BookFob, A Book on a Stick

The whole beauty of having a book in electronic format is the ease with which it can be copied, pasted, printed, and distributed. Why fight that? It seems to me that good old-fashioned blogging (with advertisements) would be the best way to go for someone looking to publish a book nowadays.

I'd wondered that myself, thought maybe i'd missed the point :)

Perhaps a use case scenario would be appropriate here chris, to help us get an idea of where bookfob would fit in?

Hmm, there are also some cons:
1) "physical ebook" has to be shipped and international shipping costs can be significant comparing to the ebook own price
2) physical shipping might take quite a lot of time.

I wonder if they consider letting people to download the heavily protected version (one that is able to be read on single PC only, for one week only, etc) immediately. It would help the user to wait until the physical stick comes.

Consumers seem to be pushing back on copy protection (DRM, sony fiasco), I am thinking perhaps trusting consumers is the way forward?

...from Amazon, and quite a few other retailers. You order the 'book' online, and it gets delivered as a wad of paper, glued together at the edge - the big advantage is that you don't even need a computer handy to access it ;)

Sorry - being sarcastic, but this does sound to me like the worst of the eBook side (need a computer to read it) coupled with the worst of the 'real' book side (physical delivery needed, no copying and pasting, need to carry and store a physical item instead of having a 'library' on a disk).

I'm always glad to see people trying new things in this space, but I think the other comments are right - we need to be moving *away* from DRM, not further into it.

I do most of my reading at the moment with eReader books - they *do* use DRM, but it's a reasonably non-intrusive form for the use I put it to. The books are unlocked using my name and credit card number (hashed so they're not stored in the reader). If I'm happy to give someone those, I can let them read my books. My wife and I can share books, as we would with *real* books, and I can keep them on as many computers as I like.

The client is available for Windows, MacOS, Palm, and Windows Mobile, so I can read at a desktop computer, but it also works for reading in bed or in the bath. Copying and pasting are available in very limited ways, but it's enough to stop me wanting to crack the DRM.

It's by no means perfect (no Linux client, and I *have* to read in their reader program, which is a little odd in places), but it's the best compromise I've found yet, and they've got deals with enough publishers that there's a fair bit of choice too. I'm currently working through Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, mainly on the screen of my mobile phone.

"The e-book application cannot be seperated from the memory stick // Content is not capable of being shared on the Internet or copied and distributed".
So if I want to have four or five books, I need to carry around ('on my keychain') four or five USB sticks? Then where's the benefit of having it electronically? If I've got an e-book reader for my Palm or my mobile phone, at least I can put multiple books onto that, without lugging around more dead weight.

This really *does* sound like combining all the drawbacks of a physical book with all the drawbacks of electronic publications.

Dan.

Thanks for the great feedback! We have already had several BookFob orders placed in the first week of launch. This niche idea seems to appeal to authors, artists, and publishers where copy, print, and distribution are a concern.

Multiple ebooks can be compiled onto a single BookFob. Some books such as college textbooks or state statutes or research materials are great candidates for BookFobs. These texts can be searched, annotated, and controled. New versions can be downloaded to the existing fobs without needing to return the device for content refreshes.

Another idea that a consumer had was to put their company's paid seminar materials on the BookFoob for sale. This protected them from duplication of materials and actually increased their material sales.

One artist placed an order of BookFobs to store her photographs. This allowed her to shop for a publisher without worrying about copies of her works being out of her control.

One idea that we had was a BookFob vending machine in airports or malls. The convenience of a memory stick include form factor, searchability, digital bookmarks, multimedia, etc. These features outweigh the capabilities of traditional books. There are reasons to secure your content.

I hope this provokes more discussion. Let me know what you think...

A vending machine is a cool idea, I see a lot of people with laptops at airports nowadays.