If you’ve been following me on twitter lately (not many of you do) you may have noticed I’ve been losing some proverbial sleep lately over something I never thought I’d lose sleep over and that’s reading. I’m not a writer (I hack it here) but I’m not a writer, and for years I haven’t really been a reader either. I almost had to laugh when I saw Doug and all our other web friends were tripping all over themselves to get to their wallets to order the Kindle 2. However, when I started deciding it was time to look into developing for the iPhone as a side project, I soon realized I was going to be doing a lot of reading. I’ve since ordered maybe 8-10 different books and half of them have been in digital format. I stuck with some in paper form because it was all that was available, and some others I bought in e-book format because it was much cheaper.

However as time has gone on, one thing I’ve come to find is that while paper is great to read its tough to carry and can get pretty destroyed after shoving into and out of a bag a few times a day. The other thing I’ve come to find is that reading a 500+ page book on my laptop can be tough. Granted the screen on my MacBook is excellent, but still its not meant for reading books. One other minor problem has crept in and that’s during my ‘free’ time at work I tend to be away from a computer so e-books don’t work out to well. I’ve tried them on my iPhone, but I just can’t do the 3″ screen reading and again the lighting of the screen tends to wear out my eyes.

So anyway, I was at Target (of all places) the other day and ran across the Sony prs-505 personal reading system. Since that time I’ve been in a constant cycle of debate with myself over if I should follow the herd and pick up a Kindle or go with a slightly lesser known but still very capable Sony reader. Through all of this, I’ve come to some very difficult conclusions and made a few decisions along the way, including the fact that e-books NEED Apple and they need Apple bad.

Now let me be clear – e-books need more than the iPhone and Stanza. They need more than the iPhone and the Kindle book store. They NEED Apple to handle the whole platform. From marketing to distribution to device. Apple needs to do what it did for portable music with the iPod and turn that magic towards e-books. Immediately, I know I just woke up some of the pod-hater crowd. Before you folks call me a fanboy and dismiss all of this hear me out.

There were portable music players before the iPod. There are portable music players besides the iPod. But Apple did something along the way that has improved the entire music industry from the buyer’s perspective – and that’s bring a set of expected standards for purchases (price) as well as experience, and they’ve helped to break down the biggest wall of all DRM. True for the longest time you were locked into the iPod – but repeatedly Apple had made clear they didn’t want the DRM any more than you did, and you’ll notice its gone now. You can buy anything you want from the iTunes store and do with it what you chose. Without Apple (and Amazon) I can’t honestly say we had a chance of reaching this point. We all know Microsoft wasn’t about to give up DRM, and while Amazon was the first (I think) to reach the 100% DRM free plateau, it wasn’t for lack of Apple trying. It took the pressure of competition and the realization of sales increases to make that happen within the industry.

So, reverse the clock a few years and switch mediums. Here we are with e-books. Paper giants (like the music execs) are still trying to make the rules for who gets to sell what and in what format, they still are trying to force DRM down everyone’s gullet, and they still think they’ll be able to survive the revolution. Problem is right now Amazon is making a run of this all on their own and are happy to play the DRM game because they’re making a killing. They aren’t fighting for you and me to be able to buy and use our stuff the way we want to. Amazon is trying to sell a product (e-books) and sell you the medium (Kindle) all at the same time much like Apple did with the iPod. Amazon could care less what you want to do with an e-book as long as that’s read it on a Kindle or use the Kindle software again because they’re the only show in town and they’re making a killing. They have their own format (azw) and they have DRM on it to ensure you use it the way its intended. Just how the industry likes it.

Now I don’t think this DRM garbage is Amazon’s overall goal, much like I don’t think it was ever Apple’s goal. They stand to make a boatload of cash off the Kindle and the e-books in the same way Apple has done with the iPod and music. Actually if you look a bit closer not all of the books you get for the Kindle are wrapped in DRM. Public domain books are free and clear from all DRM protection. So, what I think is that there’s a need for another party (Apple) to step in and take control over the state of e-book affairs. Right now its like the wild wild west. There’s tons of different stores selling almost 10 different e-book formats. There’s no real standard for pricing, there’s no expectations for customer purchase experience and there’s no rules for what a reader should be able to do. Amazon is THE ONLY player who has the entire thing down to a science, but they’re only one experience and a costly one at that.

For example let’s look at the Kindle. It reads Kindle books. Other formats besides RTF? Forget it. You have to send them to Amazon to be formatted for the Kindle to read them. Sony? Multiple formats, but only if they’re not DRM’d. The only DRM formats they support is Adobe and their own format. Many readers don’t support DRM period, so your only choice is DRM free books that are public domain or worse downloading them illegally. Keep in mind that even if you own a Kindle or a Sony, your only option for some books is still to download them illegally because they aren’t available in the DRM’d format of your reader. So, we need someone to step up to the plate and draw a line in the sand to say – Here’s the format. End of story. All e-books need to be made available in this format and if they aren’t, you might as well close up shop because the market isn’t going to support you. I think Apple has the balls and the distribution medium (iTunes) to be able to do that. As the readers/consumers the people need to step and basically say the same thing. From here on out the consumer needs to start forcing the standard through our group purchasing power. People can move mountains when they work together, but even the smallest of boulders is difficult when we are divided.

Pricing is the next major hurdle. Here’s a good one for you. Did you know that in MANY cases outside of the Amazon Kindle store (and a few inside it) that e-books cost MORE than a paper book? Think about that for a second. They COST MORE THAN PAPER BOOKS! How in the sam hell does that happen? How do you manage to copy, print, bind, and ship millions of books yet still do that for less than it takes to buy a pdf creator and setup a secure FTP location?

PRINT IS DEAD. Unfortunately the industry hasn’t caught onto that fact yet. The writers have, but the suits haven’t. Again, this is where and why we need Apple. Amazon is running the show right now but they can’t do it themselves and they can’t do it with the Kindle. The Kindle is a wonderful piece of kit, but much like the older iPods it’s stuck between a rock and a hard place. Amazon can’t point the finger at the competition and say how come they get to sell this book for $4.99 and I have to charge $9.99? How come they get to sell it DRM free and I’m forced to sell it only for the Kindle?
Amazon can’t point the finger at anyone… because they have no competition. Look at the price for White Corridor. The nearest competition is still $4.00 higher and still DRM’d proprietary format. How can Amazon fight the industry when there’s nobody to help them force the hand of the executives?

I said it at the beginning and I’m going to say it again. Apple needs to sell eBooks. You may not love Apple, you may not love Amazon, you may not love the iPod and you may not love the Kindle. But reality is simple – without these two powerhouse distributors playing the same game on the same team, e-books and their readers are going to continue getting screwed by ridiculous pricing and horrible proprietary DRM formats. e-books need the power of 1 Billion application downloads and 6 billion song sales. e-books need Apple.

EDIT: I want to make perfectly clear – While I wrote this post in the middle of the night after having a facebook conversation with Doug (and beating my head against the desk for hours over format garbage) – The seeds for this post were definitely originally planted by @mikecane. I wasn’t thinking of his posts when I wrote this, but he’s due some credit for sure. Now he’s definitely not for everybody, so be warned @mikecane is 100% NSFW. Here’s some see links to get you started. The old blog, and the new blog.