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I saw that the Planet Stories are available, but I was wondering on the possibility of having the RPG books in that format as well?
If not directly, has anyone tried converting/reading the PDFs on their Kindle? I'm VERY interested on how that may workout.
This quite possibly would be the determining factor whether I would purchase the device on the whole - having access to my bookshelf for gaming and everyday/recreation reading is just too good to be true...
I would LOVE to have access to these on the Kindle. I'd even repurchase the one's I'm actively using. I've tried several methods of moving PDF's to the Kindle, none of which are very satisfactory.
You know those beautiful borders and images that Paizo puts in their pdfs? Well, they play havoc on conversion software. And the watermark will also show up in the middle of passages at the end of and beginning of every page. While I've done it as a test, it is not usable, unfortunately.
By the way, the best method for conversion is to use Mobi Creator to convert them to Mobi's format and then rename the file type (from .mob to .azw, I think) to work on the Kindle. All in all, it's just not worth it for complicated pdfs.
But as for the Kindle itself I'd give it five thumbs up. While I'm sure that it can and will be improved, it is simply awesome if you travel a lot and like to read.
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I would LOVE to have access to these on the Kindle. I'd even repurchase the one's I'm actively using.
That's my sentiment exactly.
I've tried several methods of moving PDF's to the Kindle, none of which are very satisfactory.
That is what I expected. :(
I honestly think I'd prefer to get them through Paizo in Mobi format that included properly placed watermarks that I could then convert to the Kindle format; that would probably be the best option for me. That way Paizo doesn't have to give up a slice of the profits and I get the books on a Kindle! :)
I'm all tingly just imagining it... ;)
Thanks for sharing your knowledge, Micco!
Chief Technical Officer
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I saw that the Planet Stories are available, but I was wondering on the possibility of having the RPG books in that format as well?
Planet Stories are not available on Kindle—at least, not published by us. We don't own the electronic publishing rights to any of the Planet Stories titles (which is also why we don't have them available as PDFs here at paizo.com).
The last time I personally looked, I thought Amazon's requirements for publishing on Kindle were completely heinous, and I heard complaints from a bunch of publishers who were having problems getting their sales reports and payments to reflect reality. I understand things may have improved over there, and we're looking into it again, though.
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Chief Technical Officer
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I understand things may have improved over there, and we're looking into it again, though.
I'm still completely underwhelmed by the level of service they provide. (Yep—those forums are it. Direct human interaction is not an option.)
Also, they still pay only 35% of MSRP to publishers for Kindle sales, which I think is ludicrous to the point of being offensive. (Paizo, for example, pays 75% of MSRP to publishers for PDF sales.)
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Chief Technical Officer
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Here is a PDF containing the Kindle distribution contract with annotations by the contracts committee of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. While I don't share *all* of their concerns, I do share some of them.
Yes Micco, thanks for the info. Until someone comes out with a reader that works great with pdfs, they are useless to me.
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Yes Micco, thanks for the info. Until someone comes out with a reader that works great with pdfs, they are useless to me.
I'm looking at getting an Irex Digital Reader to store all of my roleplay PDFs for use at the table. I'm hoping that since I runs Linux I can hack the Beagle search engine onto it and have them all cross-searchable.
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I'm still completely underwhelmed by the level of service they provide. (Yep—those forums are it. Direct human interaction is not an option.)
Also, they still pay only 35% of MSRP to publishers for Kindle sales, which I think is ludicrous to the point of being offensive. (Paizo, for example, pays 75% of MSRP to publishers for PDF sales.)
That's what I was afraid of being the reality. :( *sigh*
Yea, that's definitely worth it for any smaller publisher or author (read: when you're not doing JKRowling or Stephen King level sales in print as it is). You know, Beta tapes had the same issue... you saw what happened to them. :)
I did have some success transferring one of the early pdf (Entombed with the Pharaohs) over to the Kindle. But even then, it was just too much work to make it worth it. Also, it doesn't work with later pdfs (too many complicated formats and some of the text is embedded as part of a graphic image.)
I'm not comfortable explaining the process, since it would allow someone to remove the watermark from the pdf.
As a test, it just highlighted how much we'll need Paizo to offer a reader format in addition to the pdfs!
Vic, any chance you could look into Mobi format? It allows DRM and seems to have better publisher service than DTP at Amazon. Mobi formatted books are readable on the Kindle in addition to several other popular reader platforms and software for WinMobile.
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Chief Technical Officer
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Vic, any chance you could look into Mobi format? It allows DRM and seems to have better publisher service than DTP at Amazon. Mobi formatted books are readable on the Kindle in addition to several other popular reader platforms and software for WinMobile.
