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Colin Leslie (Blackabyss)
Username: Blackabyss

Registered: 02-2010
Posted From: 86.142.200.16
Posted on Monday, April 05, 2010 - 05:25 pm:   

Sure this has been discussed before but I feel the need to vent my fury somewhere again.

Just recieved a nice email from waterstones telling me that Stephen King's back catalogue is available on ebook. Quick glance shows e.g. "It" at £6.49. An even quicker glance at Amazon shows the physical book for £5.49. So what the F is going on? Are publishers desperate to drive the market under in the same way as music companies have done?

Are authors making anything extra out of ebooks, if not who is? Can someone explain the point of paying more money for no physical product.

Strikes me we are on the verge of something big with ebooks (ipad etc) so shouldn't publishers be more creative and less greedy, particularly with back catalogue.

Is it just me or is this money for old rope without the benefit of any old rope being delivered?
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Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch)
Username: Mark_lynch

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.171.129.74
Posted on Monday, April 05, 2010 - 06:20 pm:   

Yep, it's indeed a bit of a Michael take, isn't it? Imagine if someone had said you could buy the MP3 download of Elvis's Greatest Hits for £15 or the CD for a tenner...

I think the smart marketing tool would be to release the hardcover at its £20 price, then the paperback for £8, then the e-book for £3, staggering them in six monthly breaks.
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Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker)
Username: Stephen_theaker

Registered: 12-2009
Posted From: 62.30.117.235
Posted on Monday, April 05, 2010 - 06:53 pm:   

We had a panel about ebooks at FantasyCon, and there Lee Harris (who works for Angry Robot) made the point that VAT is charged on ebooks but not paper ones. Aside from that, I expect the publishers still have to give the online bookshops (un)healthy discounts. There are also additional, new production costs and R&D to consider.

But I do think there's an element of trying to keep the prices about the same to claw back some profits. Some ebook prices are ridiculously high, especially on the Waterstone's site.

I wouldn't necessarily agree that ebooks are inherently less valuable than paper books, though. I'm more likely to read, and more likely to enjoy reading, a book on my Sony Reader, so an ebook has much more value to me than a paper book. I've got quite a few Baen books in both formats, thanks to their free online library, and the ebook wins every time.

I don't think the big moment for ebooks will be the iPad, which isn't an ideal device for reading on (it's too heavy, reflective and power-hungry), but instead it'll be when (or if) Amazon starts to sell ebooks in epub format.
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Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch)
Username: Mark_lynch

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.171.129.70
Posted on Monday, April 05, 2010 - 08:35 pm:   

Someone was telling me he'd had the argument about the worth of ebooks with a woman, who'd argued the good thing about them was she could have a hundred on her e-reader and whip the reader out in the post office queue. As he said, that's a helluva long queue...

Like music, though, the ultimate course of the electronic book will lead to free product and no money changing hands. Unlike musicians, who find alternative honest dosh out of playing live, it's tricky to see where writers will make their money, except maybe by selling other media rights.
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Chris_morris (Chris_morris)
Username: Chris_morris

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 12.165.240.116
Posted on Monday, April 05, 2010 - 08:48 pm:   

When you see the state the music industry's in, it's hard to understand why the publishing industry is so eager to follow suit.
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Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch)
Username: Mark_lynch

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.171.129.68
Posted on Monday, April 05, 2010 - 11:47 pm:   

It's scared of being left behind, individual houses worrying about being the ones who weren't on the boat and missed the opportunity. I reckon.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Thursday, April 15, 2010 - 05:55 pm:   

Someone was telling me he'd had the argument about the worth of ebooks with a woman, who'd argued the good thing about them was she could have a hundred on her e-reader and whip the reader out in the post office queue. As he said, that's a helluva long queue...


Also, you'd get mugged in the queue for an expensive electronic gizmo. It's kind of unlikely you'd get mugged for a cheap paperback.
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Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker)
Username: Stephen_theaker

Registered: 12-2009
Posted From: 62.30.117.235
Posted on Thursday, April 15, 2010 - 08:32 pm:   

I don't think that's as much of an issue with current ereaders - to an onlooker they're quite dull, grey, unsubstantial and unglamorous, and there'll usually be a dozen people around with shinier, sparklier gadgets for people to nick! I haven't had any issues with mine. (An iPad, on the other hand, would definitely fail the bus stop test.)

Going back to that woman in the queue, I bet that the ereader was thinner and easier to hold (and keep in her bag) than any paperback she could have taken. That's why ebooks are suddenly taking off, after maundering around for a decade - all of a sudden they're easier, lighter and more convenient to read than paper books, instead of heavier and more awkward.

It's true that no one needs to read a hundred books at once, but at any given point in the day you may feel like reading something different - a novel, a newspaper, a magazine, proofs or short story submissions, a children's book - or a dictionary. Reading The Collected Connoisseur on the bus a few weeks ago, I became quite irrationally irritated that I couldn't just tap on all the words I didn't know to look them up...
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Ian Alexander Martin (Iam)
Username: Iam

Registered: 10-2009
Posted From: 64.180.64.74
Posted on Friday, April 16, 2010 - 04:30 am:   

On an e-reader or using the smart-phone application, no one knows what you're reading. The days of covering the front of your Barbara Cartland novels is now OVER!
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Friday, April 16, 2010 - 12:47 pm:   

I have over 1000 books at home. This makes my house look and feel well lived in and nicely furnished. An e-reader on the shelf is going to look crap - and leave a LOT of empty shelf space.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Friday, April 16, 2010 - 12:58 pm:   

I'm with you, Weber, and got nearly as many myself...
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Friday, April 16, 2010 - 02:08 pm:   

Once you can write or edit Word documents on ereaders, I'll get one. That way I'll even be able to write when I take a shit.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Friday, April 16, 2010 - 02:15 pm:   

You can do that with pen and paper. A handwriting expert might even be able to spot the moments when ...

I don't think I want to finish that sentence.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.37.199.45
Posted on Friday, April 16, 2010 - 03:45 pm:   

"That way I'll even be able to write when I take a shit."

If you eat a tin of alphabet spaghetti you can do both in the same action.

And the end result will be better stories than anything by [that's enough – ed.]
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Friday, April 16, 2010 - 03:56 pm:   

You know if a mathematician is constipated he works it out with a pencil...
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Friday, April 16, 2010 - 03:59 pm:   

Back to the original subject, if the woman in the post office queue drops her ebook because someone knocks her arm, she probably won't be able to read anything on it again and she's just lost the cost of the reader and the hundreds of books she's loaded onto it. If she drops a paperback (which is still just as portable if not more so than the e-reader no matter what anyone says) she picks it up again, finds her place and keeps reading.
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Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker)
Username: Stephen_theaker

Registered: 12-2009
Posted From: 62.30.117.235
Posted on Friday, April 16, 2010 - 05:17 pm:   

She wouldn't lose the cost of the ebooks - they'll still be on her computer or Amazon account or Fictionwise account and she'll just load them onto her next device. And most times when you drop the reader it'll be unharmed, same as a paperback. (Post offices do tend to have carpeted floors.) You might as well say prescription swimming goggles are better than glasses because they won't break if you drop them...

As for portability, not many paperbacks are thinner than the Sony Reader, which is only 7mm thick.

Weber: "I have over 1000 books at home. This makes my house look and feel well lived in and nicely furnished. An e-reader on the shelf is going to look crap - and leave a LOT of empty shelf space."

Only a thousand? So you're just getting your collection started then..! You may feel differently when you have four times as many and there's no room to put any new ones - and it takes as long to find a book as it does to read it! The people buying ereaders are often the very keenest readers, the people who buy dozens of books a year.

Gary: "Once you can write or edit Word documents on ereaders, I'll get one. That way I'll even be able to write when I take a shit."

The iPad does that, but I really recommend the Alphasmart 3000 for snatching moments to write. Lasts for months on three AAA batteries, instant on, extremely sturdy, goes anywhere, fits in a bag, very light, and looks like crap so no one will want to nick it. You can't edit Word documents, but you can type into it and then output the text into Word. I love mine, and use it every year for NaNoWriMo.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Friday, April 16, 2010 - 05:23 pm:   

"and it takes as long to find a book as it does to read it! "

Just keep your bookshelves reasonably organised. I can find any book in my collection in a matter of minutes.

The printed page is a good bit of tech all by itself. The main thing that strikes me about these e-readers is the complete pointlessness of them. There is no way in which they improve the reading experience.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Friday, April 16, 2010 - 05:31 pm:   

"they'll still be on her computer or Amazon account or Fictionwise account and she'll just load them onto her next device. "

So lots of pissing about with cables and whatever and waiting for them to reload. As long as I don't drop a real book on a fire or into water, I can jump up and down on it, it'll still be readable. And you keep making the point that these readers don't look good while you're reading them - unlike a nicely designed book cover.

Huge problem with e-readers-

One of the reasons people claim for these gadgets is that it makes books more affordable - well that's not happening anyway - and it gets rid of the exclusivity of limited editions etc.

Surely that's just a a way of saying that it removes any aspect of a book being a thing of value...

And how do you get your favourite writer to sign your brand new first edition if it's nothing more than a word doc downloaded onto a gizmo?

Books are things to be treasured. Electronic files are not.
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Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker)
Username: Stephen_theaker

Registered: 12-2009
Posted From: 62.30.117.235
Posted on Friday, April 16, 2010 - 05:32 pm:   

That's a weird thing to say, if you don't have one and haven't used one. If they didn't improve the reading experience in some way, no one would use them.

Saying you don't want one is one thing, but saying no one else benefits from them just flies in the face of the evidence - thousands of happy users.
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Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker)
Username: Stephen_theaker

Registered: 12-2009
Posted From: 62.30.117.235
Posted on Friday, April 16, 2010 - 05:34 pm:   

We cross-posted there. To avoid confusion, my previous note was in regard to the "There is no way in which they improve the reading experience."
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Friday, April 16, 2010 - 05:39 pm:   

In what way do they improve it? Do you get more pleasure from reading off a flickery screen or having to find shadows to read in because the backlight on the screen isn't strong enough to allow you to read in daylight, or having to finish reading in the middle of a sentence because the battery fails or some sand gets on the book and shorts the circuits?

I cannot see a single advantage.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Friday, April 16, 2010 - 05:44 pm:   

The people I know who have them (which is very few people) are people who like gizmos for the sake of owning gizmos and I think it's really funny when I'm sat in bright sunlight reading my book and they're hiding in the shadows coz their great bit of tech can't be read in bright light.
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Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker)
Username: Stephen_theaker

Registered: 12-2009
Posted From: 62.30.117.235
Posted on Friday, April 16, 2010 - 05:53 pm:   

Reloading books is hardly a big deal, and even so we're only discussing it in the context of your post office with a deadly floor and the lady with the lousy grip and the jostling stranger... You're having to venture a long way into the realms of what-if to establish any kind of downside! And if the lady's grip is that flimsy, the Sony Reader does have a spot for attaching a lanyard...

Maybe the difference is that I care more about reading books rather than owning them? I was brought up on library books, so whether I have my own copy of a book has never mattered to me, unless I needed it for reference.

Getting an author to sign a book is fun, but hardly affects the reading experience. A dashed off signature is of little consequence or interest to me in comparison with the content of the actual book.

The value of a book to me is in the writing, not the paper and glue. And I've no interest at all in collecting books (or music, or comics) as investments. I'm only interested in the content.

As far as making books more affordable, they have, massively - if you look at average prices rather than any particular current book. Because everything that's more than a hundred years old is absolutely free.
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Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker)
Username: Stephen_theaker

Registered: 12-2009
Posted From: 62.30.117.235
Posted on Friday, April 16, 2010 - 06:00 pm:   

Weber: "In what way do they improve it? Do you get more pleasure from reading off a flickery screen..."

The Sony Reader, Kindle, Nook, etc don't have flickery screens. They have e-ink screens, where the ink is an actual physical object. That's why they're just as easy and pleasant to read as books.

