The oftentimes hideous editing is what keeps me from reading more ePub (as in, stuff I need to pay for in order to read it at the computer or online.) It's not the point of a book, printed or coded, to make me itch to take up a red marker and scrawl all over it (not that I ever take pens to books, that's sacrilege).
On the other hand, ePub does have the advantage of being far more widely available -- a lot of times, I won't be able to order a printed book I want to read because it's out of print, or because there's no online service that offers to ship the particular book to Germany, which leaves me with astronomical import costs. That's the point where I wish more books were available for purchase in e-format.
The suggestion of combining both methods sounds awesome. I'm just thinking of the possibilities that come with online support, especially for fantasy and science fiction: the tiresome how-to-pronounce-this-or-that-name question, illustrations of devices or gadgets described in the book, character portraits... and audio books, natch. :)
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Date: 20 Jan 2007 01:08 pm (UTC)On the other hand, ePub does have the advantage of being far more widely available -- a lot of times, I won't be able to order a printed book I want to read because it's out of print, or because there's no online service that offers to ship the particular book to Germany, which leaves me with astronomical import costs. That's the point where I wish more books were available for purchase in e-format.
The suggestion of combining both methods sounds awesome. I'm just thinking of the possibilities that come with online support, especially for fantasy and science fiction: the tiresome how-to-pronounce-this-or-that-name question, illustrations of devices or gadgets described in the book, character portraits... and audio books, natch. :)