I just received the following press release from O’Reilly and thought it was worth quoting:
“With enthusiasm growing for e-reading and with more and more people purchasing books for e-readers, O’Reilly Media, a pioneering technology publisher and trendsetter, announced two new ebook publishing initiatives. This innovative venture brings popular new electronic formats, increased portability, and up-to-the-minute options for reading and enjoying O’Reilly books.
So what’s new?
First, starting today, an initial selection of 30 popular O’Reilly titles now come bundled in three ebook formats (EPUB, PDF, and Kindle-compatible Mobipocket) and are available through oreilly.com–O’Reilly Media’s online sales portal. This means when customers buy these ebooks from oreilly.com, they’ll have instant access to all three file formats for one affordable price. This also gives consumers the option of purchasing an ebook directly from O’Reilly to read on a Kindle as well as most current ebook software and devices, including Adobe Digital Editions, Blackberries, and Sony Readers.
Second, a select number of O’Reilly titles will be available for the Kindle through Amazon including Devices of the Soul, Wikipedia Reader’s Guide: The Missing Manual, and Facebook: The Missing Manual.
“This is a huge step toward our vision of customers discovering our book content and being able to consume it in the way that they want: in print, online via our Safari Books Online service, as well as in the electronic format that best meets their needs,” said Allen Noren, Vice President, Online Marketing & Digital Initiatives.
O’Reilly’s new ebook bundle package also includes these popular titles:
* Windows Vista: The Missing Manual
* Subject to Change: Creating Great Products and Services for an Uncertain World
* Making Things Happen
* Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide
* Open Sources 2.0
* The Art of Agile Development
* Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, 3e
* Flex 3 Cookbook
“In the near future, we intend to offer as much of our catalog as possible in eBooks,” said Andrew Savikas, Director of Publishing Technology for O’Reilly and Program Chair for the Tools of Change for Publishing Conference. “Though some of our titles do have rights restrictions or present format challenges because of their age.”
O’Reilly’s new ebook initiative expands its existing ebook publishing offerings. Currently hundreds of O’Reilly titles are also available as PDF and through Safari Books Online, a highly successful online-publishing joint venture with Pearson, subscribers also have access to a large selection of books that they can read online.
For more information about the program and the formats at oreilly.com/ebooks and toc.oreilly.com.”
Exciting news for our technically oriented readers.
See, this publisher understands something the others don’t: they are offering WORDS for MONEY, not FILE FORMATS for money. Good for them. I hope other publishers see the sense of this.
This is truly exceptionally good news and especially from such a central publisher.
E-book/epub, manuals and reference books coupled with a e-ink reader makes a new market – replacing kilos and huge bulk, at least in the computer field, fulfils a direct and desperate need.
The software still needs improvement, especially bookmarking, but we are well underway. We need a simple way of linking different e-books together (excerpt gathering would be especially useful to technical readers, eg gathering reference tables together).
But even as things stand I can see my self buying more O’Reilly books, simply because they are available in epub files (future proofed).
Bundling the formats together is very smart. PDF for printing out, and mobipocket for temporary benefits of the software base. That is the way to do things!
Totally irrelevant, but that animated gif that illustrates this post scared the daylights out of me.