Well, it looks like their agreement isn't quite as bad as Amazon's, though I still take exception to the notion of the reseller making the vast majority of the revenue. Mobi pays 35% of list (45% for certain sales). Compare that to the iTunes Music Store, where Apple pays artists and labels 65–70%, or paizo.com, where we pay 75% to PDF publishers. As someone who knows a lot about publishing and e-retailing, I believe the lion's share of an electronic sale should go to the publisher.
The big thing, though, is that the whole reflowable text notion concerns me greatly—partially because of the additional effort it would require on our part, but also because I have serious doubts that such a document can ever pass our standards for quality of presentation.
It's pretty clear to me that the intent for Mobi is mostly text-based, or—at best—"text with some illustrations," and our products are designed with a bit more integration than that. Add to that the fact that the device you're using to view it will determine how the images are scaled... it's quite possible that customers trying to access the volume with a device with low processing power or a small display would be presented with an unusable product if the maps are scaled down and compressed beyond the point where they're even legible.
I feel that producing Pathfinder volumes in that format would be like forcing a square peg into a round hole.
Ya, you are likely right about the quality issues. And I can understand the concerns around the profit pie. Hopefully electronic distribution will help shift more of the revenue towards the creatives rather than the distribution channel.
Hopefully someone will come up with a pdf e-book that shows complicated pdfs correctly.
Fortunately USB sticks are now huge and cheap, so I can just haul my books around on it.
Thanks for the detailed reply. Understanding why it doesn't make sense is helpful!
Hopefully someone will come up with a pdf e-book that shows complicated pdfs correctly.I vote for that!
There is a product in development for this Plasticlogic but it will not be out until next year sometime.
Could there be text only version that we can use ni currently made products? I have tried the PDF -> DOC conversion and it is terrible. Even a text only version would get me by until plasticlogic comes out.
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Chief Technical Officer
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Hopefully someone will come up with a pdf e-book that shows complicated pdfs correctly.I vote for that!There is a product in development for this Plasticlogic but it will not be out until next year sometime.
Could there be text only version that we can use ni currently made products? I have tried the PDF -> DOC conversion and it is terrible. Even a text only version would get me by until plasticlogic comes out.
We're not going to be producing text-only versions of our products. For one thing, they're not generally useful as standalone products, seeing as how they lack maps and such, and I could see uninformed customers accidentally buying them and then complaining about it. However, you should find it fairly easy to extract the text from our existing PDFs (for your own personal use, of course).
However, you should find it fairly easy to extract the text from our existing PDFs (for your own personal use, of course).
Can you suggest a means of doing this? Whenever I try, I get odd results with anything that has an "f" in it. It creates odd mispellings.
That and the "call out" boxes move around to odd places and page separations (due to the watermark) copy oddly, but these can be overcome.
Hopefully someone will come up with a pdf e-book that shows complicated pdfs correctly.I vote for that!
I've seen an iRex Illiad tablet. They're expensive, but PDFs work just fine on them. I've haven't tried out an image-heavy document, but my friend has an Illiad and I'll see if he'll let me test it.
One thing to keep in mind is that these e-ink based readers (Kindle, Illiad, Sony Reader) have fairly slow page refreshes. You cannot easily flip through a book and thus the sort of reference book style navigation that often happens with RPG books would still be clumsy even with a large e-book reader.
But put me down on the list as someone who would love to find a solution, be it a good ebook reader that supports PDFs or a decent enough non-PDF format for other readers.
Personally, I think HTML is a good solution since it gives the author and the reader lots of flexibility. I've always thought that RPG books would do better as a website than as a PDF. Just look at how easy it is to navigate Dungeon-a-Day. Moreover, HTML is designed for reading on the screen instead of PDF which is still designed for print. Give me a subscription website for all Pathfinder materials with decent navigation and you've got a customer!
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However, you should find it fairly easy to extract the text from our existing PDFs (for your own personal use, of course).Can you suggest a means of doing this? Whenever I try, I get odd results with anything that has an "f" in it. It creates odd mispellings.
That and the "call out" boxes move around to odd places and page separations (due to the watermark) copy oddly, but these can be overcome.
I'll second this. When I extract text from Paizo PDFs to modify stat blocks in such. It randomly drops f's, l's, and i's. Headings also transfer with MIxEd cApS. Carriage returns are always substituted for text-wrap as well. It's no big deal and still a lot better than some PDFs I've come across, and cosmetic editing is very minimal all in all. I know it's comparing apples to oranges but the guys at d20srd.org have formatted their stats in such a way that they can be cut an pasted without ANY editing. My favorite part is that it even preserves the column/table information when I paste it into Open Office. Want to stat up a harpy, but want to ditch the harpy archer's stats? Just select the unwanted column and delete it!
