would Essentials as a Kindle book be a good idea?

[falcarrion]

My answer is Yes.

Heres why. Kindle books can be read on other devices beside the kindle.
Amazon offers free apps or software for the following devices.

PC's
Iphone, Itouch, and the Ipad
Blackberry
Android

So your choice of devices is excelent.

Piracy:
Since your device needs to be regesterd to down load a Kindle book, and most likey be limited to 6 down loads this should make Wotc happy campers.
Lets face it Wotc pulled pdfs because of the ease of piracy of such mentioned pdfs.
Can it still be done? Yes but not on the level as before and you would have to face Wotc and Amazon in court if caught. Not worth the chance is you ask me.

With the price of the new version of the Kindle as $139, this would be in the price range of alot of people who have concidered getting an e-reader already.

Will Wotc go this route? I beleive so. As they are already selling novels in kindle format and others on the way such as " The Seal of Karga Kul", " City Under the Sand", and some of the great books by R.A. Salvatore. It is a good possablity.

 

[exedore6]

One of the problems with Kindle RPG books is that most game books have heavy layout. Charts, tables, diagrams and the like. This doesn't translate well to any ereader format (except for PDF, which the Kindle is pretty terrible at).

That said, I'd love to have an ereader version of the books, I just don't think it'll work with game books (except for more fluff-heavy books).

 

[SquareKnot]

Amazon has a button for each book that says "Tell the Publisher I'd Like to Read This on Kindle".

I have for most D&D titles.

At GenCon, I believe they said they'd have something to announce about e-books "really soon now." I suspect it will be something like this, for the reasons you mention.

 

[Wild Gazebo]

I would easily give up charts and images for good gaming ebooks.

I was just browsing one of my pdfs the other day annoyed at how slow and bulky it was thinking an ebook version would be excellent.

 

[guivre]

One of the problems with Kindle RPG books is that most game books have heavy layout. Charts, tables, diagrams and the like. This doesn't translate well to any ereader format (except for PDF, which the Kindle is pretty terrible at).

That said, I'd love to have an ereader version of the books, I just don't think it'll work with game books (except for more fluff-heavy books).

epub handles layout just fine.

 

[falcarrion]

One of the problems with Kindle RPG books is that most game books have heavy layout. Charts, tables, diagrams and the like. This doesn't translate well to any ereader format (except for PDF, which the Kindle is pretty terrible at).

That said, I'd love to have an ereader version of the books, I just don't think it'll work with game books (except for more fluff-heavy books).

I have heard it suggested that the Essentials would be in a 6x9 format. If so they may not have any charts or each chart would be one full page. As a e-reader format it is easier to increase the size of the fonts then working with zoom on pdfs on any e-readers I have used. Zoom works well on pdfs if your using a Ipad, Itouch or PC.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

I have a Kindle DX. I have put a lot of gaming pdfs on it, and I think it has a lot of potential to be really handy. I'd love to see the Essentials books offered for Kindle, but I'd hope they offer them formatted to be more readable on Kindle's grayscale screen.

 

[Umbran]

I would easily give up charts and images for good gaming ebooks.

Question: how many "good gaming books" have you seen that didn't have charts for reference?

 

[AntiStateQuixote]

Also, part of the "Essentials" is the bits that you use to play the game. Electronic versions of character/monster tokens aren't very useful.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Question: how many "good gaming books" have you seen that didn't have charts for reference?

There's no reason that charts couldn't be used in a Kindle book, anyway.