Helm ebooks (1 Viewer)

aegithalos · Oct 8, 2012

Many of the Helm field guides are now apparently available as ebooks, e.g. Birds of the Horn of Africa:

http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/birds-of-the-horn-of-africa-9781408125809

The website gives links for purchasing them via Amazon Kindle, Kobo, Google Play and Apple, but none of the links for ebooks already published are working (for me). For books not yet published, it looks as if they are planning to publish simultaneously as ebook and paper, the former being slightly more expensive (presumably because of UK VAT).

Has anyone managed to find a working link and download one of these ebooks?

And are they usable as field guides are meant to be used - in the field? I guess the test of whether this is a viable format will be if they can compete with the increasing number of birding apps, purpose built for smartphones.

Keith

Steve Babbs · Oct 9, 2012

They're available, which is a big advantage over field guide apps, which are still very thin on the ground. But the ebooks seem horrible expensive as they are just an electronic form of the book, whereas the app field guides, such as Sibley, have other features. Most notably bird recordings.

Keith Dickinson · Oct 9, 2012

Steve the biggest piece of politicking with ebooks is the fact that they are subject to VAT... which print books aren't. So there's 20% going to the government straight away. To start hyperlinking within the book, and adding in extras like sound files is just going to push the costs to a point where no-one is going to buy them.

njlarsen · Oct 9, 2012

That sounds like an argument for purchase of E-books from international sources

Niels

snowyowl · Oct 15, 2012

I have a Nook Color and field guides are easily available for it. So far I've purchased the following:
Caterpillars of North America, David L. Wagner
Audubon Insects & Spiders
North American Butterflies
Encyclopedia of North American Mammals
Peterson Field Guide to Birds of Eastern and Central North America

These electronic guides are significantly cheaper than their paper equivalent.
I am disappointed in the image quality of the Peterson Guide, they lack detail. Some of the guides have to be loaded onto a memory card rather than directly into the reader's memory.
I intend to add the Sibley Guide to my collection.
My goal is not to take any paper guides with me when I head south at the end of the month.

fugl · Oct 15, 2012

snowyowl said:
My goal is not to take any paper guides with me when I head south at the end of the month.

I'll be interested to hear how you make out without paper guides. I have all the North American bird field guides on my iPhone but find them too fiddly & hard to see for use in the field & always carry a paper guide as well.

snowyowl · Oct 15, 2012

I too have some on my phone but agree that they are too small. The bird ones I have on my phone have sound as well so that can be useful.

fugl · Oct 15, 2012

snowyowl said:
I too have some on my phone but agree that they are too small. The bird ones I have on my phone have sound as well so that can be useful.

Agreed, the sound files can be very useful & in themselves justify the cost of the apps (IMO).

Jim Martin · Oct 17, 2012

Hi

Time for some clarity on this!

There are *no* Helm field guides currently available as ebooks.

I'll be publishing eight in January.

These will be be available for iPad, iPad mini, Nook, all Android tablets (i.e. Google Nexus), and Kindle Fire, as well as smartphones.

These will be crisp, hi-res and, in essence, identical to the book, with one crucial difference – they will incorporate (wherever possible) diagnostic songs and calls, in a field-friendly format.

These ebooks will be the game-changers that any birder with a tablet has been waiting for ...

Any queries drop me a line.

Jim

njlarsen · Oct 17, 2012

njlarsen said:
That sounds like an argument for purchase of E-books from international sources

Niels

Except that I discovered the other day that Ebooks from amazon USA also might be having sales tax added to them, even for me who does not live in the US. :C

Niels

aegithalos · Oct 18, 2012

Jim Martin said:
Hi

Time for some clarity on this!

There are *no* Helm field guides currently available as ebooks.

I'll be publishing eight in January.

These will be be available for iPad, iPad mini, Nook, all Android tablets (i.e. Google Nexus), and Kindle Fire, as well as smartphones.

These will be crisp, hi-res and, in essence, identical to the book, with one crucial difference – they will incorporate (wherever possible) diagnostic songs and calls, in a field-friendly format.

These ebooks will be the game-changers that any birder with a tablet has been waiting for ...

Any queries drop me a line.

Jim

Jim,

Thanks. That clarifies why the links to Amazon etc do not work. But it does not explain why they are still on the Helm pages. Birds of the Horn of Africa (link at the start of the thread) is still listed as:

Published: 23-08-2012
Format: eBook

But I look forward to trying one whenever they appear ..

