I just added the Self-Publishing Google Group to the directory. It is a pretty good one run by Steven Fraser. The group is pretty well established now and has been around for quite awhile, I just forgot to add it to the directory.

Which leads me too my question: What are the good forums and groups covering self publishing of either ebooks or POD books? I am particularly interested in those that give how to help and support. I am not interested in those that are tied too closely to one software program or are overly promotional. If you have one to recommend please post the URL in comments below. Those I like I will add to the directory. Thanks.

It is always interesting to read what people outside of the ebook publishing industry and readership think about ebooks in general and the new Sony ebook reader in particular. Good discussion at Threadwatch.

On a format note in that thread: there is some interest in the multimedia potential for books should Adobe fuse PDF with Flash.

Photos of the new Sony ebook reader, via Ebook Community. Looks very nice. Also looks expensive.

I spoke earlier about ebook devices due to launch in 2006. The hardware all sounds fancy, but success lies in more than just the hardware - software and ease of buying ebooks, and price; as well as ease of converting my own content to be read on any device is key to my buying any device. It also needs to work well with a Mac.

What I would like to see in a ebook reader.

I currently own an eBookwise1150 and I am quite happy with the size and shape of it. Moreover, I have been pretty happy with the eBookwise store for buying my ebooks. Mac support, while not as good as that given Windows users, is adequate. As much as I like it, I would like a a higher res screen and the technology used in the 1150 is now very old.

eInk and ePaper are all fine and dandy, but I really like a backlit screen for reading ebooks. Both my 1150 and my Palm PDA have backlit screens and I cannot imagine reading without that.

I would love to see eBookwise come out with an under $300 high-res color backlit LCD ebook reader with roughly the same physical form as the 1150. I would especially love it if I could read PDF files on it without having to convert the file and reflow the text. If such a device also had Mac support equal to that of the 1150 I'd probably buy it.

This is pure speculation but I suspect eBookwise/Fictionwise is working on some sort of improved ebook reader. I hope it is close to what I describe in my wish list.

Price is important here - I think the big market in readers is in the cheaper range. I don't think anyone but a few hardcore early adopters will pay $350 for a reader and then turn around and pay the same price or more for an ebook as opposed to a paperback.

eBookwise needs to hit both the $100 - 120 AND the $150 - 300 price points with a range of readers for this to take off, just like there is a wide range of iPods at many different prices.

The following dedicated ebook readers are expected in 2006.

Sony intends to release an ebook reader and bookstore for the US market and is expected to announce the same perhaps as soon as Jan. 4, 2006 as per this BusinessWeek article.

iRex Technologies has the Iliad coming available in April of 2006. It is not clear if the Iliad ebook device will be available in the US or only in Europe.

Jinke Co. will have it's V2 ebook reader available sometime in the first half of 2006.

All 3 of these readers use electronic paper type displays which will show black and white with grey scales at fairly high resolution. Unlike an LCD display epaper is not backlit, so it reading in low light conditions will be about like reading real paper books, but it should be easier to read epaper in sunlight.

While the devices themselves are exciting the devil is in the details of how and where and for what price we can buy books and other reading content for these devices. I am very wary of the Sony reader given their track record of trying to make everything proprietary and crippled by DRM. Also it looks like all of these are going to be over US$300 in price which I think is way too high. I think the big market is in the sub-US$150 price range.

The other question for me is about Apple Mac compatablitiy. We shall see on that.

It will be interesting to see if any established ebook retailers cobrand either the iRex or Jinke devices or develop their own.

If you have questions on these or ebook readers that are already available post them here.

ADDED: MobileRead has a good comparison.