Sony CONNECT e-book store opened / Link to Reader manuals

[Alexander Turcic]

So, without further ado, we close this happy Sony day with another piece of news regarding the Reader: the Sony CONNECT e-book store has officially opened its gates. Well, still not completely, as it seems, since some pages are yet incomplete (try browsing categories). But you can see the main page, which is a good, and I bet it'll be only a matter of hours before the whole thing is up. And it's about time considering that many of us are expecting mail from Sony these days.

Thanks to MobileReader flumbo for the hint!

Update: Well I promised myself this would be the last Sony news of the day, so I'll squeeze this one in here: bugsbunny14 found his way to the Sony Reader manuals. Get them while they are hot!

Update 2: What can I say. There is more. Sony has just released two press releases regarding the Reader.

[da_jane]

It doesn't look like Sony is selling any new content or something that can't be purchased elsewhere like ereader.com or powells.com. The prices appear to be 20% off the list price (also similar to powells but not as cheap as publisher prices at SimonSays). I did like the bundles where you can buy three books or more of a particular author at a discount. IF I buy the Sony Ereader, I would probably continue to buy the MS Lit format for obvious reasons and convert to RTF.

[Alexander Turcic]

Originally Posted by da_jane

IF I buy the Sony Ereader, I would probably continue to buy the MS Lit format for obvious reasons and convert to RTF.

Alas, Amazon (my primary source) is going to stop selling e-books in LIT format. I found another good store selling LIT books which is ebooks.com.

[da_jane]

Is there a hidden discount at ebooks.com because those are list prices. Powells sells all its ebooks at least 20% off.

[pruss]

The amount of content available is disappointing. Maybe it'll increase.

Looking through the manual found nothing on search facilities (without searching, you don't really get major added functionality over paper books, except for weight and convenience). I guess the Sony reader is a no for me--I'll stick with my TX.

[big_stan]

I'm actually somewhat impressed by the store. The pricing seems to be all over the place, 1776 by McCullough is priced at $13.59, and I was somewhat amused that the Federalist Papers (by Alexander Hamilton/John Jay) is for sale for $3.96. That's obviously one you could get for free from someplace else.

Lots of the SciFi seems to be $5.59 (with some higher and some lower). It warmed by heart to see The Foundation Series bundle on sale for $11.99 (which includes Foundation, Second Foundation, and Foundation and Empire). That's probably one I'll grab since my copy of the series is laying in tatters somewhere.

It seems to me that they are intelligently pricing these books, since their competition for many of these would be paperbacks. Of course paperbacks don't have DRM, so we'll see how the market responds.

I just got an email saying my reader shipped, so hopefully it will be just a couple more days before I can give this thing a try!

[raluke]

big_stan, how much time elapsed between the time you placed your order and when you got the email notification of shipment? I just placed my order a couple of hours ago...

TIA,
-Robert

[big_stan]

I ordered it yesterday morning, probably around 11:00 am (EST) and got the shipment notification at 6:17 am today. Although when I click on the tracking number it only says "Status: Pickup" and nothing else, so it probably hasn't actually left the warehouse yet.

[Bob Russell]

Originally Posted by pruss

...found nothing on search facilities...

Yes, that's right. There are two navigation helps that would have been really nice on the reader. First is word/phrase search (but how would you do that without a keyboard or touchscreen?) and the second is direct page number entry to go to a specific page. The number buttons are already there, so I can't figure out why they would not have included that. There aren't many things that make me shake my head about the Sony design, but this one just seems "stupid". There must be some kind of issue because certainly it can't really be an oversight, can it? Gizmodo put it well... "WTF!"

But back to the search, apparently you can search books on the desktop. I know that's a small consolation, but it might still be useful. When we get the software, we'll have to check whether or not the page nbrs translate to the reader so we can get to a specific page faster that way.

For me this matters also, but for maybe an unusual reason - I would like to be able to read the same book on dual platforms in parallel. E.g. read the Sony Reader during the day, and read on my pda at night. I've done something like that before between paper and pda, and it's not too bad. But without search capability, and with the slow page turns, I wouldn't be able to practically find my place again if I read on another devices.

Remembering the main purpose and focus of the Sony Reader, however, it's all about reading a book on it cover to cover. It does that great, plus a few tricks in addition. So it will become an individual decision for people that want to do more. It's not going to be perfect for everyone. E.g. the iLiad is still impressive with it's larger touch screen. Something like a UMPC or LCD book reader or pda/smartphone will still be a good choice for people wanting a backlight.

But the Sony Reader is really neat, and how can you not love that e-ink screen! ;-)

[NatCh]

I notice when I was poking around the cache.xml file that the bookmarks appear to be attached to lines of text, so it might be that you could set a mark in the desktop software and be able to find it in the Reader.

Won't know until we have the software to play with, of course. But that's on my list of stuff to try.