Cheers,

Keith

Steve Babbs · Oct 18, 2012

Jim Martin said:
Hi

Time for some clarity on this!

There are *no* Helm field guides currently available as ebooks.

I'll be publishing eight in January.

These will be be available for iPad, iPad mini, Nook, all Android tablets (i.e. Google Nexus), and Kindle Fire, as well as smartphones.

These will be crisp, hi-res and, in essence, identical to the book, with one crucial difference – they will incorporate (wherever possible) diagnostic songs and calls, in a field-friendly format.

These ebooks will be the game-changers that any birder with a tablet has been waiting for ...

Any queries drop me a line.

Jim

Really glad to hear that. The future is - nearly - here.

itchytwitcher · Oct 20, 2012

Currently on iTunes .....

Jim Martin said:
There are *no* Helm field guides currently available as ebooks.

I'll be publishing eight in January.

Hi Jim

Apps of 'Birds of the Middle East' and 'Birds of the Indian Subcontinent' are both currently available on iTunes. Are these early releases of the ebook versions you mention due January, or is there something new in the pipeline?

Itchy

Jim Martin · Oct 23, 2012

itchytwitcher said:
Hi Jim

Apps of 'Birds of the Middle East' and 'Birds of the Indian Subcontinent' are both currently available on iTunes. Are these early releases of the ebook versions you mention due January, or is there something new in the pipeline?

Itchy

Yes there are apps available for these two, in Android and Apple formats, plus the RSPB Handbook of British Birds.

Note though although they are of course based on the books, these are apps, that (for the moment anyway) work best on smartphones - very different beasts to e-books. And, for Middle East and Indian Subcontinent, without sounds. So they aren't really comparable.

Jim

aegithalos · Jan 26, 2013

Any information on when the Helm e-books will actually appear? Birds of the Horn Africa is still not available (stated pub date 23 Aug 2012), several due for publication on 24 Jan 2013 also seem to be unavailable. Or is it just me that cannot get the links to work from the Helm website?

Keith

Jim Martin · Feb 4, 2013

I'm afraid I've found the hard way that exact pub dates are impossible for enhanced ebooks of this complexity. This is because of the ingestion procedure, the process of actually getting an ebook into Apple and on sale in the iStore. All I can say is that they'll be out by the end of February.

Nobody has ever done anything like this before (in publishing), so we are all kind of finding our feet.

Birds of the Horn of Africa's publication date - this is an error (probably mine). The sounds have been assembled – an epic task on its own – and production will soon be underway. I expect this one will be appearing in April.

Best wishes,

Jim

aegithalos · Mar 25, 2013

Something is happening ... the Helm website now has an ebook sample (from Grimmett et al, Birds of the Indian Sub-continent), and it works fine on my iPhone (which is admittedly a much smaller device than the iPad these eBooks have been designed for). Impressive in fact - it is good to have the sound right there while looking at the text. The images and text are clear and readable, but (on the iPhone) it is difficult to see both at the same time. I suspect this not how I would want to be looking at a field guide continuously, but just great to have the guide available 'just in case' without lugging the whole book around.

The full version of Birds of the Indian Sub-continent is available for purchase on ITunes but not Amazon. I couldn't get any of the other books to work (all gave 'not available in UK store' on iTunes). Pity ... the one I would really like on my phone right now is Birds of the Middle East!

A cautious thumbs up so far ...

Cheers,

keith

Jos Stratford · Mar 25, 2013

Perhaps I'm a dinosaur, or maybe it relates to my style of travelling, or just my natural like of printed stuff, but I'd not be thinking of relying on an e-book for somewhere like the Horn of Africa.

birdboybowley · Mar 25, 2013

Me neither - ebook/Kindle etc will have to be charged and is a much more tempting target for a would-be thief rather than a tatty old fieldguide....and if you drop the fieldguide, be it on the ground or in a stream as you slip off a rock, no worries you can dry it out. An ebook is effed, end of. No fieldguide, no more id'ing birds!!

njlarsen · Mar 26, 2013

Back up a little. I am as old and book-wise as conservative as most, but having the Sibley app for NA means that I have the drawings of the best book and the voices of a lot of species right there (I bought an iPad mini specifically for that). I am likely on my next visit to have the Nat Geo guide as well in the printed version, but the combination of drawings and sound sure was tempting!

Niels

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