Well, what IS wrong with ebooks? Click on this, then fiddle with your arrow keys Yeah, like that By Dan Hall, ImprobableIsland.com Why don't people read ebooks? Because ebooks suck Because there's a bajillion different file formats And they all suck Except HTML Which still sucks a bit Because nobody uses it And because you can't save your place in it Unless you use ebook reading software Which you really shouldn't have to do Because HTML has the ability to save your place for you But nobody makes HTML files with that ability Because it's tricky And because authors tend not to be computer-savvy enough to pull that off Because HTML can be copied easily Which is what it's for And publishers are scared of piracy And plain text Which also sucks Because you can't do italics Because you can't do illustrations And it's hard to change the appearance Because they are designed to stop the reader doing things that the reader wants to do Like sharing the books with their friends Or copying the book to different computers so they can read them at work Or because they were never designed to be read on a machine Like PDF Which is not reflowable, and cannot be read on anything but a computer or paper And not many people read ebooks on their computer Seriously, who the hell prints out their ebooks? Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose? Because they're horrifically expensive For something where the individual unit production cost is zero For something that you can't hold in your hand And authors get paid very little of that money Because middlemen take a big cut Like publishers Like bookstores Like payment processors Because authors tend not to be web-savvy enough to do it themselves Because they try too hard to be like real books And fail Because they're not real books Because they don't take advantage of the fact that they're not real books With no requirement for physical storage And no production costs per unit Because we spend a lot of time trying to fix the medium In pointless ways Like simulated page turning Or flashy graphics Instead of teaching ourselves to stop breaking it With DRM With high prices With redundant and confusing file formats With silly, consumer-hostile marketing tactics Like releasing ebook versions of novels months after the novel is released At higher prices Stephen King, I'm looking at you Or not releasing the ebook version at all To which the consumer responds with book scanners, OCR and BitTorrent Duh Which means no money for the publisher Because of their own mistakes And no money for the author Which must really piss them off Because we don't realise that we already have an almost-perfect format Called HTML That can be read on anything That can be reflowed That can be shared That can be styled That can be printed That can be copied and pasted Into an E-mail Into a dissertation Into a review Into a recommendation That can be edited to suit the reader That nobody uses Because authors write in word processors Which do a piss-poor job of making HTML files Because it's technically tricky for a layman Because people don't want to read from a computer screen Because they can't do that in the places where they usually read books Like on the beach Or in bed Or on a plane Or anywhere except where their computers are Unless they get something else that can read ebooks Like an ebook reading device But they all suck Because they read ebooks, which suck And because their displays suck Because they're not backlit Because they take ages to turn a page Because they're grayscale And because they're hilariously expensive Like a mobile phone or PDA Which I've found to be ideal Because I always have it with me Because I can choose my font colour, size, typeface and background colour Because it can auto-scroll Because I can read in bed without disturbing my wife But which others might not Because the screen is very small Because other programs and features are a distraction Because data represented on a computer screen cannot be touched Or smelled Or dogeared Or borrowed from the library Or lent to a friend Or loved Because people aren't used to ebooks yet Because people don't read ebooks Because they suck What do I want from an online fiction magazine? I want to read free eBooks That I can download With no DRM That I can put on my phone In .txt format In .mobi format In .html format In .epub format With a small file size Because there's no DRM Or silly word processor markup And read with whatever reader software I want That I can read in my browser With the ability to change typeface, size, colour, and background colour Quickly, and with a minimum of fuss And the ability to save my place in the story for later Without necessarily having to instruct the computer to do this for me Because that should be automatic Because it can be Because ebooks are not books Or that I can have E-mailed to me In plain text or in html That are of high quality In my opinion From authors that I know And authors that I don't know But would like That are in collections of similar themes Perhaps all downloadable as an anthology in one lovely big .zip file That I can share with my friends By E-mailing them the story files Or by Bluetoothing the files to my friends' phones And with my online friends-who-I-have-never-met Through social networks With a button that makes it easy And through direct links to the read-online stories I want to support the author directly With a PayPal donation Directly to the author With no middleman Of a dollar, two dollars, four dollars or ten dollars So that I don't have to think too hard about how much to give Or of an amount that I can set myself If I don't have much money If I use a different currency If I want to make a large donation With encouraging words Via a comment box Via the author's E-mail Via a social network With more readers By sharing the story with my real-life friends and my social-network friends I want a community With a system that listens to my input and changes its output accordingly With a rating system And with tags And with recommendations But with definite personal, one-on-one human contact With forum and blog commenting I want it to be frequently updated With at least one new story a week And preferably several a week And at least one new .zip anthology per month And an RSS feed Why is this so difficult? Because ebooks suck See above