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Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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We are setting up a meeting with Amazon to look into this, but a lot of the details as far as pricing, payments, and percentages are still up in the air. We're asking because Paizo customers are asking us, but nothing has been decided yet.
The "Planet Stories" Kindle editions are usually electronic editions of the same work from other publishers.
Personally, I think HTML is a good solution since it gives the author and the reader lots of flexibility. I've always thought that RPG books would do better as a website than as a PDF. Just look at how easy it is to navigate Dungeon-a-Day. Moreover, HTML is designed for reading on the screen instead of PDF which is still designed for print. Give me a subscription website for all Pathfinder materials with decent navigation and you've got a customer!Hopefully someone will come up with a pdf e-book that shows complicated pdfs correctly.I vote for that!
HTML by itself is a lousy option, because HTML is bloated, full of depreciated code and not well standardized (compare sites in IE to FF). Major online publishers (like Nature) use XML-based content solutions.
XML -> XSL -> HTML for a text heavy product is the way to go. Standalone XML can be used to generate many ereader compatible formats, and does allow for things like reflow of text.
Developing this kind of platform/product is cost prohibitive, and probably well outside Paizo's core competencies (no disrespect Vic).
However both these options basically through away all the work Paizo does on art, design and layout. Paizo is more of an online retailer than an online publisher.
XML -> XSL -> HTML for a text heavy product is the way to go. Standalone XML can be used to generate many ereader compatible formats, and does allow for things like reflow of text.Developing this kind of platform/product is cost prohibitive, and probably well outside Paizo's core competencies (no disrespect Vic).
Yes, the XML publishing route is preferable. The tools don't have to be expensive, they're just not user friendly. There are number of open source XML pipeline projects (such as Apache Cocoon) that can be done to put this together. However, my point is less about XML vs HTML as it is about the screen readability and navigation of web sites versus PDF as a digital version of a work.
And I can definitely understand Paizo's position as publisher and why moving to such as tool-chain would be unlikely. Just looking at this website is a reminder they are a online retailer and not an online publisher. Paizo.com is basically and ecommerce site with everything else shoehorned in.
We are setting up a meeting with Amazon to look into this, but a lot of the details as far as pricing, payments, and percentages are still up in the air. We're asking because Paizo customers are asking us, but nothing has been decided yet.
Good luck!
Every direct/no fiddling PDF version I've looked at on my Sony eReader has been less than stellar (and I'm being nice).
Hopefully someone will come up with a pdf e-book that shows complicated pdfs correctly.I vote for that!
Seconded. Something I just can put a PDF - any PDF! - on and look at it like I would look at it at the PC.
As long as they cannot provide that, I won't buy.
Besides, they don't offer Kindle to me, anyway. Let them keep it.
We are setting up a meeting with Amazon to look into this, but a lot of the details as far as pricing, payments, and percentages are still up in the air.
Hey Eric, not to be too direct, but who are you meeting with over there? I might know a few people in the chain as well. Feel free to drop me a line somehow and I can confirm how I know it.
Seconded. Something I just can put a PDF - any PDF! - on and look at it like I would look at it at the PC.
It's not color, but you can check out the iRex Illiad. Or the upcoming TechCrunch Tablet.
Seconded. Something I just can put a PDF - any PDF! - on and look at it like I would look at it at the PC.
And now Amazon introduces the Kindle DX: 9.7 inch screen, built-in PDF support. $489.
Though I wouldn't be surprised if Apple unveils something this year as well.
Seconded. Something I just can put a PDF - any PDF! - on and look at it like I would look at it at the PC.And now Amazon introduces the Kindle DX: 9.7 inch screen, built-in PDF support. $489.
Though I wouldn't be surprised if Apple unveils something this year as well.
Well, there's a couple of problems with that:
Seconded. Something I just can put a PDF - any PDF! - on and look at it like I would look at it at the PC.And now Amazon introduces the Kindle DX: 9.7 inch screen, built-in PDF support. $489.
Though I wouldn't be surprised if Apple unveils something this year as well.
Hell, for that price range, I can buy a laptop that WOULD display PDFs correctly. ~shakes my head~ WAY overpriced!
P.S. - Granted, that laptop would be a lower end one, but still.
Seconded. Something I just can put a PDF - any PDF! - on and look at it like I would look at it at the PC.And now Amazon introduces the Kindle DX: 9.7 inch screen, built-in PDF support. $489.
Though I wouldn't be surprised if Apple unveils something this year as well.
