronic publishing? I don’t know

What I do know is that there are a lot of my readers who want to read Dark Corners, and no matter how I plead, beg, or point out how cheaply they can get into e-book reading, they are waiting for the paperback, thank you very much.” What to believe, the hype of e-publishing enthusiasts or the pessimism of writers who have been disappointed by failed promises? As any professional writer knows, the truth lies in the numbers

E-reads, one of the older surviving epublishers, has acquired more than 1600 titles. “Approximately half are fantasy, science fiction, and horror,” says Curtis

Most are reprints, with no more than a dozen original works in the above genres, including the short story collections The Last Ghost and Other Stories by Stephen Goldin and The Ice Downstream by Melanie Tem, and Christopher Watson’s never-before published novel Shooting Stars. Curtis plans to increase this ratio in favor of originals, but is waiting for the tide in e-books to rise and create a more permanent boom than the disappointing bubble of the late 1990s. John Betancourt reports that Wildside has “close to 150 different e-books available commercially.” Some are listed on the Wildside Press web site, but most are available through Fictionwise. Fictionwise’s co-owner, Scott Pendergrast, reported that his company was carrying over 4,500 titles as of early August 2002, representing the work of over 2,300 authors, with sales averaging over 15,000 e-books a month. “Last year we saw 400% growth,” he says proudly. Fictionwise authors have praised the company’s author information screen, which keeps an author apprised of copies sold and money owed

As mentioned previously, Random House, Simon & Schuster, and HarperCollins have been offering e-books for several years now. Wildside offers ebook editions of its printed titles. Tor offers e-books in the Mobipocket format

Sean Fodera of DAW points out that DAW offers “quite a number of our titles in e-book format. All of Julie Czerneda and Lisanne Norman’s novels. Most of C.S. Friedman’s. Twenty by C.J. Cherryh

Valdemar novels by Mercedes Lackey

Novels by Steven Krane, including his ebook bestseller The Omega Game. John Marco’s The Eyes of God. And more are scheduled to come.” Currently DAW’s ebooks are available through Palm Digital Media, but an AlexLit launch has been planned, which would make DAW’s ebooks available in the Microsoft Reader, Adobe Reader, Mobipocket, and Franklin formats. Like Fictionwise, DAW is declining to bet on a single dedicated reading device format, preferring instead to offer books in the most popular e-book formats

The attraction of professional publishers to e-publishing has done a lot to sustain e-publishing’s growth as well as improve its reputation. Durgin recalls, “I’ve been reading e-publishing contracts since the first horrifying and laughable examples.” She regrets that some e-publishers still offer what she considers unacceptable contracts, but is pleased that more reasonable contracts are now available

“As time went on and more professional e-publishers emerged, it became obvious that e-publishing contracts differ from traditional print contracts and possibly always will, due to the way the industry has developed/is developing and the different technical and marketing environment.” SFWA’s Contracts Committee has reviewed and reported on e-publishing contracts, a resource Richerson appreciated when she was negotiating with Scorpius. “There are some things you take for granted with a print publisher that e-publishers don’t seem to think are their responsibility, like registering the copyright.” As with any contract situation, the writer would do well to review an e-publisher’s contract carefully, drawing on the resources offered by SFWA, an agent, an attorney, or other sources

Marketing is another aspect of e-publishing that many consider still problematic

“Advertising is crucial and costly,” says Melisa Michaels. “We’re [Embiid] a shoestring operation. There’s no conceivable way we can do the magazine advertising our authors deserve, so we got a deal on a color laser printer to make notepads, sample- chapter chapbooks, buttons, and anything else we can think of to give away at conventions. Between the conventions we can attend, we rely on our authors to bring some of these promotional materials to conventions they attend without us.” Lone Wolf Publications treats its titles as “a cooperative venture,” as Brian Hopkins puts it. “Most of our writers have been very responsive” to Lone Wolf ’s request that authors assist in promoting their work, with methods outlined on Lone Wolf ’s web site. Hopkins’ decision to concentrate on award-winning authors has also helped build Lone Wolf ’s reputation, with the anthology Extremes 2: Fantasy & Horror from the Ends of the Earth being the first electronic publication to win the Bram Stoker Award

In addition to the traditional difficulties associated with contracts and marketing, e-publishing has given rise to a new fear: e-piracy. In the past, it was possible for e-pirates to make unauthorized copies of printed short stories and books by typing them in, then later by using OCR scanners. The pirating process can be even easier with an e-book

Encryption is the obvious technical solution, but the demand for such primarily comes from writers rather than readers

“Our experience has been that readers don’t really care about encryption, as long as it’s not intrusive upon the reading experience,” says Fodera. “Authors are concerned about e-piracy. We do the best we can to protect their works with the best encryption each format will permit

Not all readers are happy with encrypted e-books, though so far we’ve had no complaints, as the Palm encryption is rather non-intrusive.” Amy Sterling Casil, editor of the e-book anthology switch.blade (Fictionwise), is familiar with reader complaints about encryption: “One of the handicaps in the past has been attempts at encrypting … that made it cumbersome and sometimes impossible for people to buy and use the product in a satisfactory way.” Richard Michaels of Embiid points out that most readers tend to worry about “OS obsolescence, hardware failure, and portability issues.” Only two Embiid readers have asked about encryption, but Melisa Michaels reports that Embiid will continue to offer encrypted books because many of Embiid’s authors believe it is necessary to safeguard their work

