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So I got my hands on a nook the other day, and boy, have I got some notes. The short version, for the lazy, is that in general, I think I feel the same way about the nook as I do about the Kindle, the Sony, and any other eInk-based device: it’s the equivalent of a 13″ b&w tube set in the 50′s, a decent product that’s hindered by sub-standard tech and so-so industrial design. 2010 will see your nook, and raise you a colour OLED or LCD display. In any case, geeky comments beyond. Feel free to chime in with questions, corrections or comments.

Random first impressions on unboxing
I am officially getting tired of the word “nook”. It’s hard to not make it sound dirty. (…and @evilrooster chimes in via Twitter: “It won’t help your view of the nook to know that the Dutch verb “neuken” means “to fuck/screw”, will it? Thought not.” Sigh. Naming FAIL)
You can add your own wallpapers and screensavers (without resorting to hacking your device, that is…). Nice touch.
USB cables for nook and Kindle are interchangeable. Well done. (Not so for the Sony. The irony? Sony actually has the standard mini-USB connector. WTF, universe?)
Both Kindle and nook have a simple, straightforward (visible) file structure on mounting as a connected volume on a Mac. Once more: the Sony, not so much. Guess it makes sense since it’s the one that’s tied the closest to a desktop client.

Hardware
The hardware is nicely designed. My first thought was : “Hey, someone actually hired an industrial designer to design an eBook Reader! Cool!” It’s much better designed than the Kindle 2, and comparable to the Sony. Sony feels heavier and more solid, since it’s metal. The nook feels friendlier and sleeker.
It’s thicker than Kindle, which is a good thing for holding in the hand (I think. On the other hand, the Sony is the thinnest of the bunch, and feels really great, especially when held in landscape mode).
Paging buttons are nicely done. They’re under the plastic, so they’re seamless. Sharp, solid click. Button layout is much, much, much better/simpler than Kindle’s or Sony’s. Would be nice if you could invert them, like on gaming controlers.

The Sony (and I should clarify that by Sony I mean the Sony PRS 6oo) is still my favourite design. Feels solid as hell, you don’t feel like you need to handle it gingerly, like you do with the Kindle and the nook. Plus, its slightly smaller size makes a huge difference in terms of being able to quickly stick it in a jacket pocket or the back pocket of a pair of jeans.

I haven’t found any teardowns yet. But given the speed issues, I’m thinking there’s a very underpowered processor inside this puppy. haven’t found any teardowns yet. But given the speed issues, I’m thinking there’s a very underpowered processor inside this puppy. This wiki will probably prove useful.

Formats
nook: EPUB, PDB, PDF, JPG, GIF, PNG, BMP, MP3. Absolutely not manuscript-friendly, sadly. You have to convert a DOC, TXT, or RTF file into an EPUB or a PDF.
Kindle: AZW, PRC, PDF, TXT, JPG, GIF, PNG, BMP, MP3
Sony: EPUB, PDF, TXT, JPG, GIF, PNG, BMP, MP3

Software
The touchscreen-controls-eInk scheme seems to work well, in theory, and after an hour or so of use.

From Walt Mossberg’s review:

“Also, when the touch screen is dark, it can be swiped to turn pages instead of using the physical page-turning buttons at the sides of the main screen.”

Nice, but I hadn’t stumbled upon this usage, I keep trying to avoid the touchscreen while reading, so as to not accidentally turn it back on.

However….
The nook feels damn slow. In reality, its eInk display is probably not much slower than the Kindle (except after more than, say 10-15 min of inactivity. Then it seems to take a while to ramp back up), but the relative sharpness and responsiveness of the LCD touchscreen really makes the eInk display feel pokey and laggy.

In addition, having actions on the snappier LCD affect events on the laggy eInk display creates an odd dissonance. Like a co-worker said to me, it’s like when you hear your own voice on a delay as you’re speaking, you get to a point where you can’t talk over it….

This might just take getting used to, like the iPhone keyboard did, but I doubt it. Where with the iPhone I was learning how to use something which is fast and responsive, this feels more like learning to live with a handicap.

Speaking of keyboards and the iPhone: The interface for the LCD is also damn slow and blunt-feeling. Being used to the iPhone’s responsiveness, again, the nook’s UI feels too tiny and half-baked.

Ironically, it’s not a question of scale: the hit areas are comparable (or in some cases larger) than the iPhone’s, it’s just that the visual feedback you get isn’t as smooth or snappy—transitional animations take time to load, highlights and other indicators are too brief, and other, lag-related UI tics

Needless to say, combine the lag with the dissonance mentioned above, and typing is a bit of a disjointed activity.

