On Books
tbray.org
tbray.org
As it stands If i know a book is just for me and/or my wife, I'll pick it up on the Kindle, otherwise it's the dead tree route.
I really hope that one of the major ebook makers will at least add the ability to 'gift' books to others, but I think it's unlikely. They have little to gain and I'm sure publishers would put up a hell of a fight. The best we're likely to get is the nook's crippled lending function, or something similar that publishers have the option of disabling, and thus do so for every title (much the same way as most books now have the Kindle's text to speech feature disabled).
On the whole the tradeoffs lean to ebooks for me, and this will be even more the case if the price of the digital versions come down a bit more.
1) Moving is a pain in the ass, to put it lightly. No, excuse me: to put it heavily. Very, very heavily. Especially cross country, though I've acquired a lot of books since starting grad school.
2) Shelving is expensive.
3) At scale the right book can become harder to find. The other day I spent 15 minutes looking for Tom Perrotta's Election because it wasn't quite where I thought it was.
4) Most of us don't have infinite room and therefore eventually run out of space.
5) Searching is still pretty nice.
That being said, why do I still read paper?
1) The note-taking function on the Kindle sucks ass, and I compulsively fill margins.
2) Page turning is still too slow.
3) I actually flip back and forth between pages quite a bit.
4) I'm not convinced that DRM isn't going to bite me in the ass 1 to 20 years from now.
5) Anachronistic attachment to paper.
6) I'm a grad student, and the citation / edition situation hasn't been sorted out for the Kindle. This is very important when writing academic papers.
Note that I'm not making some kind of moral argument about whether electronic reading is good, bad, or indifferent. To me, it just is. I foresee eventually moving chiefly to electronic reading, but I'm not sure when or how that shift will happen. I'm also not interested in the iPad because I spend enough time staring at LCDs as it is.
This is so true. Or if it's not expensive, it's not strong enough. I have a wall of Ikea shelving, and have to stabilize it using old Oracle books (our floors aren't totally flat, so I use the books to adjust the lean angle against the wall). I guess that proves Oracle is good for something though.
2) Page turning is still too slow.
This is a big problem. I have a Kobo, and the slow startup time and page turning time are the biggest issues.
> That is so true.
It is, but it's missing an even bigger cost. Walls are expensive. Housing space is expensive. Space for all our books has been a major consideration every time we've moved house. Crudely, I estimate $1-2/book for good shelving and $5-10/book for the space to put the shelves in, even taking into account the fact that the rooms whose walls you fill with books will have other uses too.
Of course it depends where you live. I'm in a part of the UK where housing costs are heinous. In San Francisco or New York it would be even worse. In, say, North Dakota, I expect it's a different matter.
Moving is a pain in the ass
It's worse than that, at some point the physical books actually affect your willingness to move - which is just wrong, books are mean to be empowering not restrictive.
Of your six down sides, at least four of them (1, 2, 3 and 6) are technological issues that I can only believe will be solved soon - it's kinda like calling a circa 1995 PDA "clunky". Sure it was, but one day the iPhone came along.
As to 4 (DRM) - I understand and espouse all the arguments, but I can't help looking at my attitude to music. 10 years ago I bought music and DRM issues really vexed me. Now I subscribe to Pandora and.... I just can't quite care as much. It's not that I don't have the same issues with DRM as I did, it's just that in a subscription model they don't get in your way. I look at Netflix and Spotify and wonder how long before the same service exists for books (yes I know it's called "a library", you know what I mean).
Can't help you with 5 - it turned out not to be a problem for me.
Disclaimer: happy e-book convert (I have a nook)
As for the technology, I wrote this bit with the tech issues in mind: "Note that I'm not making some kind of moral argument about whether electronic reading is good, bad, or indifferent. To me, it just is. I foresee eventually moving chiefly to electronic reading, but I'm not sure when or how that shift will happen."
It's worse than that, at some point the physical books actually affect your willingness to move - which is just wrong, books are mean to be empowering not restrictive.
Very true.
Well, yes, I can really only hold one book and give it my eyeballs at any given moment, but I;m usually working my through several books over any given time span.