"or having to find shadows to read in because the backlight on the screen isn't strong enough to allow you to read in daylight"

None of the e-ink readers on sale in the UK use backlights, or need them - you read by natural light... Are you thinking of PDAs or something?

"or having to finish reading in the middle of a sentence because the battery fails or some sand gets on the book and shorts the circuits? I cannot see a single advantage."

The Sony Reader's battery lasts long enough to read War and Peace... That really isn't an issue.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Friday, April 16, 2010 - 06:33 pm:   

You've still not listed one way in which an ebook is BETTER than a traditional book. I have no trouble fitting a paperback in my coat pocket so portability is not an issue. I don't need to ever recharge a traditional book - so long battery life is irrelevant in any case - this is forgetting the fact that all rechargable batteries will eventually die and not be rechargeable again in which case you'll need to go out and buy expensive batteries again to be able to read your electronic files.

the best you've said is that they are as pleasant to read as a traditional book. You're trying to convince us luddites that these things are better. In what way do they IMPROVE the reading experience?
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Friday, April 16, 2010 - 06:45 pm:   

"Only a thousand? So you're just getting your collection started then..! "

That was when I moved house about 8 years ago the last time I made any kind of count. If you look I said OVER a thousand. It's not unknown for me to buy a dozen books in a month. I can honestly say I have no idea how many books I have now. I did recently have a clearout and gave about 50 to a local charity shop - it would be difficult to make a gesture like that with a random electronic file.
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Ian Alexander Martin (Iam)
Username: Iam

Registered: 10-2009
Posted From: 64.180.64.74
Posted on Friday, April 16, 2010 - 10:48 pm:   


quote:

The value of a book to me is in the writing, not the paper and glue. And I've no interest at all in collecting books (or music, or comics) as investments. I'm only interested in the content.


I feel the same way. The book is a delivery device the same as an e-reader. Anything which starts with "but a real book has" is nothing but romantic piffle of a paper fetishist, and gets away from the real point of a book: tell you a story of some sort. To dismiss the e-book as being worthless for everyone can strike one as a bit egotistical: "it makes no sense for me, I am a right-thinking person, therefore they are of no use to any right-thinking person. QED.

As for pricing: all Atomic Fez e-books — including the lengthy collection of JLP's — are priced at a stunning £5 (or $9.99), at least 50% of their paper brothers' cost. In JLP's case, it's less than 25% of the hard-back's price.
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Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker)
Username: Stephen_theaker

Registered: 12-2009
Posted From: 62.30.117.235
Posted on Friday, April 16, 2010 - 11:59 pm:   

"You're trying to convince us luddites that these things are better."

No, just disagreeing with you when you say they are worse.

There's not much point listing the particular ways the Sony Reader's useful to me, because you'll just say none of those ways apply to you, as if that means they don't apply to anyone else. They're thin and easy to carry? Pointless - you have pockets big enough for any book! They let you store and find books more quickly? Pointless - you have well-organised shelves! They let you increase the size of text that's too small? Pointless - you have a magnifying glass! And so on...

But just to keep to the portability issue, PS Publishing are bringing out two 600pp volumes of Basil Copper's collected short stories. Would they fit in your pockets? Would you take them with you on a day trip, on a train? Or on a 15 minute bus ride into town? Or to school, to collect the children? Would you take them into the kitchen, to read while you're cooking? Or to the chip shop, to read in the queue?

Of course not, but I've carried the review pdfs around with me like that for the last few weeks on my Sony Reader. E-readers clearly have their uses, even if you personally have no use for them. For me the biggest benefit is being able to read any book at any time, rather than having to choose a book that fits the moment.
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Mark_samuels (Mark_samuels)
Username: Mark_samuels

Registered: 04-2010
Posted From: 81.129.143.153
Posted on Saturday, April 17, 2010 - 12:44 am:   

I don't want to read a book on a glorified digital calculator.

Just me.

Mark S.
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Mark_samuels (Mark_samuels)
Username: Mark_samuels

Registered: 04-2010
Posted From: 81.129.143.153
Posted on Saturday, April 17, 2010 - 12:49 am:   

A book is a book.

Text is text.

There's still a difference.

Mark S.
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Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker)
Username: Stephen_theaker

Registered: 12-2009
Posted From: 62.30.117.235
Posted on Saturday, April 17, 2010 - 01:10 am:   

I don't really want to read a book on a glorified printout, but I will if it isn't available in more convenient formats...
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.240.106
Posted on Saturday, April 17, 2010 - 05:01 am:   

Sorry, but they still sound crap to me.
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Ian Alexander Martin (Iam)
Username: Iam

Registered: 10-2009
Posted From: 64.180.64.74
Posted on Saturday, April 17, 2010 - 05:11 am:   

A scroll is a scroll.

Calligraphy is calligraphy.

There certainly was a difference at some point.
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Mark_samuels (Mark_samuels)
Username: Mark_samuels

Registered: 04-2010
Posted From: 81.129.143.153
Posted on Saturday, April 17, 2010 - 02:00 pm:   

Yes, but scroll to book was not only a development, it was a marked improvement.

The book marks the perfection of the delivery vehicle for text. The basic design can't be improved upon.

Why am I reminded of the advocates of plastic pitches in football? They had a fetish of arguing in terms of "resistance to progress is futile: this is the future". But they were wrong too.

Mark S.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.110.190.163
Posted on Saturday, April 17, 2010 - 04:18 pm:   

The nice thing about a book is that every time I open it, the text is there. It doesn't disappear every year or so and require me to pay over a thousand pounds to make it come back. Nor will I have to spend ages phoning an unhelpful technical support engineer on a premium rate line to find out what has happened to it. Once you've bought a book you have it and only a fire or flood can destroy it. With any computer system or accessory you will have to replace it sooner rather than later, at great cost, so any 'book' you experience via that medium is one you will effectively have to buy many times over. If anyone tried to sell me a book that would soon become unusable and would need 'upgrading' on a regular and frequent basis, at huge cost, I would tell them where to stick it.
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Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker)
Username: Stephen_theaker

Registered: 12-2009
Posted From: 62.30.117.235
Posted on Saturday, April 17, 2010 - 04:30 pm:   

Mark, my Penguin edition of Clarissa weighs 1.24kg, and it's 6.5cm thick. It's the size of a delivery vehicle, but hardly a perfect one!

My Gutenberg edition of Clarissa, on the other hand, is on a Sony Reader that weighs 0.25kg and is only 0.7cm thick.

That's a pretty significant design improvement...

Joel, none of that matches my actual experience of using ebooks. All the ebooks I bought and created ten years ago for my Rocket eBook work now on my Sony Reader.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.110.190.163
Posted on Saturday, April 17, 2010 - 04:49 pm:   

But how many updates of your e-reading system have you had to pay for? How many times has it gone dead on you? How many calls have you made to overseas call centres to get it working again? If the answer is 'none' to all of those, I'm impressed. I spend more money on simply maintaining my computer system each year than I spend on books. And I buy a lot of books.

Virtually everyone I know has lost their entire hard drive to a virus something like five to ten times. No-one I know has lost their library to a print-eating virus that wipes the pages. Not even once.

I pay nothing to protect my books except the cost of locking the front door. The lock on the front door doesn't need a weekly, monthly or even annual upgrade.
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Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker)
Username: Stephen_theaker

Registered: 12-2009
Posted From: 62.30.117.235
Posted on Saturday, April 17, 2010 - 05:00 pm:   

No, I've never had to do any of those things! Most ebook purchases are stored online, anyway, so if my house burned down I'd just log in and download them again on someone else's computer, good as new. My thousands of paper books, on the other hand, would be gone for good.

I have however lost paper books to water damage, mouse nibbles (The Encyclopedia of Fantasy, unfortunately, so I couldn't afford to replace it), and getting knocked into the recycling bin! You've probably already seen this picture of a library that got it in the neck from water... http://stevelawson.name/seealso/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/fl2lg.jpg
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.29.110.205
Posted on Saturday, April 17, 2010 - 05:39 pm:   

Well, I suppose the ultimate place we store books is in our heads. It's how it gets in there which seems up for debate. But really, whichever way that is, the only thing that destroy a good story is not reading it (in any format).

Horses for courses. Some folk like paper, others LCD. Better both than the alternative: neither.
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Tom_alaerts (Tom_alaerts)
Username: Tom_alaerts

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 87.65.65.101
Posted on Sunday, April 18, 2010 - 10:24 am:   

I must say that an iPad seems pretty attractive to me. I have too many books, some even in boxes for crying out loud, so the idea to simplify my life by keeping e-versions is very attractive.
I do expect that you can get used to reading on a e-reader device.

I see one big disadvantage of e-books: you cannot lend them anymore with all the copy protection. For me it's part of the fun, being able to easily share good books with friends. Of course the writers here would rather have that their books are only bought, not borrowed for free.
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Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker)
Username: Stephen_theaker

Registered: 12-2009
Posted From: 62.30.117.235
Posted on Sunday, April 18, 2010 - 10:53 am:   

My guess is that the iPad is a bit too big for extensive reading. Plus, Weber's criticisms above, which didn't apply to the Sony Reader or Kindle, do apply to the iPad - it does have a reflective screen, it does have a short battery life, it isn't ideal for reading outside, people would nick it from you at a bus stop, and you wouldn't want to drop it... But I will be getting one. I don't have a mobile phone or netbook or laptop or even an proper iPod, so it'll fill all those gaps for me. And it'll be useful for reading large format pdfs and proofs.

Lending ebooks isn't out of the question. The Nook for example lets you can lend books to friends. The book appears on their device for a set period, and then returns automatically to your device. With books bought for the Sony, I can add (I think) four or five devices to my account. So when I buy a new book, I can put it on my reader and on my wife's. Many Fictionwise books (e.g. Black Static and Interzone) don't have any copy protection, and you could just lend them to your friends, but you aren't supposed to.
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Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker)
Username: Stephen_theaker

Registered: 12-2009
Posted From: 62.30.117.235
Posted on Sunday, April 18, 2010 - 11:07 am:   

Looking it up, the iPad's weight, for the wi-fi version, is 0.68kg, about the same as PostScripts #15 (a 386pp hardback). That's lighter than I expected, given its size.
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Mark_samuels (Mark_samuels)
Username: Mark_samuels

Registered: 04-2010
Posted From: 81.129.143.153
Posted on Sunday, April 18, 2010 - 01:27 pm:   

I went to Waterstones on Friday in search of the new Dennis Wheatley biography. Shocked to discover it was a £25 hardback and weighs a ton.

But would I prefer to read it as a download on some new-fangled machine? No contest. The pleasure comes from the good old printed page. There's also the added bonus that it looks good on the shelf sitting alongside those 70s Arrow DW paperbacks.

Of course, there may be those who wouldn't like to read it at all. Ahem. Oh well.

Nevertheless: stocking tops, lashings of Imperial Tokay and Black Magic!

Mark S.
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Tom_alaerts (Tom_alaerts)
Username: Tom_alaerts

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 87.65.65.101
Posted on Sunday, April 18, 2010 - 02:55 pm:   

> But would I prefer to read it as a download on some new-fangled machine? No contest. The pleasure comes from the good old printed page. There's also the added bonus that it looks good on the shelf sitting alongside those 70s Arrow DW paperbacks.

Hi Mark, of course books feel better, and look better on the shelf. But on the other hand a lifestyle with a minimum of physical objects cluttering my home is becoming more and more appealing to you. And I'd still keep a number of cherished physical books, like the Tartarus ones for example.
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Tom_alaerts (Tom_alaerts)
Username: Tom_alaerts

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 87.65.65.101
Posted on Sunday, April 18, 2010 - 02:55 pm:   

that should have been "appealing to me" of course.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.110.176.223
Posted on Sunday, April 18, 2010 - 04:29 pm:   

"Of course, there may be those who wouldn't like to read it at all."

