When Amazon announced the creation of their new e-reader, the Kindle, it was met with a combination of trepidation, skepticism, and hope. For years, people have been waiting for the e-book revolution, the moment when, like music and the iPod, books would see massive consumption through digital means that might revolutionize the industry. Thing is…it hasn’t happened. Yet.
E-books still make up only about 1% of total book revenue. And while that number is up dramatically (from something like negative one jillion percent) five years ago, it still isn’t enough to justify all the hype. Yet the Kindle is supposed to be different. It is supposed to make reading books digitally as cool as music is to listen to on a small, money clip-sized device. And now that the Kindle 2 has been introduced along with cool new features–why is it that I still find myself so reluctant to buy one?
I should be the ideal Kindle user. I read dozens of books a year. My apartment can no longer house all of my books, to the point where I sneakily drop off read books at my parents house like Andy Dufresne dropping rocks in the yard in “The Shawshank Redemption.” The price tag is not such a hindrance that it would prohibit me from buying one (lord knows I’ve spent $350 on plenty of stupid things). Plus I read enough that considering the money I currently spend on books, the Kindle would pay for itself relatively quickly. I travel several weeks a year and always have to pack around the books I plan to bring. (when you find yourself debating whether to bring that extra pair of socks or that fifth paperback, you have issues)
Yet despite all of these logistical reasons, I still have not bought a Kindle. And I’m not quite sure why not.
It’s certainly possible that, if I ever do buy one, I’ll kick myself for not buying one sooner. But that’s the rub. I never hesitated in buying an MP3 player. And I got an iPod pretty much as soon as they hit they market. For some reason, music just seems to fit the digital mold better for me, and many other people. I also love the look of books on my shelf. I love the creased spine, love looking at them and remembering my favorite parts, even cracking open one or two just to skim. I love the pile next to my nightstand, and I love that if I ever have a really big house I’ll have a book collection that will line an entire wall. I’ve even thought (briefly, albeit) about what it would be like to own and run a bookstore. I just love those big, clunky, outdated things.
And maybe that’s my biggest holdup in buying a Kindle. I don’t think it’s snobbery to say that I’ve always considered books more valuable that other forms of entertainment. Even the most expensive books (which will take you between 6-12 hours to finish, usually), to me, are better values that a movie (2 hours) or an album (1 hour). Plus they tend to offer so much more. CDs never felt like they had much weight. They all looked the same, felt the same, and what the album looked like didn’t matter as much compared to how it sounded. The effect of a CD was replicated PERFECTLY by the iPod. The effect of reading a book, currently, cannot be duplicated from an e-reader. The content is the same, sure, but the feel is all wrong.
Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’m being narrow-minded, and I’ll look at this post and laugh in a few years when I’m reading my Kindle 8. But for right now, I’m just fine with my big, clunky hardbacks and my creased, loved paperbacks. Even if the beat up Chevy with 150,000 miles and the brand new, factory fresh Lamborghini both get you from point A to point B, that Chevy still has a whole lot more character and personality in my book.
I honestly do hope the Kindle revolutionizes publishing, in that it encourages younger, more technology-savvy people to start enjoying books instead of plugging their brain into the wall or having it slowly eaten away by reality tv. For now, though, even if there’s exists a whole new world of possibility out there, I’m more than content rocking it old school.
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While I agree with you on the look/feel/experience of holding a book in my hands, I do have a kindle. I picked up a Kindle 1 when folks were ditching them to buy the 2nd generation machine.
It doesn’t replace my book buying, only augments it with certain types of books–new non-fiction hardcovers are significantly cheaper on the Kindle, and certainly lighter to lug around.
But the number one reason I use the kindle is for my own files. I belong to several critique groups, and reading volumes of material on the computer screen is brutal on my eyes. Bringing the text over to the kindle means I can read just about anywhere without the glare and without having to print out hundreds of pages of text.
I figure the wear and tear and printer ink/paper savings will pay for the device in a year. Plus, I can comment on what I read using the built in keyboard. The annotations are not quite as user friendly as inserting notes in a word or open office text, but I can easily bring the file over to the computer to print out.
The other reason the kindle is going to be useful to me–I’m taking a trip this summer where we are traveling halfway around the world (really!) and have a weight limit to what we can carry. The kindle will allow me to have enough books to read on the 24+ hour trip.
Now, if they could program in the smell of the pages. . .
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LJ, if they can invent an air freshener that smells like a new car, I’m sure the lovely scent of books would be a cinch.
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….it encourages younger, more technology-savvy people to start enjoying books instead of plugging their brain into the wall or having it slowly eaten away by reality tv.
I can’t imagine giving up my personal library of print books, and e-reader technology has yet to address the needs of handicapped users like me, so they’re definitely not on my shopping list for the immediate future. That said, I still think they’re important and valuable. Anything that brings books into the lives of young people who prefer using gadgets and gizmos is a great thing.
