From: Damien Broderick (thespike@earthlink.net)
Date: Wed Dec 18 2002 - 17:03:42 MST
Lee Daniel Crocker opined:
> > It should be noted that Fictionwise titles are available only
> > in bizarre proprietary formats, and some of them only in
> > encrypted formats. Another pay service, Webscriptions, makes
> > its titles available in standard formats just like Baen, and
> > has current releases (indeed many even before publication in
> > paper form), and makes multiple works available for a single
> > price, so you're not forced to buy a title blind. In general
> > I think that's a much more sensible model with more respect for
> > the consumer.
I passed along this criticism to Steve Pendergrast at F/wise, who comments
by way of rebuttal:
> We support more
> formats than any other major ebook distributor by far. People come to
> us to buy ebooks that are also in the Baen Free library because we
> have formats Baen doesn't even support.
>
> Our formats are the most commonly used industry standard eBook formats
> there are: Microsoft Reader, Palm Doc, Adobe Acrobat, Palmreader,
> Rocket ... anyone who thinks these are bizzare and uncommon formats
> doesn't know anything about ebooks! Now consider the formats Baen
> supports: Microsoft Reader, Palm Doc, Adobe Acrobat, Rocket... you see
> what I mean? The formats we carry are just about exactly the same as
> the ones Baen carries. I think they have straight HTML but we could
> not get publishers to agree to that one. But other than that they're
> mostly the same formats.
>
> It's true that some ebooks we carry are encrypted, but only ones for
> which the publishers absolutely will not allow unencrypted versions.
> So, it was a choice to carry them encrypted or not at all. We would
> prefer not to encrypt them but that's not a legal option.
I have never bought one of their downloads myself (since I don't own a Palm
or equivalent), but the e-books I've seen from them are perfectly readable
on Adobe Acrobat freeware.
Damien Broderick
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