Even so, I wouldn't like to read it on a computer even more than I wouldn't like to read it as a book.
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Ian Alexander Martin (Iam)
Username: Iam

Registered: 10-2009
Posted From: 64.180.64.74
Posted on Sunday, April 18, 2010 - 09:37 pm:   


quote:

I see one big disadvantage of e-books: you cannot lend them anymore with all the copy protection. For me it's part of the fun, being able to easily share good books with friends. Of course the writers here would rather have that their books are only bought, not borrowed for free.



quote:

Many Fictionwise books (e.g. Black Static and Interzone) don't have any copy protection, and you could just lend them to your friends, but you aren't supposed to.



There are a great number of publishers who use DRM on their files, but after the astonishing failure of the Windows-based music and video "Plays for Sure®" system on devices to accept valid certificates from earlier models, it's astounding to me why the system is used by anyone. It's been vastly improved, but surely has a short life ahead of it.

Any e-book purchased through Atomic Fez's site is DRM-FREE, and you can copy it off to friends and family to your heart's content.

…although you're keeping the authors from enjoying the wonder of having a roof over their head, food to eat, clothes to wear, etc.

This is, obviously, only of interest to people who actually wish to read e-books in the first place. I entirely understand that not everyone wishes to, or cannot do so owing to lack of smartphone/iPad/etc. Paper books are also available... for at least twice the price (plus posting and packing), to those who can afford the luxury of paperback or hard-bound items of literature.

[cough]
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Monday, April 19, 2010 - 12:10 pm:   

It's a very short leap from stating that books are not a thing of value to saying that literature is not a thing of value. An electronic file is not a book and never will be.
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Tom_alaerts (Tom_alaerts)
Username: Tom_alaerts

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.78.35.185
Posted on Monday, April 19, 2010 - 01:07 pm:   

> It's a very short leap from stating that books are not a thing of value to saying that literature is not a thing of value. An electronic file is not a book and never will be.

that would in my opinion be a flawed "slippery slope"-like argument.
The book, or a file is just a carrier. You could even argue that a modern e-reader could be easier on the eye and give more reading pleasure than a yellowed thick mass market paperback in minuscule print with minimal margins.
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Tom_alaerts (Tom_alaerts)
Username: Tom_alaerts

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.78.35.185
Posted on Monday, April 19, 2010 - 01:09 pm:   

This being said, despite my wish to buy less books as I can barely stow them away - until I can buy the bew ones I want read in an e-format, I just ordered the Stephen Volk novella from Gray Friar... in a deliciously lovely production, jacketed hardcover an all :-)
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Hubert (Hubert)
Username: Hubert

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 78.22.230.67
Posted on Monday, April 19, 2010 - 01:53 pm:   

I've said this on at least one other thread: e-books deemed politically/morally/etc. incorrect (for whatever reason) can be tampered with, and quite easily too, by just anybody, while a solid book remains the way it was originally conceived. You can burn some of the copies, but you'll never find all of them.
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Mark_samuels (Mark_samuels)
Username: Mark_samuels

Registered: 04-2010
Posted From: 81.129.143.153
Posted on Monday, April 19, 2010 - 02:37 pm:   

Real book= long-term loving relationship. Requires commitment. Sense of satisfaction.

E-book= one-night stand. Quick fix. Sense of emptiness.



Mark S.
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Tom_alaerts (Tom_alaerts)
Username: Tom_alaerts

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.78.35.185
Posted on Monday, April 19, 2010 - 02:39 pm:   

Hubert, actually the creator could sign the book electronically with algorithms and key lengths that take 1000 years of the most powerful computer to crack, hence tampering would be immediately visibly. And similar to physical books, even more so you will never find all electronic copies.

As I wrote above, my biggest issue is that you can't easily share many of them (depending on the publisher) with friends. I hooked several people on Haruki Murakami by lending them "A Wild Sheep Chase", which I couldn't have done with a DRM'ed version.
There is also the nagging doubt that DRM can make your files obsolete when changing e-reader etc. Similar issues actually happened when one of the first internet music download stores stopped.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Monday, April 19, 2010 - 02:57 pm:   

In 10 years, when USB ports are no longer standard issue on your PC, you'll have to change your e-reader if you want to be able to load anything onto it. I'll still be able to pick up my books and read them, regardless of the cables needed for a pc.

I'm reminded of the general motors vs Microsoft debate. If car technology had moved at the speed of computer technology, you'd have to change your car every time they repaint the stripes on the road...
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Mick Curtis (Mick)
Username: Mick

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.182.229.104
Posted on Monday, April 19, 2010 - 03:12 pm:   

In 10 years, when USB ports are no longer standard issue on your PC, you'll have to change your e-reader if you want to be able to load anything onto it.

Nah, everything'll be wireless then.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Monday, April 19, 2010 - 03:18 pm:   

Surely what's happening in the skies above us this week proves how foolish we are to put blind trust in fallible technology rather than what we can hold in our own two hands.

I am with Weber 100% in every practical problem with e-readers he has outlined. They may work for a while but will inevitably, and very quickly, become outmoded and impossible to access unlike a solid, transportable, keepable, dog-eared, creased, tattered, tea-stained, scribbled over, good old-fashioned paperback!

The word "codology" springs to mind.
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Hubert (Hubert)
Username: Hubert

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 78.22.230.67
Posted on Monday, April 19, 2010 - 03:22 pm:   

Hubert, actually the creator could sign the book electronically with algorithms and key lengths that take 1000 years of the most powerful computer to crack

Possibly, Tom, but this is not the case with the few texts I have looked up - in casu: Hodgson's Glen Carrig and House on the Borderland. If I wanted to change, say, Lolita's age, I could revise Nabokov's text and put it forward as the genuine article. A crass example, but there you are.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Monday, April 19, 2010 - 04:13 pm:   

Nah, everything'll be wireless then.

Except for expensive e-reader with USB ports which you'll have to upgrade to a wireless one. And then to one that works on a different wireless frequency a few years later...
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Tom_alaerts (Tom_alaerts)
Username: Tom_alaerts

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.78.35.185
Posted on Monday, April 19, 2010 - 04:35 pm:   

The one crucial step would be the creation of an universal ebook format. The ipad uses the epub standard (which seems relatively widely adopted), then there are .lit files, I don't know what Amazon uses, and there is that OeB initiative. When the industry agrees upon one interoperable standard things will become a lot smoother. Currently it's a bit like the war a few years ago between blu-ray and hd-dvd which has hampered the speed of adoption.
I see this streamlining happen within a few years. Think about it, everybody uses PDF files as an universal document exchange format. I see a winning ebook standard emerging as well.

Possibly, Tom, but this is not the case with the few texts I have looked up - in casu: Hodgson's Glen Carrig and House on the Borderland. If I wanted to change, say, Lolita's age, I could revise Nabokov's text and put it forward as the genuine article. A crass example, but there you are.

Yes you could do that with a text documeent floating around on internet, but cryptography could permit a publisher or writer to distribute and authorative version of a text where the cryptography can guarantee integrity as everybody could verify the signature (let's not go into the tech details here).
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.37.199.45
Posted on Monday, April 19, 2010 - 07:35 pm:   

Weber, we'll be able to afford all those regular, costly hardware and software updates that enable us to go on reading... because there won't be any books to buy. Nor will there be any professional writers. And we're not talking thirty years in the future. We're talking next year or the year after. No bookshops, no publishers, nothing but the fucking Internet.
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Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker)
Username: Stephen_theaker

Registered: 12-2009
Posted From: 62.30.117.235
Posted on Monday, April 19, 2010 - 07:54 pm:   

"An electronic file is not a book and never will be."

So the books I've read on my Sony Reader lately... Shaka II, Twisthorn Bellow, Mister Gum, Ultrameta, Gilbert and Edgar on Mars, Tales of Space and Time, Little Wizard Stories of Oz, The Smell of Telescopes, The Eyre Affair, Doctor Lerne Subgod, Crack'd Pot Trail, The Sea Hag, Retief!, Dinosaur Park, The Pirates of Zan, Gateway to Elsewhere, Darkness Darkness, Ars Memoriae, and all the others...

I haven't really read them, you'd say. But which bits would have been better on paper - the characters, the language, the plots? Or would every element of every story in fact have been precisely the same?

In any case, pretty much every new book you buy is nothing more than an electronic book that's been printed out for you. Arguing that the printout has more literary and artistic value than the original it's copied from is like saying a photograph of a painting is inherently better than the painting itself...
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Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker)
Username: Stephen_theaker

Registered: 12-2009
Posted From: 62.30.117.235
Posted on Monday, April 19, 2010 - 08:44 pm:   

"In 10 years, when USB ports are no longer standard issue on your PC, you'll have to change your e-reader if you want to be able to load anything onto it. I'll still be able to pick up my books and read them, regardless of the cables needed for a pc."

Ten years ago, I bought a Rocket eBook, and though serial ports are no longer standard issue on a PC, USB to serial adaptors cost about a tenner. That kind of thing is hardly a huge concern. There's stuff on my Sony Reader right now that I wrote on a ZX Spectrum twenty years ago...
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Ian Alexander Martin (Iam)
Username: Iam

Registered: 10-2009
Posted From: 64.180.64.74
Posted on Tuesday, April 20, 2010 - 03:46 am:   

Something that Stephen says here is the core of the pro/anti discussion: is a book defined by its content, or is it merely a way to present the content?

A novel, collection, anthology, novella, etc. can all find themselves in a book. But can they be presented on a hand-held flat-screen display, instead of with ink on a bundle of sheets of paper, and still be the same characters forming words in the same order? Clearly, yes, you get the same 'story'. Yes, the same plot and description are presented in a way your brain makes sense of them in ways to stimulate the imagination. To say 'no' would be ridiculous, because the words per se are all there, each and every one of them.

Now, here's the nub of the thing: do you value the feeling of a brick of paper in your mitt as part of the experience, or are you sufficiently pleasured by the words that whatever gives you those words matters little as long as those words get to your brain stem. this is merely a matter of personal outlook and preference.

Say what you will about formats, DRM, space-saving on shelves, dropping things in water, battery life, weight, and so on — and we all have in this thread — it really comes down to the simple matter of what you like to have in your hand. The reliability of paper (shreds, tears, burns, pulps) and the reliability of files (magnetic fields, incompatible formats, hardware failure, accidental deletion) come out in the wash in the end.

Just as someone crying about 'how insane does one have to be before you wear socks with blue triangles, when obviously green triangles are superior!' is laughable, so also is someone decrying people insisting to keep buying paper-based books.

I challenge both the sides to admit that there are validities to both formats equally, and that it's a matter of taste if you prefer or choose one over another. It seems frustrating to me that e-books have to continually argue that they have any redeeming qualities and aren't simply a whim. Why, pray tell, does the simple existence of the things have to be fought for, much like the automobile had to be? People still ride horses, people drive 2CVs, and that's both fine! Can we not all learn to get along with each other?

quote:

Ebony & ivory
Live together in perfect harmony
Side-by-side on my piano
keyboard - hold on!
Why don't we?




And Joel: Atomic Fez authors get a much bigger cut of any gross income from e-books than they do from the paper ones. To quote Chrsitopher Fowler:
"whenever the publishers or movie producers need to go back to the well for ideas, they come to the writers and ideas people. The writers own the well!"
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Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker)
Username: Stephen_theaker

Registered: 12-2009
Posted From: 62.30.117.235
Posted on Tuesday, April 20, 2010 - 09:36 am:   

Some people, including many film directors, say that seeing films in the cinema is the only way to really experience them. Whereas others would argue that watching movies on DVD is generally a better experience.

I like going to the cinema, but when I'm watching a movie at home I don't miss the talking on mobile phones, the rustling of bags of sweets, the projectionists' mistakes, and all those irritations.