From David Pogue’s review:

“Often, you tap some button on the color strip — and nothing happens. You wait for the Nook to respond, but there’s no progress bar, no hourglass, no indication that the Nook “heard” you. So you tap again — but now you’ve just triggered a second command that you didn’t want.”

(I had this experience as well. Mighty frustrating.)

This can all be fixed with a software update, which has been promised soon, though—as in before the year is out (I think), so we’ll see.

The UI is trying really hard to ape Apple’s (in a good way), but it’s nowhere near as thought out.

The default typeface for reading text, Amasis, is well-suited to the task: thick and wide, it makes the nook read much more clearly than the Kindle or the Sony (at smaller type sizes). Also includes Helvetica Neue for sans-serif reading. I like Helvetica Neue. Large type size isn’t large enough for people who actually need large print. Looks to be around 11 or 12 pt—which is about standard text size for most printed books.

Reading
The slowness of the nook is a big, big minus factor here. But it’s actually not the refresh rate–that’s tolerable and comparable to the Kindle’s—it’s the lag before the screen actually reacts at all. It’s really annoying and conducive to spacing out between page loads. That said, as mentioned before, the nook and the Kindle 2 have similar page refresh rates. The Sony has a faster refresh rate (these are anecdotal/experiential side-by-side measurements, not timed, mind), and, coupled with a snappier UI, makes for the best reading experience. The Sony in landscape mode remains my favourite for reading, in terms of form factor (haven’t read much on the Kindle 2 in landscape mode, though)

Desktop Client
Available for Mac & PC. No Linux love. Having to authenticate every single book the first time I open it is a major pain in the ass.

Mobile Client
Available for iPhone and Blackberry. No Android for you! Doesn’t seem to feature any connectivity to nook for now (no syncing of last place read across devices like Kindle on iPhone, etc)

Shopping
First book I tried to download was The Eye of the World. No confirmation on device or via email, but the book did download. Second purchase I made was confirmed via email and on the device. Download notice pops up as a pane in the middle of the screen (as long as you’re not in the middle of reading a book, I hope), which is nice, since Kindle is kinda quiet about when it’s downloading stuff. Very painless, and the color LCD here works nicely: color covers, and a few main choices (Buy, Subscribe, Get free sample, Wishlist, View)

In-Store Experience
Went to B&N Union Square, NYC. The nook picks up a branded B&N WiFi network, but not much else happens to indicate anything special.

I know that the eInk screen is the bottleneck in terms of speed, and WiFi at B&N shouldn’t really be that much faster than WiFi at home (if at all), but the irrational consumer in me half-expected to experience better speeds at the ‘mothership’.

Finding a book by Kim Stanley Robinson on the nook took (ugh.) me as long as it took my companion to deliberate and choose three or four trade paperbacks and mass markets.

I finally approached the slick, white, nook counter, where the one kid at the counter really had a hard time demoing the nook due to its slowness and tried to tell me that the Special Offers & Articles section at the bottom of the device’s Shop home screen were the in-store special offers (they’re not, they load when accessing the store through my connection at home as well).

Upon further questioning, he told me that the in-store software (as well as speed bumps and additional features) would be forthcoming in a software update due out very soon (he was non-committal on a date, but talked about weeks).

I really did get a feeling of Ship-at-All-Costs-itis. B&N will quickly get their act together, I’m sure, but I don’t think this is a very successful launch.

Lending

TK

Conclusions
In general, I think I feel the same way about the nook as I do about the Kindle, the Sony, and any other eInk-based device: it’s the equivalent of a 13″ b&w tube set in the 50′s, a decent product that’s hindered by sub-standard tech and so-so industrial design. I’m gonna give the nook another go-round once B&N gets their act together and pushes out that software update. In the meantime, I’m back to reading on my Sony. Anyone else wanna chime in with questions, corrections or comments?

I’ve been interviewed by Charles Tan of Bibliophile Stalker. He asks some cool questions, which allowed me to go into quite some detail about my personal background, my role at Tor.com, and Tor.com’s plans for world domination the future. My favourite bit, where I rant a bit about publishing, is below:

In your opinion, how is Tor.com leveraging New Media and the genre? What are the things that you’re doing right?

One of the things we’re doing the best, I think, is engaging with our audience, and listening. Publishing is a very insular industry, where insiders are constantly talking to each other, but very rarely do they actually talk to or listen to the actual end customer: the reader. There have traditionally been some very valid arguments as for why this is the case, but as digital media democratizes the world more and more, those arguments become much less convincing or even relevant.

Tor.com is one way in which we’re talking directly with readers, listening to what they have to say, and we’re finding out a lot about them. And I do mean a whole hell of a lot—some of the very dearly-held assumptions of the publishing industry really don’t hold much water with the reading public, and it’s very sobering to compare and contrast what I see and read every day on Tor.com in particular and the internet in general with what I see and hear from within the walls of the Flatiron building.

