Amazon have today unveiled their plans for their long-running (in e-book terms) Kindle e-book reader in the US and UK, in the wake of the unanticipated success of Apple’s iBookstore on the iPad, released two months previous.
Having worked with books for many years, and more recently with e-book readers, I understand the argument on both sides; as I am sure you do as well.
You look over at your book collection, with warmth and admiration being felt throughout your body.
These books are beautiful things, items which have bought you so many hours of joy in the past, and promise you so many hours of joy in the future. They deserve to be stood up and proud, as the famous quote by Henry Ward Beecher goes -
Books are not made for furniture, but there is nothing else that so beautifully furnishes a room.
But all that said and done, they don’t half take up a lot of space. And here lies our dilemma.
Amazon’s offering today is a fairly tempting one.
Kindle’s starting at £111 for the simple Wi-Fi version, or £152 for the Wi-Fi and 3G version.
Despite at first glance it looking like us Brits are being sold short compared to our American counterparts (their Kindle’s are going for $139 and $189 respectively), the dollar prices do not include taxes or shipping – both of which are included in the UK price. All inclusive, the difference in price is tiny, if there is one at all.
But all that information is irrelevant before you have the stone-cold facts.
It’s easy to dismiss e-readers from the off, but we all know this could easily require us to play catch-up further along the line.
Not that this is by any means a bad thing – my nan has never used the internet (unless you count visiting my mum to ask her to look something up for her every now and then) and she’s perfectly content.
Of course she is! Why wouldn’t she be? We can all be content without an electronic reading device… but if the idea of one intrigues you, even slightly, read on…
5 Facts about E-Readers and E-Books
E-Ink
E-Ink is the way to go.
Devices currently using the e-ink format include the Kindle, Sony Readers and the iRiver, to name but a few. The most important point here is that the iPad does NOT use e-ink.
I don’t own one myself, and I’m sure the iPad is fantastic for it’s primary function of lightweight internet surfing, but the iBookstore feature is only a small part of the entire package. It is not the products intended purpose.
I’ve compared the e-ink quality of an older generation Kindle (belonging to a European Queen, no less), a few types of Sony Readers and the iRiver, and I can honestly say I see no difference in the quality of the non-touch-screen versions.
The touch-screen Sony Reader is noticeably duller.
Reading from an e-reader using e-ink is highly comparable to reading from a regular book. However, reading from an iPad is comparable to reading from a computer screen for hours at a time, or to put it another way – reading the bottom of a light bulb.
Pricing
Do not be put off by the price of e-books.
The most common complaint I hear from people not sure whether to buy an e-reader or not is that the price of an e-book is so similar to the price of a physical copy.
The truth is, the actual printing, binding, and distribution of a book equates to a fraction of the amount it costs to ‘create’ the book in the first place. The same applies to music, which is why MP3 downloads aren’t significantly cheaper than buying the physical CD.
Remember that you are paying for the hard work and effort put into making the authors work come alive, not the physical act of getting this work to you.
Tens of Thousands of Free E-Books
Across the internet there are tens of thousands of free out of copyright (pre-1923) books available for you to download and read right away.
Take your pick from Open Library, Project Gutenberg or Many Books, all websites offering you the ability to download out of copyright books, for free, in a large variety of formats, including formats specific to the Kindle, Sony Readers, and many others that can be read across a large variety of available e-readers.
The majority of books can also be saved as PDF, and other PC/Mac compatible files, meaning you can read them straight from your computer – if your eyes can take it.
Lack of Sync
You cannot currently download electronic versions of books you already physically own onto any e-reader on the market.
Think about it: why did the iPod take off so incredibly, rejuvenating Apple’s hopes and dreams? Well, a variety of reasons – but a large factor in the success of the iPod was the ability to upload your entire music collection onto it the day it graced your hands.
Many people who know far greater about this industry than I do have given their opinions on how the e-book market should address this issue. Some say when you buy a physical book in a store it should come with a code for you to download the e-book version for free, other say you should have access to as many books as you can handle, for a monthly fee.