In the end, you see the same film, hear the same dialogue, watch the same actors.
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Tom_alaerts (Tom_alaerts)
Username: Tom_alaerts

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.78.35.185
Posted on Tuesday, April 20, 2010 - 10:26 am:   

"An electronic file is not a book and never will be."

Mark, if I would have discovered your "The White Hands" on an e-book reader I wouldn't have dismissed it as just a file! The book / scroll / engraved clay tablet / ebook reader is just a carrier for the prose.
Of course paper books feel better in the hand (in the same way that vinyl lps feel better in the hand than cds), at least when they are better produced than mass market paperbacks with minuscule font size, but this feeling is for me independent of the literary satisfaction.
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Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank

Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 188.147.15.22
Posted on Tuesday, April 20, 2010 - 10:26 am:   

I think for all the 'arguments' for and against, it simply comes down to taste. I personally do not like the idea of reading a book, novella or short story, etc, on a screen, regardless of the quality. But that's my preference. I DO think that people who use 'technology' to read are most likely to be people who have extensive collections, and a love for books generally, after all we are in age in which reading is becoming less and less frequent (if you believe the statistics). I don't think most people would shell out money for the technology to read if they weren't already 'readers'. But I DO think Joel's concerns about the 'movement' of publishing away from a traditional format (I hate using that term) is a very real concern with regards to the incomes of professional writers.

Like I said, personally I detest the idea, for like many, nothing can replace the intimacy, the pleasure and the joy of holding a book in your hand.
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Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank

Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 188.147.15.22
Posted on Tuesday, April 20, 2010 - 10:28 am:   

The joy of exploring a second-hand book shop, where would be without such things?
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, April 20, 2010 - 11:33 am:   

Well said, Frank.

Hunting through second hand bookshops is one of the great and simple pleasures in life - like digging for buried treasure imo. I had the same love of independent record shops and CD fairs before they sadly became history. Never in my gloomiest imaginings did I think BOOKS (so much more tangible than music) would go the same way but I fear Joel is right... and another bit of magic will go out of the world.
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Hubert (Hubert)
Username: Hubert

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 78.22.230.67
Posted on Tuesday, April 20, 2010 - 11:34 am:   

No such joy in exploring a virtual secondhand bookshop!
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Mark_samuels (Mark_samuels)
Username: Mark_samuels

Registered: 04-2010
Posted From: 81.129.143.153
Posted on Tuesday, April 20, 2010 - 12:28 pm:   

I know a couple of people who collect the same author.

One is older and amassed his unrivalled collection down the years, occasionally coming across a title he'd been seeking in some out of the way bookshop. He's in his seventies now.

The other one is in his forties, and got into the same author around ten years ago. He amassed a collection of similar scope through booksearches and online auctions; and he had the money to do it rapidly.

The first one has a fund of stories about how they were obtained, the premises and bookseller involved (now likely to be long gone), where and at what cost. Each book has its own personal association and memory attached.

The second one is an empty vessel.

This is true: but it's also a parable.

Mark S.
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Hubert (Hubert)
Username: Hubert

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 78.22.230.67
Posted on Tuesday, April 20, 2010 - 12:47 pm:   

The digital version of a book facilitates research. If you wanted to know how many times the word 'Azathoth' is used in Lovecraft's texts or letters or needed a chronological breakdown of the occurences you could have a viable result in a matter of seconds. Other than that I see no advantages to speak of.
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Tom_alaerts (Tom_alaerts)
Username: Tom_alaerts

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.78.35.185
Posted on Tuesday, April 20, 2010 - 01:35 pm:   

Since the rise of internet bookstores I buy far less often -except for french & belgian comics- in brick & mortar stores.
Before that I regularly bought books at 2nd hand bookstores, but I only rarely had personal associations on how I came into possession of said books, only about the stories if they did touch me.

Most of the people on this forum should be happy about internet book stores as it was previously difficult for small press authors to reach a wide audience.

About:
But I DO think Joel's concerns about the 'movement' of publishing away from a traditional format (I hate using that term) is a very real concern with regards to the incomes of professional writers.

I don't see why the royalties would need to be any lower than for printed books? Are they lower?

About
No such joy in exploring a virtual secondhand bookshop!
I appreciate what you mean but there is something to be said for instant gratification as well :-)

About:
The digital version of a book facilitates research. If you wanted to know how many times the word 'Azathoth' is used in Lovecraft's texts or letters or needed a chronological breakdown of the occurences you could have a viable result in a matter of seconds. Other than that I see no advantages to speak of.

Well, another one is that the concept of "300 book limited editions", and possibly waiting for years on a reprint is not necessary anymore, there is no need for a digital edition ever to go out of print.
And I had mentioned the storage space already... I am at a point where I need to store a number of books in boxes, isn't that sad? The most beautiful hardcovers are proudly on display, the rest is in storage. I want to move house (for other practical reasons) and I could opt for something bigger to better house my several accumulated possessions, or I could do a drastic step to unclutter my life, having less physical objects around me, while still enjoying all the literary pleasures. The 2nd option is currently more attractive to me...
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Colin Leslie (Blackabyss)
Username: Blackabyss

Registered: 02-2010
Posted From: 86.138.83.27
Posted on Tuesday, April 20, 2010 - 05:36 pm:   

Some very relevant info in this article :-
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/04/26/100426fa_fact_auletta?currentPage= all

One huge advantage of ebooks is that you actually get the thing straight away unlike some so called publishers.....
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Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank

Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 188.147.88.72
Posted on Tuesday, April 20, 2010 - 05:38 pm:   

Tom - again, I guess it's down to taste and, in your case, what you don't need. For me having a room full of books, from floor to ceiling, wall to wall, etc, is my idea of comfort, even heaven. I need that 'clutter'. It's the only thing materialistically which I care for, sorry, excluding movies, but books most of all. I prefer to have the treasured hardcovers alongside my battered, yellowing, dog-eared paperbacks. I wouldn't like to pack anything away unless I had no choice. Like I said, taste, preference.
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Colin Leslie (Blackabyss)
Username: Blackabyss

Registered: 02-2010
Posted From: 86.138.83.27
Posted on Tuesday, April 20, 2010 - 05:42 pm:   

The world has gone mad.

"Amazon had been buying many e-books from publishers for about thirteen dollars and selling them for $9.99, taking a loss on each book in order to gain market share and encourage sales of its electronic reading device, the Kindle."

Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/04/26/100426fa_fact_auletta?currentPage= all#ixzz0leh1FJUE
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Ian Alexander Martin (Iam)
Username: Iam

Registered: 10-2009
Posted From: 64.180.64.74
Posted on Tuesday, April 20, 2010 - 06:52 pm:   

Colin, Amazon has been doing that same 'loss leader' approach to books for years, hoping to gain interest from the consumer in purchasing the over-priced CDs and DVDs to make up the amount to receive free shipping. I've given in a few times...

Tescos and Sainsbury's do it all the time with milk, bread, eggs...
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Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker)
Username: Stephen_theaker

Registered: 12-2009
Posted From: 62.30.117.235
Posted on Tuesday, April 20, 2010 - 07:04 pm:   

Frank: "The joy of exploring a second-hand book shop, where would be without such things?"

At home, reading books.

But nothing's going to change for second hand bookshops in a hurry. The head of Oxfam Books, for example, has predicted a rise in the number of book donations over the next five to ten years, and only then do they expect it to start declining.

Tom: "Well, another one is that the concept of "300 book limited editions", and possibly waiting for years on a reprint is not necessary anymore, there is no need for a digital edition ever to go out of print."

I agree that ereaders change the way you buy books. With paper books, if you see one you want, you buy them right away, more or less, because once a fairly small window closes it'll be out of print and you'll be looking at second hand copies. Ebooks don't have a finite print run, so I find that I only buy ebooks on the day I actually want to read them, instead of laying in a store like a squirrel.

On the other hand, I think speciality small presses offering limited editions will thrive, because as this thread shows there are avid bibliophiles to cater to. I wouldn't be surprised to see them offering the first hardback editions of major authors more and more often, like PS do with Ramsey and Joe Hill, and Subterranean are doing with the new Stephen King book.

Paper books, I think, will increasingly be seen and sold as collectables and gifts. Ebooks will impact hugely on bestseller type books, but I don't think they'll have a negative effect on the business of PS, or the Folio Society, or McSweeney's.
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Tom_alaerts (Tom_alaerts)
Username: Tom_alaerts

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 87.64.254.7
Posted on Tuesday, April 20, 2010 - 10:16 pm:   


On the other hand, I think speciality small presses offering limited editions will thrive, because as this thread shows there are avid bibliophiles to cater to. I wouldn't be surprised to see them offering the first hardback editions of major authors more and more often, like PS do with Ramsey and Joe Hill, and Subterranean are doing with the new Stephen King book.

Paper books, I think, will increasingly be seen and sold as collectables and gifts. Ebooks will impact hugely on bestseller type books, but I don't think they'll have a negative effect on the business of PS, or the Folio Society, or McSweeney's.


I think you are right. I don't know if the combination of e-books and luxurious editions would make commercial sense for a small press publisher. It's a kind of market segmentation, and I am curious how Nightshade (who now offer some titles in affordable e-editions) pulls it off.
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Ian Alexander Martin (Iam)
Username: Iam

Registered: 10-2009
Posted From: 64.180.64.74
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 02:12 am:   

There's at least one small press outfit in the USA offering only hardbacks and e-books; no paperbacks at all. The price they have to be sold at makes them nearly impossible for any small press to sell them without using the more profitable hardbacks subsidize the floppy books.

Plus, as if that's not enough, the bigger selling books for me right now are the pricey hardbacks. The paperbacks aren't moving as quickly, despite their cheaper RRP. Go figure!
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Mark_samuels (Mark_samuels)
Username: Mark_samuels

Registered: 04-2010
Posted From: 81.129.143.153
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 02:48 am:   

Stick your commercial considerations up the arses of the capitalists.

If they had their way we'd ALL be (we authors, that is) writing like Dan Brown.

Sorry. It's past 1am and I've come over all grumpy.

Mark S.
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Chris_morris (Chris_morris)
Username: Chris_morris

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 98.220.97.79
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 07:03 am:   

A few days ago I posted this on my blog, but it seems relevant here: A segment from an interview with Jonathan Franzen.

Q: If a writer can only get published online, does that really mean their work lacks “substance”? If you take an online story, print it out, and read it as a hard copy, does the story only then become substantive?

Franzen: Basically, yes, that is what I’m saying. Kafka is about as substantive as a writer can be, and it may be an interesting exercise to spell out the text of “Before the Law” in skywriting over Miami Beach, but I don’t think it will satisfy readers who care about Kafka’s substance. Part of the magic of literature resides in the making of the indelible mark — in our belief in its indelibility. Serious readers are able to invest even the crappiest, most beat-up paperback with a kind of magical permanence. To read Virginia Woolf on a little plastic screen that five seconds ago was filled with Ann Coulter is to undermine one of the basic conditions of literary reading. It’s to make all texts more or less equal and equally provisional. I admit that I may be particularly resistant to reading on a screen because I use a computer to write. When I see words are floating on a screen, I assume they’re still subject to revision. And it’s not that I assume they’re bad — I’m sure there’s plenty of interesting stuff getting published online. It’s more like the difference between fluorescence and a candle. Nothing you can do to a fluorescent fixture can make me want to have a romantic dinner by its light. Writing on the Web is at its best when it’s quick and spontaneous and in process. If there’s great fiction getting published online, I look forward to seeing it in print someday soon.
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Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker)
Username: Stephen_theaker

Registered: 12-2009
Posted From: 62.30.117.235
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 08:49 am:   

Tom, Nightshade don't focus exclusively on collectables - a lot of their books are regular trade paperbacks, so there isn't really a conflict there.

Chris, when those crappy paperbacks Franzen mentions first came along, people said very similar things about them...