Most of my serious reading is happening in the bathroom, and I have five different books in there. Oh, and I usually my G1 with me as well (with assorted PDFs on board).
Having a choice of what to read at any given moment is a Good Thing. If nothing else, having a Kindle might save some trouble in deciding what books to pack for a trip.
Other advantages to eBooks that I found: I want to read a book. I don't need to go to the store or wait for it to be delivered - it's there right now; I want to find a particular passage but I cannot remember the book - I can search through the entire library in the time it would normally take me to search a single book; It's dark - not a problem with an iPad.
The drawbacks are obvious, but the advantages are not until you give it a try with a portable device. I bought an iPad, but I'm thinking of buying a cheap Kindle as well to take on camping trips - despite never using eBooks before three months ago. To a certain extent, one can't persuade you that it's a good idea; you really must just try it.
Also, what DRM people should understand: if I can not give away or sell the product, it is only worth half. In former times, I could assume that I could sell the book/game/CD after growing tired for it, recouping about 50% of the costs.
Speaking as someone who's moved more times that he'd like to count, I enjoy getting a whole lot less--less weight, fewer boxes, less room taken up in my home. My Kindle's lighter than a thick magazine and takes up way less room in my bag. When you compare it to a hardcover (especially a fantasy hardcover) the difference is amazing. Try reading a Wheel of Time book one-handed for an entire afternoon in paperback or hardcover. Then try flipping the pages one handed, too.
For me it's a question of convenience, and I'll take my convenience over that of my friends in this case. If they don't trust my recommendation enough to track a book down in a library (or download the free sample from Amazon, if they've got a Kindle), then I really don't care what they're reading.
I have a Kobo Reader, and it's pretty good. The DRM is a hassle, so here's my workflow for buying a new ebook (and yes, the fact I have workflow to buy a new ebook sucks, and says a lot about where my time goes):
Prerequisite:
You'll need Adobe-eBook-DRM-shit-whtaever it is called installed before you begin. Otherwise you'll download the book and won't be able to use it. OTOH, it does run on Linux, so that's something.
1) Find the book you like. I find http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/ because they have a good range and good prices on ePub books, and give you 3 copies
2) Download the book.
3) Using the following search, find the python scripts to remove the DRM: http://www.google.com/search?q=python+remove+epub+drm+script
4) Use http://calibre-ebook.com/ or the KoboBulkFixer program to remove fixed font sizes from any styles (the Kobo won't scale those, so everything appears in about 8pt writing)
5) Put my eBook in dropbox so I don't have to do this again
6) Copy the eBook to my Kobo.
I should note that I need to remove DRM to fix the font problem.
Like I said, this sucks. But OTOH, ebooks are good.
I use linux at home and so cannot use Adobe Digital Editions or other DRM system. So, I have to rely on freely available, DRM-free files that I find on the Internet. Legally, many classics are available; illegally, many more. The upside to this is that not being encumbered by DRM, I'm free to share my collection. The downside is that it's been all too easy for me to become a criminal in the eyes of the law.
In the short term, the best solution seems to make the official process more convenient than pirating (Amazon does this quite well). In the long term, the best solution will probably be to combine the convenience with a subscription model. Lending books becomes a non-issue if all your friends have a $10/month subscription to Amazon's entire catalogue.
I can lend one to a friend. They don't need a $300 compatible reader. I can lend it to as many friends as I want. I can leave it on a park bench and share it with a complete stranger.
I own the copy. I can sell it. Burn it. Press leaves in it. I can scribble in the margins. Fold the corners. Donate it to a library.
I can have two pages open at once. I can flip to indexes, important tables, and chapters without fiddling with buttons and menus. I don't have to recharge my book or replace batteries. If I drop it or get it wet, it's probably going to be fine. I know that in 50 years I'll be able to read the thing.
I've come to be of the opinion that unless I own a physical product, I don't own anything. Digital goods are meaningless and ephemeral. They come with digital locks and stupid restrictions that I don't really care to bother with. I don't want to pay a subscription or find some hack to work-around their limitations. Books are cheap and work just fine. And I get to own them.
It is not the best solution though.