On Feb 28, 2009, at 1:37 PM, Bob W wrote:
The benefits to the customer of digital books are not at all clear
to me. I
can't hear readers clamouring for electronic book readers, all I can
see is
producers with vested interests trying to force them onto customers.
What's in it for me? Why should I spend my money on this?
The following is from the one other list I subscribe to, the Penn
State U Writer's List. Note the last sentence in particular. BTW, the
people I know who write for a living long ago began preparing for the
ultimate demise of words on paper publication.
As a visually impaired person I had been planning on purchasing the
Kindle 2 because there are virtually no books on fiction writing out
there on audio but there are quite a few for Kindle. But, late last
night on Amazon's Kindle support page the following notice came out.
Now, I'm going to have to wait to see how many authors opt in and how
many opt out. I'm hoping the authors and publishers of the kinds of
books that never get onto audio will opt in.
Statement from Amazon.com Regarding Kindle 2's Experimental Text-to-
Speech Feature
SEATTLE, Feb 27, 2009 (Kindle 2's experimental text-to-speech feature
is legal: no copy is made, no derivative work is created, and no
performance is being given. Furthermore, we ourselves are a major
participant in the professionally narrated audiobooks business through
our subsidiaries Audible and Brilliance. We believe text-to-speech
will introduce new customers to the convenience of listening to books
and thereby grow the professionally narrated audiobooks business.
Nevertheless, we strongly believe many rightsholders will be more
comfortable with the text-to-speech feature if they are in the
driver's seat.
Therefore, we are modifying our systems so that rightsholders can
decide on a title by title basis whether they want text-to-speech
enabled or disabled for any particular title. We have already begun to
work on the technical changes required to give authors and publishers
that choice. With this new level of control, publishers and authors
will be able to decide for themselves whether it is in their
commercial interests to leave text-to-speech enabled. We believe many
will decide that it is.
Customers tell us that with Kindle, they read more, and buy more
books. We are passionate about bringing the benefits of modern
technology to long-form reading.
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