"Paperbacks were generally regarded as a lower form of life; and, if the old order had its way, would remain forever incarcerated in the literary bargain basement." - Jeremy Lewis, Penguin Special, a biography of Allen Lane.

"[the disposable Penguin] makes literature as fluid a commodity as cigarettes or chocolate, a thought which would have horrified a Ruskin or a Morris" - Herbert Reed, ibid

"You're the bastard that has ruined this trade with your ruddy Penguins." - Jonathan Cape to Allen Lane, ibid

"though our general feeling still is that the Book Trade as a whole may come to rue the advent of this particular line of publication, we are quite willing to approach some of our authors and invite them to join in our venture." - Harold Raymond of Chatto, ibid
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.17.252.126
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 09:33 am:   

Franzen's insight is the most appealing and true I have read on this subject yet... I agree entirely with him (needless to say).
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Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker)
Username: Stephen_theaker

Registered: 12-2009
Posted From: 62.30.117.235
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 09:54 am:   

Reading the entire question, it's about internet magazines not ebooks. I think most people would agree that reading fiction on a website isn't an optimal experience.

If he'd actually used a Kindle, he wouldn't think they had plastic screens...
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Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker)
Username: Stephen_theaker

Registered: 12-2009
Posted From: 62.30.117.235
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 10:36 am:   

And that's really what we have in this thread - lots of people who *haven't* used something saying how much they *think* they'd hate it if they did.

If all you care about is reading books - not collecting them, travelling to bookshops, filling your bookshelves, smelling them, using them as ornaments, making nests inside them, using them to swat insects and all the other secondary pleasures to be gained from books - if all you really care about is actually reading them, my experience from having actually used one over a period of several months, and having had to switch back to paper several times to read review copies, is that there's no competition. It's as big as the difference between writing on a typewriter and writing on a PC. They're easier to hold, carry, store, browse, annotate, buy, find, understand and, most importantly, read.

People with typewriters looked at word processors with suspicion. But very few people would go back to typewriters now. Some do, but only for particular, personal reasons that have little to do with the relevant merits. Some people will always stick with paper books, and typewriters, and sending letters by mail, per their personal preferences. But the people who appreciate the benefits of ebooks, laptops and email aren't deluding themselves...

Here's an experiment to try, to see what I mean... Pick up a book, hold it in your hands and look at the cover without opening it. Then open up the book to read it. Which is most comfortable in your hands? How much more comfortable would it be if you could read the entire book without having to hold it open all the time?
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Tom_alaerts (Tom_alaerts)
Username: Tom_alaerts

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.78.35.185
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 11:13 am:   

Great quotes about Penguin !
Indeed, I think what we see now is a very similar perception that a posh delivery channel (I mean printed books) makes the content more valuable. These days nobody will argue that Lolita or War & Peace are any less the masterpiece when you read them in a Penguin edition.

One of the managers here is a bookworm - like me she has plenty of books stored in boxes (our tastes are not similar though, Dan Brown must be the most literary writer in her collection :-) ). Since she bought a Kindle she actually buys more books than before, but as much as possible in e-variants as she doesn't have to worry anymore where to store them. And, she takes her Kindle with more than 100 books on it on all her numerous business trips, she can read whatever genre she's in the mood for whenever she wants. In her case, she thought that the flexibility was worth the loss of printed book charm.

I also see ebooks as an interesting alternative for small press publishers once their limited physical print run is exhausted; it is often financially too risky to do another print run; and then an e-version could bring (a) a solution for the reader and (b) extra income for publisher and writer; without really increasing costs. At the same time the out of print luxury hardback can be cherished by the early birds and collectors.
As an example, there are some early Ash Tree books that I wouldn't mind to read in an e-version. I think that we can all agree that this would beat not being to read them or only being able to read them after selling a kidney.

So, I see myself gradually switching to e-books and at the same time still buying some nice hardcovers, when I really want to have them on the shelf. Esp. a number of Subterranean, Tartarus, Ex Occidente and Ash-Tree books.
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Hubert (Hubert)
Username: Hubert

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 78.22.229.129
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 02:00 pm:   

Everyone can afford a Penguin or a Panther, but it's different with e-books. With all the hardware and software involved I suspect a marketing ploy, so if we're not careful reading will turn into a elitist thing again. Elitist in a negative sense, I mean.
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Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank

Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 188.146.150.157
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 02:36 pm:   

Stephen - which is easier, the e-book or the book? Well, mobility, sure, the compact size of an e-book, but carrying a book around is hardly the stuff of intense physical exertion. We're living in an age in which we are searching for more and more ways of making 'stuff' smaller, more manageable. But is it really necessary to reduce the book to a screen? I understand the merits for those wishing to conserve space and have their books on e-format, but it's not that much to ask of ourselves in carrying around a book.

We have to stop comparing former examples of past technologies with today's. Sure, the typewriter versus the pc, the pen versus the typewriter, the quill versus the pencil, etc, etc, but that isn't to say we need to keep on reaching, pushing the format forever onwards till ad infinitum.

I assumed the book was a work of art in itself, a pefect 'delivery vehicle' for the text. I'm not against having e-books, I just don't believe it's as beautiful to look at.

Like I said previously, a matter of taste.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 02:37 pm:   

For a reading experience which is at best only equivalent to picking up a regular book - why do I need to pay £100 for a decent piece of equipment to read on, then pay up to or over the price of the paper copy of the latest bestseller (as well as buying a pc and all that gumph for my house because I'm not currently online at home - I work on a computer all day, it doesn't strike me as entertainment to sit staring at a computer screen at night as well). It's going to take 10 to 15 years for any discounts in book prices to offset the cost of buying all the equipment by which time I'll need to do it all over again.

I value books. I see no additional value in an expensive piece of tat (which apparently is so naff that no one would want to steal it) to replace the perfectly good piece of technology that is the printed page.

I find that sitting in a nice comfy w position with my feet up and my book open on my knee with one finger resting in the crease of the book is more than enough to hold the book open - regardless of the size. This takes no effort.

Any LCD screen is basically plastic so Franzen seems right on that one. The picture of a Kindle I've just seen definitely looks like a plastic screen. To keep the weight down it's certainly not glass.
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Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker)
Username: Stephen_theaker

Registered: 12-2009
Posted From: 62.30.117.235
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 02:52 pm:   

We were discussing Penguin paperbacks in the context of attitudes to the artistic validity of an ebook - i.e. people originally had the same reaction to Penguin paperbacks that Mark for example has above to ebooks.

But if we're getting into the wider effects of ebooks on the literary world, I agree that the initial price of an ereader does potentially create a barrier to reading - it could conceivably contribute to the development of a digital underclass. Once you've got one, you have access to thousands of free books, but getting one in the first place is hard for some people...

On the other hand, many ebooks can be read not only on ereaders, but also on phones, computers, PDAs, etc, even if those things aren't quite as good for reading on. In the third world, for example, ebooks are readable on all the OLPC laptops being given to children.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 03:02 pm:   

And real books will be readable for them regardless of whether their electric supply is working this week...
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Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank

Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 188.146.139.248
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 03:20 pm:   

Whether you choose to believe this or not, but only 1% of the world's population has a computer. Mind you, I did find this statistic in an English text book for intermediate students. If it is true, Stephen, I'm afraid not even the e-book format will be able to address the balance of children in third-world countries having access to books.

I think Weber's last statement more than sums up that particular problem.
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Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker)
Username: Stephen_theaker

Registered: 12-2009
Posted From: 62.30.117.235
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 03:26 pm:   

Weber, Kindles and Sony Readers don't have LCD screens...

Strictly speaking, the screens do include plastics (so do paper book covers, for that matter), but the ink is a physical substance. It's nothing at all like reading a calculator or a digital watch. It's as if the text has been permanently printed on the surface of the device.

As far as your nice comfy position goes, is that how you do all your reading? Do you always read with a book open on your knee? Even in that situation I'd argue a Sony Reader would be more comfortable, but surely you recognise that other people read on buses, lying in bed, with babies in their laps, and so on, and in every one of those scenarios an ereader is more practical and more comfortable.

Just try the experiment I suggested. Is holding a book more comfortable when it's open, or when it's closed?
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Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker)
Username: Stephen_theaker

Registered: 12-2009
Posted From: 62.30.117.235
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 03:31 pm:   

"And real books will be readable for them regardless of whether their electric supply is working this week..."

You say that as if those children would have access to those books in paper form... As if it's a choice between one and the other. Do you seriously think such children would be better off without access to ebooks?

In any case, OLPC laptops can be powered when necessary by pedalling them...

http://www.olpcnews.com/countries/afghanistan/updates_from_olpc_afghanistan_1.ht ml
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 03:42 pm:   

My nice comfy reading position is the one I use in my living room or in bed. In my lunch hour I just put the book open on the table while I eat my lunch and if the pages are springing back I stick a pen on the crease and that's that fixed. On a bus i've never found it particularly stressful a position to hold a book open as I read it.

One of my great pleasures is reading books to my 3 year old nephew, he sits on my lap, the book goes in his lap and I point at the words and the BIG friendly pictures, and he helps me turn the pages. Surely childrens picture books are going to lose every bit of their appeal when reduced to an expensive device that he's not allowed to touch in case he breaks it - with a screen too small for the pictures.
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Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker)
Username: Stephen_theaker

Registered: 12-2009
Posted From: 62.30.117.235
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 03:50 pm:   

I think you're missing the point a bit, too, Frank. We're talking there about whether, if ereaders are overwhelmingly successful (and there's a concomitant decline in book printing), it would contribute to the creation of a digital underclass.

I think you'd agree that it's going to be a long, long time before ereaders are so prevalent in third world countries that they have any impact on the number of books being printed there...

Even in Britain, how long is it going to be before that happens? If ereaders are as pointless as many here think, it'll never happen, so it's a non-issue.

Even if publishers stopped mass-producing paper books tomorrow, there are still millions and millions of the things in circulation and it would be a decade at least before anyone was likely to suffer from not being able to afford an ereader.

The digital underclass exists already - they're the people fighting over hour-long computer slots at the local library, struggling to complete online job applications in the time it takes me to drink a cup of tea. If ereaders are going to contribute to that problem, I agree it's something to guard against (some schools are already offering them instead of textbooks, and I think that's the way things are likely to go), but I don't think it's enough in itself to make them a losing proposition.
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Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank

Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 188.146.139.248
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 03:53 pm:   

Stephen - I take your point about people in varying positions of difficulty, with kids in tow, etc, sure, but is it really any easier to fiddle round with an e-book, than a book?

Isn't it more a case of some people liking an e-book because they like technology, rather than a matter of comfort.

A book works physically because it opens down a spine, both ways. I really don't see what's so physically cumbersome about it. For me the e-book sounds like a lot of unnecessary fumbling about.

Maybe I just don't like technology so much? I'm not one for gadgets. Though I suspect not so long down the road it won't be a gadget, but as common for readers as the mobile/cell phone is to everybody else.
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Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker)
Username: Stephen_theaker

Registered: 12-2009
Posted From: 62.30.117.235
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 04:16 pm:   

Frank, I'm not sure what the fiddling around is that you're talking about...?

But I think I know what you're getting at. Here's a simple example that all of us must have experienced - standing on a bus, reading a book, holding the rail with one hand, book in the other. Time to turn the page. With the Sony Reader I don't need to move - my thumb's on the button and I start reading the next page. With a paper book it's slightly trickier.

Not a huge deal, but a little bit trickier, a little bit less convenient. Changing your page with one hand can be quite awkward. And that's the difference - ereaders are slightly more convenient in so many ways that it adds up in the end to a much better user experience.

Here's another example - you get on the bus, or worse, a train or coach or plane, and start reading a new book, but it's a lemon and you're stuck with it. With the Sony Reader I just switch to another book.