Read the whole thing over on Bibliophile Stalker.

I just got back from Reykjavik, Iceland, where I attended EVE Online Fanfest 2009 thanks to the gracious folk at CCP Games, whose game tie-in books Tor Books is publishing. They wanted their editor, Eric Raab, and I to check out their fanbase and their headquarters, so they flew us out for the weekend. What an experience.

First things first: these guys are amazing. They put out a top-notch product, are incredibly passionate about their work, and to a person are fans of the franchise. I didn’t meet one single CCP employee who didn’t give off the vibe of being part of a big, extended family, where everyone watches out for each other. It was pretty amazing. Also, the level of outreach to their fandom was remarkable. I mean, I suppose that’s part of the nature of running an MMPORG, but still, coming from a culture (publishing) where the fans/readers/customers are barely an afterthought, it was eye-opening.

Additionally, as a casual gamer, I found their plans for expanding the scope of their intellectual property very compelling. I won’t go into detail here, since I’m unclear as to how much is public knowledge and how much isn’t, but suffice to say that their plan of attack for the next 18 months is formidable. Their keynote presentation, which was conducted by Hilmar Veigar Petursson, the CEO of CCP (and one of the chillest fuckers I’ve met), was a pitch perfect combination of new information, showcases for new tech and demo videos, self-deprecating fun, and liberal Kool-Aid dispensing. Additionally, the panels I attended—from the lectures and QA sessions about the in-game economy, featuirng CCP’s in-house PhD in economics, Dr. Eyjolfur Gudmundsson; to the panels featuring prominent members of the alliances that for the core of the player associations in game—were fascinating.

Aside from the EVE-related events, we were, of course, in Iceland, and at a con, so there was much partying. I’ve learned a few key facts about Islanders: they like to drink heavily, and have a penchant for staying out all night—I never made it to my hotel room earlier than 6am. They apparently like to break drinking glasses—it wasn’t unusual for the dude standing next to me to drain his glass and not-quite-nonchalantly fling it against a wall. The streets are literally covered in broken glass by 4am. And they make the best goddamned hot dogs known to man. For reals.

On the food tip, Eric, Shane (one of the marketing people for CCP), and I decided to embark upon a night of morally ambiguous dining: we had whale (both as sashimi and cooked), puffin, and horse all in one night. All were delicious. But nowhere near as amazing as those hot dogs. Hm.

I also discovered Skyr, which is similar but not quite the same as yogurt. It’s a bit more sour, and I absolutely loved it. Mary Robinette Kowal, who lived in Iceland for a year, tells me that it’s available here in NYC at Whole Foods, so I’m going to have to check it out. I hope it’s the regular, untreated kind, and not the more commercial stuff, which is infused with fruits or vanilla, or caramel. That stuff is all right, but the raw stuff is better.

Unfortunately, what with the Fanfest, and the drinking, and the meeting the EVE developers, and the drinking, and the panels, and the drinking, we didn’t really get to leave Reykjavik at all. Eric and I tried to find a way to see the fabled northern lights (or Aurora Borealis), but unfortunately, circumstances conspired against us: according to locals, it’s hard to catch the lights in the light-saturated city; it wasn’t cold enough for the lights to be visible (although this sounds like misinformation; I don’t understand how temperature can affect a magnetic event); or it wasn’t the right time of year. In any case, an excuse to go back.

Another excuse to go back are the geothermal seawater baths, specifically the Blue Lagoon. Our contact person for CCP, Yohei Ishii, took us to this world-famous spot on Sunday, right before we got on the plane back home. Wow, what a relaxing experience, and what a great preamble to the hassle of international flying. I’ve never slept better on a plane in my life.

In all, an amazing trip. More crappy iPhone pictures here. Eric and I will be getting together to hash out the thousand-and-one ideas we both jotted down with regards to working with CCP over the next week, and I’m looking forward to going back to Iceland someday on a personal vacation, to get to know this beautiful country better.

On a coffee run this afternoon, in the midsts of an utterly craptacular day at work, @chapmanchapman, @ami_with_an_i and I turned a corner off 5th Av and walked past a truck with a trickle of smoke coming out its corners. Not twenty paces later, it had turned into this:

The smoke actually got much worse; black and dense and inky (of course). The F.D.N.Y. showed up rather quickly and swiftly took care of it.

As publishing professionals, this implausible bit of synchronicity did not go unnoticed.

Here are some pictures. I do love the fact that my iPhone has a video and a still camera, although I need to remember to do video in landscape mode….