Added to the fear of lost income is the fear of altered texts, with scenes cut, changed, or added by e-pirates. “Not to get too theological about it,” says Hendrix, “but if Mobius Highway is a ‘ghostly’ collection of largely previously published stories, then I want those to be ‘holy ghosts’ (with my permission and imprimatur) rather than ‘unholy ghosts’ (stolen and corrupt copies, distributed without my permission).” As part of the E-piracy Awareness Campaign, SFWA’s E-piracy Committee has been working with Vonda McIntyre and Megan Lindholm, volunteers maintaining the electronic fiction section on SFWA’s web site (http://www.sfwa.org/fiction/), on a pro-authorized fiction campaign—“the carrot instead of the stick,” as McIntyre puts it—to make it easier for readers to find electronic editions by their favorite writers, without the inept interpolations of e-pirates and with the income flowing to the writers. “One of the pirates’ biggest excuses for theft is that they can’t find legal copies of the work,” explains Lindholm. “With a reference site like this, we can disarm that argument. It’s also a major service for SFWA members

Some people have material at several different sites. This referral site helps readers to track down where the stories are.” Its long history and the increasing number of professionals drawn to e-publishing are not the only indications that epublishing is not just a flash-in-the-pan

Anyone who believes that e-rights are worthless needs to review the facts of Random House v. Rosetta. This article cannot do justice to the full scope of this case, but a few facts deserve to be mentioned: On February 27, 2001, Random House filed suit against Rosetta Books, arguing that the “print, publish, and sell in book form” sections of contracts signed twenty to forty years previously meant that Rosetta was committing infringement by offering e-book editions of those Random House books. U.S. District Judge Stein of the Southern District of New York ruled in favor of Rosetta, a decision supported as of March 2002 by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals

The case is seen as an assertion of an author’s control of e-rights to his or her books, unless specified otherwise in the publishing contract

E-publishing, therefore, is here for now and for the future, though for how long? “My basic feeling about e-publishing is that it has become fairly well-established as a niche market,” sums up Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware, adding that its appeal will continue to be limited “until e-books can offer a compelling functional advantage that’s of benefit to all readers. Right now that isn’t the case.” Hendrix describes e-publishing as being in “something of a shakedown phase, much as printing was in the mid-fifteenth century—and I never forget that printing press inventor Gutenberg died a pauper.” Lindholm feels that writers should do what they can to improve the state of epublishing

“We need to help push epublishing toward center stage, making it a technology that is accessible and attractive to the person with average computer knowledge rather than a specialty market

Customers, in my opinion, don’t want to worry about ‘how to download’ or ‘what format.’ They want to push a button and get a book.” Too lofty a goal? Perhaps. But, as McCrumb reminds us, “When I was in school we would have killed ourselves laughing at the thought of people buying water.” The future of publishing marches on, and the drumbeat already includes the digital page. The current formats of e-books may or may not survive, and the printed word may or may not go out of fashion, but surely it will do us all no harm to keep our ears to the ground, listening for what new steps echo over the publishing horizon.

For more information about the products and companies mentioned in this article, please visit their web sites:

Hardware/Software Providers

Adobe - http://www.adobe.com/

Casio (Cassiopeia reader) - http://www.casio.com/

Compaq iPaq - http://www.compaq.com/products/handhelds/pocketpc/

Franklin eBookMan - http://www.franklin.com/ebookman/

Gemstar eBook - http://www.gemstar-ebook.com/

Handspring - http://www.handspring.com/

hiebook - http://www.hiebook.com/

iSilo - http://www.isilo.com/

Microsoft Reader - http://www.microsoft.com/reader/

Mobipocket - http://www.mobipocket.com/

Palm - http://www.palm.com/

Project Gutenberg – http://www.gutenberg.org/

Sony - http://www.sonystyle.com/micros/clie/

e-Book Publishers/Sellers Alexandria Digital Literature - http://www.alexlit.com/

Amazon - http://www.amazon.com/

Baen Webscriptions - http://www.webscription.net/

Barnes & Noble - http://www.bn.com/

Books-a-Million - http://www.booksamillion.com/ncom/ebooks

Embiid - http://www.embiid.com/ or http://www.embiid.net/

eReads.com - http://www.ereads.com/ or http://www.palmdigitalmedia.com/

Fictionwise - http://www.fictionwise.com/

Lone Wolf Publications - http://www.lonewolfpubs.com/

Peanut Press - http://www.peanutpress.com/

RosettaBooks - http://www.rosettabooks.com/

Scorpius Digital Publishing - http://www.scorpiusdigital.com/

Simon & Schuster - http://www.simonsays.com/ebooks/

Wildside Press - http://www.wildsidepress.com/

Product reviews and industry commentary:

“DOC Readers for Palm OS PDAs Review” - http://www.the-gadgeteer.com/docreaders-review.html

Fidler, Roger F. “Electronic Books: A Good Idea Waiting for the Right Technology,” Fall 1998 - http://www.futureprint.kent.edu/articles/fidler02.htm

Fidler, Roger F. “The e-Bookstore: Overcoming Fatal Application Errors and Other Annoyances,” Spring 2001 – http://www.futureprint.kent.edu/articles/fidler05.htm

Strauss, Victoria. “Electronic Rights Issues,” last updated March 12, 2002 – http://www.sfwa.org/beware/electronic.html “

“and e-books for all” - http://lepton.wils.wisc.edu/rocketebook/

Open eBook Forum - http://www.openanebook.org/