No one's arguing that people who like paper books should give them up - who cares if they do? I'm just disputing the idea that ereaders are inherently inferior, and that their users are deluding themselves.
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Tom_alaerts (Tom_alaerts)
Username: Tom_alaerts

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.78.35.185
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 04:22 pm:   

I don't quite see the argument of the "digital underclass", or the needs of the 3rd world. Physical books will continue to exist for a long time. It's not because something is out of reach of a certain demographic, that it's necessarily bad.

Regarding cost, if you put 150 free classics on it, the reader will cost as much or less than a pile of cheap wordsworth paperbacks, which I would argue are more tiring to the eye than the e-ink technology of a Kindle.

Indeed, while the device is ugly plastic (or glossy posh for the ipad), the kindle's e-ink technology is eminently readable.
I see myself gravitating towards a future ipad model (once it has a webcam) as it can do various things.

I do agree that a book feels nicer, and it's definitely nicer to browse, but in many cases an e-reader can be good enough.
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Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker)
Username: Stephen_theaker

Registered: 12-2009
Posted From: 62.30.117.235
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 04:23 pm:   

Weber, is it more comfortable to hold a book when it's open, or when it's closed?

I'm not asking if it's particularly stressful, or whether you come up with handy workarounds for the book's flaws, or whether you care about the difference. Which is more comfortable to hold in your hand? Open or closed?

There's only one answer. A closed book is more comfortable to hold. And that's why ereaders are more comfortable to hold.

Over the course of this thread you've slowly moved from "ereaders are pointless and hopelessly flawed" to "paper books may be worse in some ways but not in ways that affect me", and that's a perfectly tenable position.

You don't think they would benefit you - but arguing that they don't benefit anyone, in the face of all the evidence to the contrary, is just obtuse. And if you come out with inaccurate nonsense about flickery LCD screens and having to repurchase your books I'm obviously going to disagree.

Having said that, I do agree with you that picture books will be fairly unaffected by ereaders - same with comics, art books and pretty much anything that isn't text based. The iPad will be nice for that kind of thing, but it's unlikely to totally replace them.
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Tom_alaerts (Tom_alaerts)
Username: Tom_alaerts

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.78.35.185
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 04:25 pm:   

I forgot to mention that I also see a future for these devices for reading electronic magazines. Nowadays I throw most away after a while and it could be useful to store them digitally and later search on keywords.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 04:39 pm:   

I have never at any point in this thread said that e-readers are better than a traditional book in any way. Please do not go putting words in my mouth. E-books are a pointl;ess expensive waste of time.

I can go home and pick up my copy of Mark Twain's the Innocents Abroad with an inscription in it dating it to 1910. In another 100 years, someone else will be able to do exactly the same thing to that same copy of the book - barring accidents. Your expensive e-readers will not last more than a few years (15 years tops on average) as circuitry wears out. All electrical equipment needs replacing on a regular basis.

I do not stand and read on the bus as this would probably lead to losing my balance. A bus riide is far too bumpy to stand and read. Sitting reading on a bus is no less comfortable than sitting staring at a book cover without reading it.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 04:58 pm:   

E-readers certainly have a place when it comes to reading throwaway articles but, like Franzen says, literature (and Art in general) requires permanence - end of story as far as I'm concerned.
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Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker)
Username: Stephen_theaker

Registered: 12-2009
Posted From: 62.30.117.235
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 05:04 pm:   

Weber: "I do not stand and read on the bus as this would probably lead to losing my balance. A bus riide is far too bumpy to stand and read."

So what if you don't? I do, and always have, so it's useful to me.

All you're really interested in discussing is whether ereaders are useful to you personally. Consider that argument closed - and you've won it. They're not useful to you and everyone accepts it.
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Chris_morris (Chris_morris)
Username: Chris_morris

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 12.165.240.116
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 05:11 pm:   

Stephen, of course you (or anyone) can read in any format you like. If a device is more comfortable to hold and can store many hundreds of books, those are indeed advantages, but surely you see that the device has drawbacks as well -- including the transience of all electronic technologies, which have built-in obsolescence and require periodic updates and enhancements. Franzen's comment about the impermanence of e-text is, at the moment anyway, culturally relevent. Maybe someday text on an e-reader will seem as valid as text on paper, but for now it's showy and gimmicky. And given the competition for platform supremacy, it's hard to say whether banking on a Kindle, a Nook, or an iPad is even financially sound: the formats for each are exclusive and won't run on other devices. Do you bank on Beta or VHS? On balance, I feel the drawbacks overwhelm the advantages, although I can see how for some users -- Ph D students, for instance, who might appreciate a handy storage unit for hundreds of books -- may well prefer the electronic device.

Then again, I don't even have a cell phone, and I've been called a Luddite by more than one person. It occurs to me that if the one product Luddites historically can rely on is the ever-popular book, perhaps reactions to this are exaggerated because e-readers make that last bastion of energy-free entertainment seem obsolete. Or maybe I just don't want to turn into one of the Amish people I used to make fun of as a kid. Still, it has always seemed obvious to me that technological advances have no place in some areas of life. I don't need an electric toothbrush, for instance, and if an equivalent product were set to replace toilet paper, I would object to that, too -- although I get the sense that vast segments of the population would disagree with me and would blindly accept e-toilet paper or anything like it. in my opinion, it represents consumerism at its worst.

I'm disappointed that so few people even hesitate about whether such "advancements" are necessary -- that questions like these never get voiced in the media. Instead, we're shown article after article singing the praises of unnecessary technology: long lines at the Apple Store, for example, or the Christmas rush at the electronics shop.

The value of these advancements, I think, should be one of the great questions of the twenty-first century.
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Hubert (Hubert)
Username: Hubert

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 78.22.229.129
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 05:14 pm:   

To be realistic about it - the two formats will probably coexist for quite a long time. And if some electronic gadget is capable of getting young people interested in literature, I'm all for it.
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Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker)
Username: Stephen_theaker

Registered: 12-2009
Posted From: 62.30.117.235
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 05:17 pm:   

Stevie Walsh: "E-readers certainly have a place when it comes to reading throwaway articles but, like Franzen says, literature (and Art in general) requires permanence - end of story as far as I'm concerned."

Permanence? The ink on a page can be washed away by a splash of water. Oxfam destroy thousands of books every year. The covers of paper books fade in the sun. Pages start to turn yellow within a year, crumble in less than thirty. Library books get ripped and damaged. Houses burn down, get flooded.

If you just prefer paper books, fair enough, but the idea that their literary qualities reside in their supposed permanence doesn't really hold water.
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Chris_morris (Chris_morris)
Username: Chris_morris

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 12.165.240.116
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 05:24 pm:   

>> Permanence? The ink on a page can be washed away by a splash of water. Oxfam destroy thousands of books every year. The covers of paper books fade in the sun. Pages start to turn yellow within a year, crumble in less than thirty. Library books get ripped and damaged. Houses burn down, get flooded.

So you're saying there's no difference to you between a JPEG of the Picasso's 'Guernica' on your computer screen or the real thing hanging on your wall?
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Mark_samuels (Mark_samuels)
Username: Mark_samuels

Registered: 04-2010
Posted From: 81.129.143.153
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 05:25 pm:   

Obviously we must cease production of all books. The advantages of the E-book are so rationally obvious that anyone who disagrees must be driven by a personality disorder (they may even, shudder, possess emotional attachments). How can anyone seriously consider a "text delivery vehicle" one has to go to the trouble to actually open as being worthwhile?

Meanwhile, I'm off to design an electronic mirror. You'll all want one in the end.



Mark S.
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Chris_morris (Chris_morris)
Username: Chris_morris

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 12.165.240.116
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 05:27 pm:   

>> Pages start to turn yellow within a year, crumble in less than thirty.

I read an article last week concerning the fact that the most common electronic device being recycled today is the iPhone. How many electronic devices can you name that have lasted for more than five years?
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Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker)
Username: Stephen_theaker

Registered: 12-2009
Posted From: 62.30.117.235
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 05:42 pm:   

Chris, the idea that the Sony Reader may not work in ten years may be seen as a drawback, but it's not a major one. My glasses won't work in ten years time, but that doesn't matter because they let me see right now. It doesn't relate to its purpose. Its purpose is not to let me read books in ten years time, but to let me read them today. And through using it, my reading experience is now better every single day (except the unfortunate ones where I have to read paper review copies, like today). I haven't had to throw my paper books away - it's a complement to them, not a replacement.

And like I've said already, all the files I bought and created for my Rocket eBook (which still works fine) ten years ago still work. All the files I created on the Amstrad PCW over 20 years ago are now on my PC. Technology may eventually become obsolete, but that doesn't mean we'll lose the files. In fact, the evidence is all the other way.

I might as well say to you, one drawback to your books is that when you get old, you may go blind and you won't be able to read them. Is that really a drawback to your books? Only if you haven't read them by then. (On the other hand, my ebooks will read themselves to me.)

I've already read dozens of free books on my Sony Reader from Feedbooks, Gutenberg and Baen, dozens of books for review as pdfs, something in the region of 300-500 submissions to Dark Horizons and TQF, and about 50 sets of proofs. It's already paid for itself several times over.

There are 30,000 free books on Project Gutenberg. The argument that a device that lets you read those books in a congenial way is useless is just bizarre.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.5.4.183
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 05:47 pm:   

I read an article last week concerning the fact that the most common electronic device being recycled today is the iPhone. How many electronic devices can you name that have lasted for more than five years?

Worse? Format changes. I have an iPod Classic - the irony in that title alone.... It's from 2007, but already, it's more or less an antique - and it's been an antique practically from '08! Not to me, mind, but thanks to the mutherf*ckering part of Apple (which I mostly like) - they changed the format for MPG4s, for example, so nothing today can go on it, unless it's translated back to an iPod Classic format. What's happens when/as the changes keep happening? Eventually, they'll update iTunes to where it won't even read this iPod Classic when I plug it into my computer.

All you people putting your books/getting your books only on these things... do you realize you are at the mercy of (in this example) Apple? What happens when formats change, when the programs can't be retrieved? Batteries have lives - guess what, the battery I'd need to replace my Classic iPod, I got it priced - $300!!! For the battery alone! Ludicrous.

Those way into eBooks, are those who, apparently, like to be manipulated and controlled, and ruled by others. A hard-copy book you own, is yours forever... a book you need a device to read? Is controlled by forces outside of yourself.... Maybe some of you like being mini-slaves, but not me. (Yes, that's deliberately hyperbolic, you mind-numbed drooling robotic slaves, you.)
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Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker)
Username: Stephen_theaker

Registered: 12-2009
Posted From: 62.30.117.235
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 05:49 pm:   

Chris: "I read an article last week concerning the fact that the most common electronic device being recycled today is the iPhone. How many electronic devices can you name that have lasted for more than five years?"

My black and white portable television and ZX Spectrum date from 1982 or 1983 at the latest, because we bought Lunar Jetman when it was first released. And like I said, my Rocket eBook is ten years old and working perfectly fine.

Chris: "So you're saying there's no difference to you between a JPEG of the Picasso's 'Guernica' on your computer screen or the real thing hanging on your wall?"

No, you're saying that if Picasso created Guernica on a computer, it wouldn't have any artistic validity until he printed it out. That's what Franzen says.
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Chris_morris (Chris_morris)
Username: Chris_morris

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 12.165.240.116
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 05:57 pm:   

I have files containing stories I wrote fifteen years ago in formats I can only open now in apps that destroy all formatting and that add garbage in odd places in the text. I can only really use them by spending hours reformatting them. If you've never run up against technological obsolescence you're a lucky man indeed.

Even so, by referring to obsolescence I wasn't really saying that you won't be able to read your e-books in ten years' time. I was only saying that to do so you may need to shill out hundreds of dollars for new devices/upgrades every few years, which makes some of the pro-e-readers arguments (ie, that books on e-readers are often cheaper than real books) irrelevant.

>> The argument that a device that lets you read those books in a congenial way is useless is just bizarre.