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I would say that until you try one, you can’t really say that it’s all that limited. Perhaps it is, but you really don’t know. I haven’t picked one up either, but the Sony e-reader I saw at Borders had a great screen, and I loved being able to increase the size of the text, reading online has broken me of squinting at the page, just make the text bigger and lean back in my chair. I still read texts from Gutenberg.org on my old Newton. I actually prefer it to a paper book. I have control of the typeface and text size, and I don’t have to fight the pages trying to close. That and I move fairly often so the thought of not packing boxes of books in and out of storage sounds like a God send. A kindle is on my to buy list, but a new computer is higher on that list
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This post pretty much covers my thoughts on a Kindle. I absolutely love the feel of a book in my hands, the piles of books scattered around the apartment where my fiance has tried to stick ‘em, and the ability to randomly pick one up and sit down with a smile as I reread my favourite passages (and usually end up finishing it!).
I think I’d probably get an e-reader one day, but it’s not a huge priority for me.
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I’ve tried the Kindle. I’ll stick with books for now.
One, I love the feel of a book in my hands. Two, I like being able to flip back and forth. Three, the price of e-books is still too high for many of them. If I can buy a paperback for 8 bucks new (and with all our great secondhand bookstores, usually half that used), why would I spend 10-20 on an e-book? Fourth, I hate the idea that if something happens to my amazon account or anything like that I’ll no longer have access to any of the books I’ve purchased. Fifth, DRM. I like to loan books that I love to friends, it’s one of the ways I spread the love (for example, I read Karen Miller’s Kingmaker/Kingbreaker duology, loaned them to a friend and now most of the people I know own copies of those and others of her books. It’s how I spread the fandom). Hard to loan someone a Kindle.
So until those issues get addressed… no e-reader for me…
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I’m not opposed to e-books. I even own half a dozen, but I read them on my computer or my Motorola Moto Q9c phone. They’re convenient when I’m stuck somewhere, (doc’s office) or traveling, (I already have my computer with me) but it’s not a high priority for me. I’m very tactile and I love the feel of a book, something ereaders and other electronic devices will never be able to emulate.
That said, if I were to buy an ereader (which isn’t high on my financial list right now) it would probably be a Sony or one of the newer models. My understanding is, if you have a Kindle, you can only download Kindle books and can only buy them from Amazon. Like Izanobu above, if something ever happened and my Amazon account was no longer available to me, I’d be pretty angry that I couldn’t redownload my books in case my Kindle crashed. And I don’t want to be locked in to one bookstore. I want to buy from whomever. And then there’s the price difference in ebooks and paperbacks.
Sorry, didn’t mean to go on so.
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I have a first generation Sony e-reader.
It’s just a book, no search feature or magazine subscriptions. I mainly use it for vacations because I am a very fast reader and carrying 10-15 books for each week is too much weight. The e-ink is much easier to read on than a back-lighted screen.
I get a lot of books from the Baen free library and also from Webscriptions. Because the are no printing or wherehousing and minimal distribution costs with e-books I won’t pay more than paperback prices. I wish my e-book reader did a better job with PDF files as there is a lot of free content available in this format
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I read somewhere the other day that the largest age group buying Kindles are 50 plus. This may say something about the longevity of it. Where I think it is going to happen is on the smartphone. All those new apps for the iphone, including Kindle. The young readers and a much larger percentage of the population have these or will have them in the next year or two. I for one, am not sure I would ever like reading on a small screen. I’m not out and about enough for it to make a difference whether I can read on the go or not. I like propping up on the pillows in bed or in a comfy chair. But you can bet as a writer, I’m going to do my damnedest to take advantage of the fact that people are going to be reading on their phones in the near future.
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I want an ereader. I’ve researched a few but still haven’t made the big leap. I want one to buy and read research books and to be able to take a ton of books with me on holiday, on the plane, car, whatnot, adn be able to download my own work and read it and makes notes on it.
Besides I am running out of room in my house to put the books.
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Maybe a new format for music (like MP3 and iPod) were easier to accept because popular music formats have changed many ties over. From Albums to 8Tracks, to cassette tapes, then CD’s then MP3 and the iPod. People have been through changes like that before. But books… well, books have been on paper forever. The change will be slow, and doubtfully ever full. I mean, who doesn’t have an album stashed away somewhere?
That said….Despite the fact that I’ve written several books for ePublishers, I haven;t gotten an eReader yet. Not sure when I will either. I do read eBooks, but I have a laptop and I’m cool with reading on that.
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I got a Sony Reader as a Christmas Gift. And I’ve found there’s kind of a switch-over curve for me. When I want a new book, I don’t immediately think to go to the Sony e-Store and buy it there, I think to head over to Borders or go on line to Amazon. I think you have to adopt a new mind set. It’s like how I used to watch the news to get the weather or pull out the phone book to look up a phone number, but now I wouldn’t dream of doing that – I log on to the computer for all my informational needs. But that transition took me a while.
What the Reader is awesome for is immediate gratification. On three different occasion, the release-date of a title I was avidly looking forward to came and I was able to immediately get my book via the e-store without any trips to bookstores hoping they had it out on the shelves or waiting to see if Amazon would deliver it on time.
Too, I can’t afford to shell out hardback book prices when a favorite author “trades up”, and this way I can still get new releases for closer to the price of a mass market pb. I do like the fact that I can “toss” by reader into my purse and know that I have a virtual library at my fingertips for when I’m standing in line or waiting to pick up a kid.