Hang Ten with Kindle
NPR asks the question: can you – or would you even consider – taking your $399 Kindle e-book reader to the pool or beach?
Speaking of e-books, The Penguin blog has a refreshing take for a publisher – they have no idea where this e-book thing is headed:
The eBooks are Coming!!! This is, of course, a tremendously exciting time – we might be at the brink of a revolution in the way that we distribute books and the way that people access books. But the key word is ‘might’ – the really exciting thing is that no-one really knows how things will turn out. Ebooks might change our world … but they might not.
There is currently much consternation in the book industry about the future of the conventional book, but my suspicion is that it will prove to be more tenacious than the CD, for the following reasons:
1) Book readers like books, whereas music fans never had much affection for CDs. Vinyl yes, CDs no. They are too small for interesting cover art and legible lyrics, the cases break easily, and despite all promises to the contrary, they are extremely easy to break and scratch. Books have remained consistently lovable for several hundred years now. For readers, a wall lined with books is as attractive as any art we could afford to put up there.
2) E-book readers have a couple of disadvantages, when compared to mp3 players. The first is that, when we bought our iPods, we already owned the music to put on it; none of us own e-books, however. The second is that so far, Apple is uninterested in designing an e-book reader, which means that they don’t look very cool.
3) We don’t buy many books – seven per person per year, a couple of which, we must assume, are presents for other people. Three paperbacks bought in a three-for-two offer – expenditure, fourteen pounds approx – will do most of us for months. The advantages of the Iliad and the Kindle – that you can take vast numbers of books away with you – are of no interest to the average book-buyer.
4) Book-lovers are always late adaptors, and generally suspicious of new technology.
5) The new capabilities of the iPod will make it harder to sell books anyway. How much reading has been done historically, simply because there is no television available on a bus or a train or a sun-lounger? But that’s no longer true. You could watch a whole series of the Sopranos by the pool on your iPod touchscreen, if you want. Reading is going to take a hit from this.
July 8, 2008 8:15 am 2 Comments
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By eric, July 10, 2008 @ 11:26 am
Nick is right. Though I’m an avid bibliophile, there are two more reasons I wouldn’t be interested in a Kindlereader.
1) It’s $400!!! Are you kidding me?
2) The e-books cost the same as printed books. This makes no sense. If publishers want to sell more books, they might consider dropping the price to reflect *their* savings on paper, printing and shipping the actual books.
By eric, July 10, 2008 @ 11:39 am
Nick is right. Though I’m an avid bibliophile, there are two more reasons I wouldn’t be interested in a Kindlereader.
1) It’s $400!!! Are you kidding me?
2) The e-books cost the same as printed books. This makes no sense. If publishers want to sell more books, they might consider dropping the price to reflect *their* savings on paper, printing and shipping the actual books.