Hell, for that price range, I can buy a laptop that WOULD display PDFs correctly. ~shakes my head~ WAY overpriced!
P.S. - Granted, that laptop would be a lower end one, but still.
Yeah... But for almost half the price, you can get a netbook that could handle PDFs better.
Yeah... But for almost half the price, you can get a netbook that could handle PDFs better.
Exactly. My eee pc (701) offers superior price point and form factor when compared to the Kindle DX. Toss in Linux, and it gets even better. I consider it my "DM's little helper".
Kindle only works in the US. I'm not a US resident.
Nearly 500 bucks for something I basically get for free in a book is about 400 bucks more than I'd be ready to pay.
Apple's not an option, either.
The WhisperNet feature doesn't work outside the US, but everything else should. So it's still functional. I'm outside the US as well.
Also, the form factor is much different than a laptop. Reading an e-ink display is an entirely different experience from a LCD.
Still, I agree the price is high.
Callling that price high loses on the opportunity to use a whole range of words, like ludicrous, astronomical, usury.
If I were absurdly rich, I'd get one, but until then, there are at least 500 other things I'd spend 500 dollars on.
They should do this right:
When I sign a cell phone contract, I can get a cell phone for free.
So why not offer PDF contracts and offer free kindles?
Personally, I think HTML is a good solution since it gives the author and the reader lots of flexibility. I've always thought that RPG books would do better as a website than as a PDF. Just look at how easy it is to navigate Dungeon-a-Day. Moreover, HTML is designed for reading on the screen instead of PDF which is still designed for print. Give me a subscription website for all Pathfinder materials with decent navigation and you've got a customer!
I agree that, as far as referencing rules goes, HTML is way better than PDF (Jans Carton's d20srd.org is invaluable, for instance). But PDF is better for reading something beginning to end, IMO.
I know this is an old topic, but I was wondering has anyone tried the Kindle DX with paizo pdfs?
Yes Micco, thanks for the info. Until someone comes out with a reader that works great with pdfs, they are useless to me.I'm looking at getting an Irex Digital Reader to store all of my roleplay PDFs for use at the table. I'm hoping that since I runs Linux I can hack the Beagle search engine onto it and have them all cross-searchable.
I have an iRex DR1000 but only for reading PDFs. DO NOT buy one as a game table aid, buy a netbook/cheapo laptop instead. The iRex (and all other eReaders) are not up to scratch for in game use. Page turning can take a while, etc etc. They have a tiny CPU so keeping several PDFs open and searching through them etc is not feasable, they are too slow.
They are AWESOME for reading PDFs (etc), which is what they are for. I hate reading PDFs on my PC or laptop, but ePaper is great. It is real good for saving money on postage when your nearest FLGS is 2 hours drive away and everything costs much more here in New Zealand anyway (e.g. it is cheaper to have a Amazon fast post it here than buy local). I was printing out the electronic Dragon and Dungeon mags ( along with the many other PDFs I have, War of the Burning Sky, One Bad Egg, Kobold Quarterly etc etc) and the printing costs in one year paid for my eReader. So it is awesome for reading but I use hard cover books and my laptop when I DM- but I cn curl up on the couch and read my PDFs with pleasure using it.
And I would imagine the DX would be the same, it's CPU is similar to the iRex's so it would be great for reading but not searching. The 2 advantages of an eReader over a laptop are the size/comfort/heat and you get no eye strain from the ePaper. BTW you can just read an A4 PDF of Dragon mag... which does have a lot of white space around it.. on a 6" PDF reader screen (I tried one out). However text on a coloured background was nigh illegible (monster stat blocks in 4E, for example). The larger iRex (10" screen) is no problems at all for PDFs with charts, maps, stat blocks and stuff... the DX should be OK, although it is slightly smaller.
Thanks for the help. I was thinking of getting a reader for around the house and easier on the eyes.
I could see it being a problem at the table, but wasn't planning on it for that use. Old fashioned book or labtop would work better.
Thanks again.
Thanks for the help. I was thinking of getting a reader for around the house and easier on the eyes.
I could see it being a problem at the table, but wasn't planning on it for that use. Old fashioned book or labtop would work better.
Thanks again.
Yep 100%, I find reading my iRex just as 'enjoyable' as a book. Worth every penny IMO. But, for example, flicking through a rule book, jumping from page to page it is rubbish :-)
Has anyone tried this on the Sony digital reader? It looks like it is designed for non-DRM'd pdf's when I looked at their web site. If so I would buy one since I think this seems like a great idea.
I have a Sony reader 500 myself and I like it. Just be advised that in most pdf's the artwork will not display and the text will be extremely small but that can be solved with the use of the magnify button.