My suggestion goes straight to Amazon. As the cheapest bookseller across the world, for both physical and electronic books, I believe Amazon would do themselves a huge favour by offering free Kindle compatible versions of books customers have bought physically though them throughout their time as an Amazon customer. Wouldn’t that be nice?
I’ve bought tonnes of books from Amazon. If they were to make me this offer, I would buy a Kindle in the blink of an eye.
Listen up, Jeff Bezos!
Durability
Planning to go away this summer? Maybe you’re on holiday as you read this.
Everybody loves to read on the beach, the girl on the Amazon homepage sure agrees with me. Unlike the girl on the Amazon homepage, I’m not sure how eager I would be to take my Kindle, or e-reader of any other kind onto a beach.
Sand between the pages of your book? No matter. Sand between the screen on your e-reader, scratching up it’s insides while doing something equally unattractive to it’s outside? Not so good. Oh well, I suppose I could just take a bath instead and relax with my favourite e-book… oh. Not sure if I’d take that risk either.
I’m not suggesting these are huge negatives to buying an e-reader, just be cautious. You wouldn’t take your laptop onto the beach (unless you were damn careful), equally maybe the e-reader should stay at home that day to make way for it’s older, pulpier brother.
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There you have it. E-Books and E-Readers have a long way to go before they become commercially accepted, but this time is certainly coming, and Amazon’s announcement today will be seen as an acceleration point in this process.
Please leave any comments below, I’d be interested to hear how useful you found this information, whether you learnt anything new from it and most importantly whether you believe you’ll be making the e-reader leap any time soon.
If you already own an e-reader, how have you been finding the experience? Would you convert back to just reading physical books?
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{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Unless someone physically wrestles my tree-books away from me or they stop making them all together I will NEVER convert to E-Books. Absolutely nothing can beat curling up with a proper book, the feel of the pages, the smell of the ink and the satisfying flip of each page. For me, reading is my one simple pleasure in life so why would I want it encroached upon by technology? Tree-books ’til I die! Xxx
Not even slightly curious? I’ll cover one in newspaper if you like, and make a soft flicking noise when you ‘turn a page’.
I’m in two minds about e-book readers. I’ve played about with one of the sony readers and really disliked it – the process of changing pages was horrible (which sounds really shallow, but it really put me off). I can certainly understand the appeal however – I will be doing a fair bit of travelling for work in the future and to have all 50+ text books as well as some light-weight casual reading on me in a single container would be great. I certainly agree with you when it comes to offering downloads of previously brought books on somewhere like amazon – I certainly will not be getting one until such a time. Anyways, I still love my tree-books…
I agree with you re the Sony Readers. They’re very chunky, overcomplicated and just unattractive to look at.
I’m very tempted by the Kindle however. It’s everything the Sony is not in terms of design, and the thousands of out of copyright books and PDF reader is good enough in itself.
I’m going to be watching this one closely. Will be interesting to see how many people order the new Kindle.
I was one of those who held off buying an eReader as I thought I would miss turning a “real” page. But I thought to myself, why stop doing one just because I’ve bought the other?
Two months on from my purchase and I’m just as in love with my Kindle as I still am with physical books. Just because I have an eBook reader I don’t stop picking up paperbacks from the charity shop and I still regularly go to the library.
Have your cake and eat it, I say!
Totally agree with you Stephen. I also bought a Kindle in the end (see the first couple of paragraphs in this post http://benjaminspall.com/2010/10/the-blurring-lines-between-old-and-new-how-technology-is-influencing-our-lives-more-than-ever-before/) and love it, especially for paperbacks and reading blogs over wi-fi.
As you say it’s not a case of choosing one or the other. I bought a huge physical reference book the other day. I can’t even begin to imagine how difficult it would be to navigate on a Kindle!
Ha, MR Proof Reader,
There’s a typo in this blog.
…”e in price is tiny, if their is one at all.”
Welcome.
Unlike!
I personally find that tree-books are better, easier to see the font, pictures if there are any and to be able to acutally HAVE the book! Only being 14 here is a bit of a disadvantage here, adults will probably think kids these days will perfer the electronic way of reading.Many people i know that are younger or older than me acutally prefer books to e-reader. Mind i do love electronics, like the ipad and the kindle isn’t bad, but i tree-books are a large amount better!