I'd agree with that, although I never said they were useless. I just think e-readers are tacky and superficial in much the same way digital watches are tacky and superficial, and I think the idea that they will one day overtake real books is deplorable. But hey, everyone's got opinions, right?
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Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker)
Username: Stephen_theaker

Registered: 12-2009
Posted From: 62.30.117.235
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 05:58 pm:   

Craig, there's a piece of software called Calibre, that lets you switch ebooks to any format you like. Even the iPad and Kindle, which are pretty locked down, let you load your own books onto them.

Which is really the biggest reason for writers to dislike ereaders, and one I'm amazed nobody's mentioned yet - they aren't locked down *enough*. They are terrific for reading on - but they're equally terrific for reading pirated books.

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Chris_morris (Chris_morris)
Username: Chris_morris

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 12.165.240.116
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 06:14 pm:   

>> No, you're saying that if Picasso created Guernica on a computer, it wouldn't have any artistic validity until he printed it out. That's what Franzen says.

Well, my question to you was directed at your comment about the importance of permanence in art, and it was intended to make a point. I note you didn't really answer the question.

I won't put words in Franzen's mouth -- I have no idea what he thinks about e-art versus real art -- but he says that he uses computers to write and thus sees e-text as impermanent, editable text. (I see it this way, too.) What you make of that impermanence is up to you. Of course Picasso never created any artwork on the computer, so I can't really address your comment, but I can say that the only currently valid way of displaying an artwork is in a gallery, and if you can't "print out" your work or somehow make it presentable on a gallery wall, then yes, I'd say that it doesn't have any "artistic validity." At the moment, even artists who use the computer for their work must find a way to get their art onto a gallery wall.

I've seen JPEGs of artworks by Seurat and Dali that I've seen in person at the Chicago Art Institute, and I can say without hesitation that a lot of information is lost in translation. Obviously less information is lost in translating works of fiction into ones and zeroes, but it's still a lossy format. You don't get the typeface of the original book -- Don DeLillo, for instance, insists that all his books be printed in the Electra font; you don't get the feel of the paper or any of the physical aspects of the book (such as stipple-edge trim or die-cut covers); and you don't get the more superficial pleasures of advertising the book you're reading: when you read an e-reader on your bus, you aren't telling the world what book you're reading; for many who identify with what they read, this drawback isn't insignificant.
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Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker)
Username: Stephen_theaker

Registered: 12-2009
Posted From: 62.30.117.235
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 06:17 pm:   

Chris: "I was only saying that to do so you may need to shill out hundreds of dollars for new devices/upgrades every few years, which makes some of the pro-e-readers arguments (ie, that books on e-readers are often cheaper than real books) irrelevant."

Like I said above, it's already paid for itself several times over in free books, saved paper and postage costs. If I shell out the money to buy another, I expect it'll pay for itself just as quickly...

Mark: "The advantages of the E-book are so rationally obvious that anyone who disagrees must be driven by a personality disorder..."

I have to admit, Mark, some of you are making me wonder! Especially with all the talk of long-term loving relationships with your books...
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Chris_morris (Chris_morris)
Username: Chris_morris

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 12.165.240.116
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 06:26 pm:   

>> Like I said above, it's already paid for itself several times over in free books, saved paper and postage costs. If I shell out the money to buy another, I expect it'll pay for itself just as quickly...


I disagree. If price was the only concern, you could have read all of those free e-books on your PC and spent no extra money for the e-reader. All the Gutenberg titles (and Kindle and Nook titles) can be read on a PC. You've shelled out cash for the privilege of holding an electronic device on the bus, not for reading free books.
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Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker)
Username: Stephen_theaker

Registered: 12-2009
Posted From: 62.30.117.235
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 06:33 pm:   

I did answer the question, actually, Chris - you asked "are you saying...?" and I said no. Who would say that a jpg is better than the original painting? But that's exactly what Franzen is saying, that the paper copy of his text is more important than the original. That's up to him. But I'd note (i) the interview is a few years old now, dating from only a few months after the initial launch of Kindle and (ii) The Corrections is available to buy on Kindle.

Chris: "...you don't get the more superficial pleasures..."

Exactly. I can do without the more superficial pleasures. All I care about is reading the books. I'm not saying anyone else should give them up. Carry on sniffing your books, making piles of them, using them as status symbols, and so on. I've done all those things too - I doubt very many of you have more paper books than I do. I wouldn't dream of taking those superficial, secondary pleasures away from you. But I don't miss them. All that time you still spend hunting through second hand bookshops? I'd rather spend it reading.
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Mark_samuels (Mark_samuels)
Username: Mark_samuels

Registered: 04-2010
Posted From: 81.129.143.153
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 06:35 pm:   

Stephen: hey, I've never denied I'm a Bibliophile (ooer)! It was good enough for Leiber in "Our Lady of Darkness". The protagonist had his fav books laid out on his bed in the shape of a woman. Scholar's mistress, I think it was called.

I'll get my coat.



Mark S.
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Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker)
Username: Stephen_theaker

Registered: 12-2009
Posted From: 62.30.117.235
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 06:36 pm:   

"If price was the only concern, you could have read all of those free e-books on your PC and spent no extra money for the e-reader. All the Gutenberg titles (and Kindle and Nook titles) can be read on a PC. You've shelled out cash for the privilege of holding an electronic device on the bus, not for reading free books."

But I wouldn't have read them onscreen, any more than you or Mark Samuels or Weber would have done.
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Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker)
Username: Stephen_theaker

Registered: 12-2009
Posted From: 62.30.117.235
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 06:40 pm:   

The review pdf of Joe Hill's Horns has just arrived... but don't worry, I'll be sure to mention in the review that reading it felt hollow and empty because the technology I'm reading it on is doomed to inevitable obsolescence.
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Chris_morris (Chris_morris)
Username: Chris_morris

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 12.165.240.116
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 06:50 pm:   

>> Exactly. I can do without the more superficial pleasures.

On the contrary, the only advantages you've attributed to e-readers are on the level of "superficial pleasures."

To wit:

>> Here's a simple example that all of us must have experienced - standing on a bus, reading a book, holding the rail with one hand, book in the other. Time to turn the page. With the Sony Reader I don't need to move - my thumb's on the button and I start reading the next page. With a paper book it's slightly trickier.

>> Here's another example - you get on the bus, or worse, a train or coach or plane, and start reading a new book, but it's a lemon and you're stuck with it. With the Sony Reader I just switch to another book.

Also, you said:

>> But I wouldn't have read them onscreen, any more than you or Mark Samuels or Weber would have done.

The distinction eludes me. I'm sure it has something to do with the readability of e-text, and I'm sure it's irrelevant. The point I was making is that your e-reader hasn't "paid for itself" if it only lets you read things you could already read for the same cost.

>> All you're really interested in discussing is whether ereaders are useful to you personally. Consider that argument closed - and you've won it. They're not useful to you and everyone accepts it.

Well, same goes for you, Stephen. You're perfectly free to read any e-reader you like, and I'm perfectly free to find e-readers loathesome and evidence of the fall of civilization. Ain't opinions grand?
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Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker)
Username: Stephen_theaker

Registered: 12-2009
Posted From: 62.30.117.235
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 07:08 pm:   

Those aren't superficial pleasures. They're an intrinsic part of the reading experience.

Chris: "Well, same goes for you, Stephen."

Not really. Weber's argument is that they have no use whatsoever. He doesn't accept that anyone may find them useful. But I'm quite happy to accept that lots of people won't find ereaders at all useful. People who only read a few books a year, for example, would have no reason at all to buy one.

Chris: "The distinction eludes me."

It's a fairly simple one, that's already been mentioned a few times: ereaders aren't computer screens. They don't flicker. They don't glare. It's as easy on the eyes as reading print.

It's not hypothetical or theoretical that I've saved money. It's just a fact. For example, the year before last I went through four reams of paper a month. It's now been about a year since I last bought any paper at all.
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Chris_morris (Chris_morris)
Username: Chris_morris

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 12.165.240.116
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 07:22 pm:   

Your superficial pleasures aren't mine, I guess. And vice-versa.

>> People who only read a few books a year, for example, would have no reason at all to buy one.

True. Nor, on the other hand, would people who value books a lot.

From a recent profile in the Guardian:

Andrew Wylie: "I'm a books person. Yes, I have a Kindle. I used it for an hour and a half and put it in the closet."

And you have Franzen's opinion above.

E-books, then, it can be generally agreed, are not for people who never read books. Or for people who only read a few books a year. Or for people who truly value books, and read a ton of them a year, like Andrew Wylie or Jonathan Franzen.

They're for everyone else, then -- the people who read more than a few books a year but don't truly value them. That's fine. I can accept that. If the media portrayed them that way, I'd have no complaint at all. :-)
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Chris_morris (Chris_morris)
Username: Chris_morris

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 12.165.240.116
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 07:30 pm:   

>> It's not hypothetical or theoretical that I've saved money. It's just a fact. For example, the year before last I went through four reams of paper a month. It's now been about a year since I last bought any paper at all.

You seem to have failed to understand my point. And who buys reams of paper to read?
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Tom_alaerts (Tom_alaerts)
Username: Tom_alaerts

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 87.64.254.7
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 07:37 pm:   

E-books, then, it can be generally agreed, are not for people who never read books. Or for people who only read a few books a year. Or for people who truly value books, and read a ton of them a year, like Andrew Wylie or Jonathan Franzen.

Actually my colleague with the Kindle reads tons of books per year, mainly on the Kindle these days. She's in her fifties and has totally adopted it.

Unlike watching a picture of Guernica on the screen, there is NO information lost when reading a novel on a device. Otherwise, a cheap paperback of War & Peace would be less a masterpiece than something Tartarus would produce.

And people should indeed try that e-ink technology before comparing it to a screen. The experience is pretty close to reading on paper. Only the device (ugly plastic) itself is far less pleasurable in the hand than a book. The ipad will be less good to read a book on - but it does so many other things as well.
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Chris_morris (Chris_morris)
Username: Chris_morris

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 12.165.240.116
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 07:40 pm:   

>> Unlike watching a picture of Guernica on the screen, there is NO information lost when reading a novel on a device. Otherwise, a cheap paperback of War & Peace would be less a masterpiece than something Tartarus would produce.

Not entirely true. Read my posts above.

Tell you what: you get Franzen and Wylie on board, and you can count me in. Good luck.
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Mark_samuels (Mark_samuels)
Username: Mark_samuels

Registered: 04-2010
Posted From: 81.129.143.153
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 07:41 pm:   

Well, I tell you this. When I was a young 'un we used to try and pick up pretty ladies in cafes by reading cool stuff like, I dunno, Camus, de Beauvoir or Sartre.

Making sure, of course, the cover was clearly visible.

How's that work with an e-reader? Huh? Huh?

If these e-readers take off it will cause immeasurable damage to the chances of ugly young blokes getting girlfriends.

Come on, you have to concede the point.

Mark S.
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Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker)
Username: Stephen_theaker

Registered: 12-2009
Posted From: 62.30.117.235
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 07:43 pm:   

"Your superficial pleasures aren't mine, I guess. And vice-versa."

I think you're right. When I buy a book, the last thing on my mind is going on the bus to show it off...

As I said above, Franzen wasn't asked about the Kindle, he was asked about online magazines. In any case, what does it matter if one or two particular writers said they don't like them? It doesn't affect my experience.

There are 9,000 five-star reviews of the Kindle on Amazon, all by people who don't value books, I guess you'd say.
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Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank

Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 188.146.195.147
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 07:46 pm:   

Can someone explain to me (without me searching the net) exactly how big an e-reader is? Do 'we' have to scroll down as on a pc/laptop. Please, layman's terms, not blindingly obtuse technical jargon. I want to try to understand the argument from Stephen's viewpoint. You know, like Will Graham would (;
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Chris_morris (Chris_morris)
Username: Chris_morris

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 12.165.240.116
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 07:48 pm:   

>> I think you're right. When I buy a book, the last thing on my mind is going on the bus to show it off...

