E-books don't furnish a room

[Andy]

E-books don't furnish a room

Since there was some debate about electronic readers last week, here's another articl ewhich discusses a lot about the pros and cons of electronic books. One plus: Some readers like that they're more organized (obviously). One con: Some people are afraid of dropping their eReader, like into the sea. :doh:

And Sony just released their own version of Amazon's Kindle.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/ebooks-dont-furnish-a-room-919089.html

[Imelda]

Saw that on morning tv the other day. Had a long conversation about it, and the furnishing thing came up. I want my house to be full of books. They smell good, they look good, and they act as insulation. :p I will never buy a Kindle/Sony thing.

[Andy]

I want my bookshelves to be filled with Kindles, each one with books. Finding the right book should be easy, right? :D

Nah, I prefer books instead.

[Nyx]

I agree with Imelda. Besides, my eyes hurt when I read for a while from a screen.

[Lykaios]

I love bookshops too much. If books don't exist on paper because everyone buys them on those machines then there'll be no bookshops . . . And no books.

Plus, if I were a published author, It wouldn't feel right to write a story and then never see the book.
I'd rather go to a bookshop and see my name on a book and then browse around, picking up books to look at the blurb etc. rather than wondering if anyone is reading my stories on one of those eBooks and having to surf through hundreds of names on a computer screen to find the story I want.

I see the book, I like the look of the book, I read the blurb, I buy the book.

I don't like title/name surfing.

So I will never buy an eBook.

[Andy]

I like being able to hold a book. Besides, throwing bad books across the room is impossible with the Kindle. Unless you're super-mad, I guess.

[Lykaios]

Oh yeah, I love holding books as well and having them all over my room. They make my room smell nice too. :)

I've only ever thrown one book across the room though . . .

If I had a kindle I'd be so worried about breaking it, getting it wet, dropping it, it getting stolen . . . I'd never use it, so I'd be poinless for me to have one.

[Majyk]

I hate reading on screens, like Nyx said. After too long, my eyes hurt. Plus, I love books. I like to be able to look at them and pick them up. In the library, I always flip through the pages before I check it out.
I will always use real books.

[Shaun]

The problem with publishing is that the big publishers aren't reaping the benefits of new media formats for books, such as print-on-demand and electronic formats. They're still clinging to pre-Internet capitalist idealogies, which still work, but aren't as effective.

One thing that will drastically improve their sales and their book retention is offering POD services for books no longer in print, or books that a customer can't find at a store. You order it, it's printed and sent to you, and the publisher doesn't have to worry about paying enormous amounts for the process. There are ways to make this happen, but publishers aren't jumping on it.

As for electronic formats: I don't like them. I don't like reading them, I don't like the quality that is published is e-format (a lot of stuff that I've seen printed originally as an ebook have been horrible works of literature) and it falls prey to the same problems as print-on-demand self-publishing and regular self-publishing do: the public doesn't like them right now. It will change, eventually, but we shouldn't expect any drastic changes.
The big problem I see for the ebook market is that the books people would want to read on their Kindle or Sony thing are about the same price as the paperback. Why would you pay 300-500 bucks for a piece of electronic equipment and then pay practically full price for an electronic format of a popular book when you can save that 300-500, go buy a bunch of books with it and be done with the whole process of getting a book and not worrying about spending money? Not to mention you can't sell used copies of ebooks. And what if you want to read classic stuff, but not super popular classics? Like classic scifi, or old mystery novels from the pulp era? That's not available to you, and when it becomes available it will likely cost you less to just find an old used copy.

Ebooks have a long way to go.

[Andy]

One thing that will drastically improve their sales and their book retention is offering POD services for books no longer in print
Brilliant.

I like the look of books on a bookshelf. Kindle...what, would it be like an iPod?

And with books, there's more of a story behind it. I got this book at ----- when I ------. With electronic stuff, it's more like, I went online, again, clicked some links, again. Way less memorable.

[Shaun]

Well the Kindle has sold remarkably well, and Amazon does offer a lot of books, but again, you're paying full price for those books and there are no used copies, which means Amazon makes a full profit and you take a kick in the wallet/purse. It's a long way from being the iPod, but remember, the iPod wasn't the first mp3 player either. There were others before it, but the iPod is what revolutionized the whole thing, made it popular and drove it to the top of the market. The Kindle made us question whether ebooks were viable, the new Sony will likely do nothing, and we can expect new models to change the way things work in the ebook market.

[Imelda]

That's the thing--the books are the same damn price! You're not even discounted the price of the paper, it's crazy.

By the way, you should all go to Powells in Portland, OR. IT RULES.

[Nyx]

They're the same price?! Now I really don't see why it's bought....

[Andy]

They can't all be the same price, right? Surely some publishers choose to set a different price?

[Shadow]

I guess it would stop so many trees from being cut down. Then again, there'd also be a lot of electricity wasted over looking at these screens, so we'd fuck up the environment in some other way. So, I'll just stick with books. More publishing companies are using eco-friendly sources now anyway, so it's cool.

[Andy]

Actually, I think the Kindle only uses electricity to change pages. Simply put, it magnetizes the screen so the black for the letters gets pushed to the top. Once that happens, it doesn't use any more power until it has to change the page.

That's also why the Kindle is in black and white. Colors wouldn't work this way.

[Shadow]

It's still using electricity. Consider this: say the average book has 400 pages. That's 400 like bits of electricity used up. But just imagine how many people are going to be doing this? That's a lot of electricity used.

[Shaun]

They're not "exactly" the same price, but the discount on most ebooks of quality, as in books worths pending money on to read, are not discounted enough to make it logical to spend 300-400 or more on a machine to view them. Think of it this way:
New book: $9.99 (Dan Brown's Angels & Demons for Mass Market Paperback)
Used book: $1.69 (Currently the lowest for the mass market, although the hardback is $0.01)
Kindle ebook: $6.39

So, yes, there is a discount, but here's the problem...
You can save three dollars and risk buying a book you might hate and can't sell back at a lower price, or you can pay 3 bucks more for a book and then sell it back. This is a poor example (using Dan Brown) due to his books having been out for a while, but if you take newer books the used book sellback rate is higher (anywhere from half to 2/3rds original cost). You can't do anything but delete the Kindle version. The change in price varies depending on publisher, but getting a used copy of the paperback is still the better option and as long as there are purists to buy the new version (and you can get Dan Brown at Walmart for $4.99 by the way, brand new) we'll have plenty of used books to go around. When the technology is cheaper and it accounts for the fact that it has no second-hand sales ability, then we might see it take off. With the Kindle you're screwed if you hate the book. You can't sell it back to get some of your money back. That's it. You paid full price for it and you're stuck with it. I don't like that. I like selling books I don't like, because at least I can make a little money on them that I can use toward other books.

I also don't know if Kindle prices go down when a book is produced in different formats. So you can save a bit of money buying the ebook when a hardcover comes out, but if that price doesn't change much for mass market buyers, well, meh. Half the time people don't know anything about a book until it becomes mass market anyway.