I’m pleased to report that last night’s Tor.com Rock Band party was a rousing success! We got off to a bit of a slow start, but once the indomitable Jeremy Lassen of Nightshade Books (who is nursing a rather severe sore throat this morning) got on the mic, the party got into full swing. His stock intro to each song will undoubtedly become a new SF catchphrase: “They say this song is about (insert subjet here), but it’s really a song about science fiction!” Yeah, man. Good times. There will be pictures, Tor Publicist and real-life rock star Patty García has assured me.

The big highlight of the evening (at least for me) was a totally rockin’ rendition of Journey’s Any Way You Want It, with yours truly on guitar, Annalee Newitz of io9 on bass, and John motherfucking Scalzi blasting out his falsetto on the mic. It was epic. Just plain epic.

The party ran until around 4:30 in the am, and, as happens at cons, I ducked into my hotel room at that ungodly hour to get some sleep, only to have to wake up in time to make a 10am panel I was ostensibly moderating: a printmaking workshop for kids.

What sounds great on paper turned out to be a bit on the underwhelming side–one child cutting out foam shapes, gluing them to the bottoms of plastic cups, and ‘inking’ them with magic markers. I was a bit dissappointed, since I was actually kind of looking forward to getting all nice and inky with some kids, but I suppose I can’t complain about being able to just sit there and look engaged while incredibly sleep-deprived.

Next up: I’m on a panel entitled “Author Reading: The Bloggers”. I’m not sure exactly how that’s gonna work out, since I can’t really see too many people being interested in a reading of blog posts, but the upshot is that I’m sharing the panel with, among others, Teresa Nielsen Hayden, who is an Awesome Person of Note, and a fantastic conversationalist. If nothing else, I can totally see this evolving into some sort of fascinating discussion or another. We’ll see…

UPDATE: It actually worked out great! The highlight of the panel for me was Teresa reading her Slushkiller post; and there was also a great post-reading discussion among the audience. You know, like the comments section on a post. Or something… ;)

After that, I’m actually going to be able to attend some panels! There are quite a few things I want to check out, so I’ll hopefully be able to write up some panel reports for Tor.com.

Via the Book Oven Blog, an nifty little French video by Editis:

I mostly agree with what I’m seeing here, and it gets me excited. Except for two things:

1) When they get to the museum and scan the art book into their reader. I call bullshit. Art books are objects you own. They go on your coffee table, or on your bookshelf in a place of pride.

2) In the bookstore, again, replace all those trade paperbacks with really nice quality, upscale, finely printed and bound codices.

Quality, upscale, finely printed and bound codices will still have a place in our lives. Even more so than things like vinyl records. It’s the cheaply-made mass market (and to a lesser degree, trade paperback) editions whose days are numbered.

Last month I was bamboozled asked nicely by my colleagues at Macmillan, Ryan Chapman and Ami Greko, to participate in a group talk at BEA (Book Expo America). The participants, Debbie Stier (Harper Studio), Jeff Yamaguchi (Knopf Doubleday and 52 Projects), Matt Supko (ABA/Indiebound and creator of the Indiebound iPhone app), Chris Jackson (Spiegel and Grau), Richard Nash (formerly of Soft Skull Press), and Lauren Cerand (independent public relations representative), were an engaging and lively bunch, and the event was a success. BEA has finally posted the videos for each of our presentations here. Here’s mine:

It’s a damned shame that the camera had to focus on my ugly mug instead of the slides, which add information (and most of the punchlines) to my speech. Here‘s a PDF of the slides that accompany the talk, in case you’re inclined to follow along at home.

I usually go on and on about ebooks, and I do most of my reading on my iPhone these days, but I also love me some finely-crafted codices.

I learned of this British deluxe edition of Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother by accident, almost—Voyager Books advertises on Tor.com, and I was mangling some newsletter copy related to a giveaway they’re having, which happened to mention the publication of this edition. Anyway, long story short: it looks beautiful, with a simple and elegant slipcase—I love the ‘security-cam-as-gun-to-the-head’ stamp—it features illustrations by Richard Wilkinson, and I want it very badly. Wilkinson’s modern linework combined with older-looking colours and textures echo the essence of the book: a modern take on Orwell.

From the Guardian.uk:

The famously subversive US cartoonist Robert Crumb has announced the completion of his long-awaited take on the Book of Genesis.

The acclaimed satirist revealed on his personal website that he had finished the project, which is out this autumn, and which his UK publisher is predicting will “provoke the religious right”. Four years in the making, Crumb worked from the King James Bible and Robert Alter’s translation to reinterpret the Book of Genesis, from the Creation via Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden to Noah boarding his ark.

This sounds like fun. Must keep it in mind.

More talking to the press. This time, Publishers Weekly on Bringing Comics to the Amazon Kindle:

Defendini said that publishers need to “figure out how technology changes what a book is and how the reader can interact with it on a fundamentally different level, not just as passive engagement.”