Comments on: E-books & Re-inventing the Wheel Web

By: Jeff

Jeff — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 23:33:57 +0000

@Randolph: I was thinking mostly of non-fiction narratives. With fiction, personally, I still prefer a typographer to format the text. Then again, I still prefer my fiction in print. But I also understand that others don’t. I just don’t want any publisher to force me to deal with bare text.

@Mike: I think you’re so right. That’s an interesting post about iWork.

By: Mike Cane

Mike Cane — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 21:33:27 +0000

Oh god don’t bother with ePub.
http://ebooktest.wordpress.com/2009/04/05/is-adobe-hindering-ebooks/

Learn iWork:
http://ebooktest.wordpress.com/2009/11/02/apple-will-break-open-the-digital-book-floodgates/

By: Randolph Lalonde

Randolph Lalonde — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 21:20:45 +0000

it sounds like you want narrative books to be something other than text. In the case of an encyclopedia, art or instructional book, design is essential, so yes, there is much room for improvement there code and device wise.

Where fiction, or narrative fiction is concerned I firmly believe that simplicity is key. Let the user modify the bare text to their liking, choosing the font, colour, size, background and justification.

If someone hopped into the designers seat with the intention of making my text only ebook “pretty” I wouldn’t hesitate in savagely beating them to death with my iPhone, adding an earbud strangulation for flair.

By: This Week in the Blogs: January 4 – January 10, 2010 — The Book Designer

This Week in the Blogs: January 4 – January 10, 2010 — The Book Designer — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 08:02:12 +0000

[...] Barry on Soros Design Blog E-books and Re-inventing the Wheel Web “My primary irritation is the way e-book reading devices render HTML & CSS and the [...]