Well, no. But I think it's the first thing on many people's mind when they buy an e-reader. And maybe you don't want to read Don DeLillo's book the way he wanted it. But I do.

Franzen's interview was from 2009, by the way, not from 2001, when The Corrections was published. And Wylie isn't a writer.

>> There are 9,000 five-star reviews of the Kindle on Amazon, all by people who don't value books, I guess you'd say.

No, I don't think they value books. And neither do you. They might value text, or story, or fiction -- they might value the message, in other words, but not the medium. Obviously they don't value books. This is not a controversial statement. If they preferred books they'd read them.
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Tom_alaerts (Tom_alaerts)
Username: Tom_alaerts

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 87.64.254.7
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 07:54 pm:   

Mark,

You make such a strong argument in your last post that I have to throw the towel in the ring !

Tom, defeated
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Chris_morris (Chris_morris)
Username: Chris_morris

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 12.165.240.116
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 07:56 pm:   

>> When I buy a book, the last thing on my mind is going on the bus to show it off...

Have you never been in public and seen a person reading a book that looked interesting? Have you never gone later into a bookstore looking for it? For that matter: do you enjoy bookstores at all? Browsing through stacks of books you'd never have heard of unless you entered the store? Is it meaningless to you that e-readers may ultimately mean the death of the common bookstore?
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Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank

Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 188.146.195.119
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 08:00 pm:   

I think the bone of contention here is that some of us prefer one to the other. That simple. Personally, I'm not sure what I feel about people who spend all their lives collecting and reading books, to then advocate the e-book as an ideal replacement. That's not directed at you Stephen. But neither will I dismiss the fact that they state they prefer them. It just saddens me. I suppose I'm worried that perhaps this is the start of the end of books as we know and love them. Dramatic, I know, and I hope wrong.

Why do we constantly try to improve on some things which don't need improving on? Have we become so lazy? It's like searching for a fault where none has previously existed, or hoping to find one so as to work on it.

But most of all, I feel very suspicious that with publishing undergoing such radical changes from within, that we are now faced with changes from outside, exterior forces goverened by the likes of Apple.
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Tom_alaerts (Tom_alaerts)
Username: Tom_alaerts

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 87.64.254.7
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 08:01 pm:   

>> Unlike watching a picture of Guernica on the screen, there is NO information lost when reading a novel on a device. Otherwise, a cheap paperback of War & Peace would be less a masterpiece than something Tartarus would produce.

Not entirely true. Read my posts above.


Well, exactly which information is lost, and how would that not apply to reading War&Peace on a small printed mass market paperback instead of reading it in a sumptuous hardcover? And why precisely would the literary enjoyment be less?

Can someone explain to me (without me searching the net) exactly how big an e-reader is? Do 'we' have to scroll down as on a pc/laptop. Please, layman's terms, not blindingly obtuse technical jargon. I want to try to understand the argument from Stephen's viewpoint. You know, like Will Graham would (;

It depends on the brand and model. Say, roughly the size of an average hardback.
Typically you don't scroll but rather tap the screen to go to the next page.
The ipad will show the page being turned in an animation, but (the more readable) e-ink readers can't do that.


I must say, it's interesting to read these different perspectives!\i
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Nathaniel Tapley (Natt)
Username: Natt

Registered: 11-2009
Posted From: 78.146.245.79
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 08:15 pm:   

I'm an unrepentant book fetishist, and I can't wait for there to be an e-reader that suits my needs.

Some of the biggest delights in my life have been discovering inscriptions to long-dead people in second-hand books; I hoard books and have had to build sheds, extra shelves and am having to consider storage to deal with all my books; I believe there is little in life better than sticking your nose into the binding of a book and inhaling - there are certain books I can identify by smell. I believe that books are important objects, ones we can pull off shelves and thrust into the hands of our friends, can pass on to our children, or can discover in charity shops (as long as they've not pulped them). We can fill them with our notes and thoughts until our books are truly ours.

However.

I have to read a lot of screenplays and play-scripts which aren't published. My alternatives are printing them off or struggling to read them off a screen. An e-book reader that dealt with PDFs well would make a lot of what I read a lot easier to read, and would save a lot of trees in the process.

My hesitation to buy an e-reader so far has been to do with the notes in the margins of all my books. I haven't yet seen an e-reader that reproduces that functionality particularly well.

Not that books do. Notes in margins and then an index of my notes on the final fly-leaf is not searchable, and utterly reliant on my remembering which notes I might have written where, but it is, for the moment, a system...

I love books. And I love what's in books.

Anyone who can claim to love literature and not be excited at the thought of a device that would give them access to all of the works in the Gutenberg project, readably and for free must have some insight I don't. One of the first things I did on getting my iPod Touch was to download hundreds of short stories by Arthur Machen, Arthur Conan Doyle, L Frank Baum, LeFanu, Belloc, Blackwood, Dunsany, Washington Irving, To Paine, Lincoln's letters. I've only ever read a couple of them, though, because the screen is too small, too poky, and I can't take notes. The idea of a device with which it would be pleasant to read all of these things (none of which would preclude my buying a nice edition if I saw one I liked) is wonderful to me. An iPod Touch isn't it.

I have two copies of Hard Times, one a little (cheap) hardback I picked up in a second-hand shop and loved reading, one a Penguin Popular Classic that I worked from in preparing an audio play. An e-version might not be able to replace the first, but it could certainly have replaced the second.

Yes, a book might be preferable to an e-edition, but an e-edition is preferable to not owning or reading the work at all. If the thought of all of the classics of literature being available to you at any time isn't exciting to you, then I don't think anything else will convince you.

I treasure my books, to the point of fetishisation. The tactile pleasure they give is redolent with memories of when they were first read. And I can't wait to find a good e-reader...
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Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker)
Username: Stephen_theaker

Registered: 12-2009
Posted From: 62.30.117.235
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 08:17 pm:   

"And who buys reams of paper to read?"

Proofreaders and editors...

"Well, no. But I think it's the first thing on many people's mind when they buy an e-reader."

I see what you tried to do there, but you're the one who said you that the benefit of taking books on the bus is to advertise the book you're reading. Don't be embarrassed... like Mark quite rightly says, it is a good way to meet people. Me and Mrs Theaker began our relationship by sharing a copy of Discourse on the Method.

"If they preferred books they'd read them."

You only want to include paper books in the definition of books, and that's your look-out, but not everyone agrees with you, including for example the ISBN agency. If they weren't books, they wouldn't let you number them. This argument was one that happened years ago. It's spilt milk.

And saying that I don't value paper books because I've found that reading books on the Sony is more pleasant is just daft. I have thousands of books, on a dozen bookcases, all valued very much... But I'd be more likely to read them if I had ebook versions. To take an extreme example, I've twenty Folio Society books that are gorgeous, but utterly impractical.

"Franzen's interview was from 2009, by the way, not from 2001, when The Corrections was published."

I'm not sure why you think this is relevant, but it's actually from July 2008 (at the latest).
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Chris_morris (Chris_morris)
Username: Chris_morris

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 12.165.240.116
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 08:23 pm:   

>> Well, exactly which information is lost...?

As I said earlier, lost information includes the typeface (Don DeLillo insists his books be printed in Electra, for example) and any printed feature of the book (such as stipple-edge pages or die-cut covers). I have written a story that necessarily included a scrawled, hand-written portion. Most e-readers could not show that image. Are these trivial concerns? For some, yes. But equally trivial are the advantages of one-hand page-turning or 500-books-in-one-device.

I'll admit that a lot of this boils down to a romance of books. I'm a romantic, I am. But I wouldn't want to drink wine from a paper cup, and no argument about cheapness and portability would affect that opinion. I think technological advances should be able to help society progress without the additional sacrifice of culture or refinement. Do I mind if others do this? Of course not. But I reserve the right to find it distasteful.
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Chris_morris (Chris_morris)
Username: Chris_morris

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 12.165.240.116
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 08:25 pm:   

For the record, I should have said "I reserve the right to find such technological advances distasteful."
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Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker)
Username: Stephen_theaker

Registered: 12-2009
Posted From: 62.30.117.235
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 08:25 pm:   

"For that matter: do you enjoy bookstores at all? Browsing through stacks of books you'd never have heard of unless you entered the store? Is it meaningless to you that e-readers may ultimately mean the death of the common bookstore?"

If ereaders are as rubbish as you think, I don't need to worry, because they will never be popular enough to have that effect...
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Chris_morris (Chris_morris)
Username: Chris_morris

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 12.165.240.116
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 08:35 pm:   

>> Proofreaders and editors...

I'm an editor. I've been a proofreader. I buy reams of paper only to write.

>> Don't be embarrassed...

I'm not. I don't ride a bus. I drive alone to work and read alone at home. I have no vested interest in that argument, but I know people who have expressed this concern. People do identify with what they read, it's just a fact. You're the one displaying your device publicly, not me.

>> You only want to include paper books in the definition of books,

Yes. I'm talking about paper books. Wylie says he's a "book person," meaning paper books. You wouldn't call someone who drank wine only out of a plastic tumbler a "wine person" would you? This is specifically what I mean by "people who value books." I mean "people who value paper books." I don't mean to be confusing. As I said, this is not controversial.


>> I'm not sure why you think this is relevant, but it's actually from July 2008 (at the latest).

June 16, 2008, actually. I only meant the interview didn't take place back when The Corrections came out, a technological eon ago, which is what I (wrongly) thought you were suggesting.
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Chris_morris (Chris_morris)
Username: Chris_morris

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 12.165.240.116
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 08:55 pm:   

>> you're the one who said you that the benefit of taking books on the bus is to advertise the book you're reading

People often convey a sense of their identity that way. If you think that people don't express identity through technology such as e-readers, you're bonkers.

Also, you yourself express identity through books:

>> I have thousands of books, on a dozen bookcases, all valued very much... But I'd be more likely to read them if I had ebook versions. To take an extreme example, I've twenty Folio Society books that are gorgeous, but utterly impractical.

You have twenty Folio Society books too impractical to read. Your point in owning these, then, is to express your identity somehow through them. You have them to show off. It's true, no? Don't be embarrassed ...
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Chris_morris (Chris_morris)
Username: Chris_morris

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 12.165.240.116
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 08:59 pm:   

>> If ereaders are as rubbish as you think, I don't need to worry, because they will never be popular enough to have that effect...

From your keypad to God's ear.

Still, seriously: This doesn't worry you? MP3's have effectively eliminated all record stores in the US. I'd hate to see bookstores go the same way.
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Chris_morris (Chris_morris)
Username: Chris_morris

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 12.165.240.116
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 09:02 pm:   

Nathaniel: I'm an unrepentant book fetishist, and I can't wait for there to be an e-reader that suits my needs.

If you're an "unrepentant book fetishist" why do you want to support the technology to make them obsolete?

>> Anyone who can claim to love literature and not be excited at the thought of a device that would give them access to all of the works in the Gutenberg project, readably and for free must have some insight I don't.

You already have two such devices: a PC and the public library. Why do you need three?
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Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker)
Username: Stephen_theaker

Registered: 12-2009
Posted From: 62.30.117.235
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 09:04 pm:   

Well, I had to buy reams of paper for proofreading and editing, and now I don't. Therefore the Sony Reader has paid for itself. How you deal with your proofs doesn't really affect my finances!

When people say to Franzen, "I read your book on my Kindle", I very much doubt that he replies, "No, you didn't read my book."
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Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker)
Username: Stephen_theaker

Registered: 12-2009
Posted From: 62.30.117.235
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 09:05 pm:   

"I think technological advances should be able to help society progress without the additional sacrifice of culture or refinement."

Absolutely true, we just disagree in this instance. I believe that reading on the Sony I actually gain a deeper communion with the text. Free of the physical distractions and irritations of the paper form, it's just you and the book. The medium becomes invisible.

The thing with paper is, when it's all you've ever read books on, the irritations are invisible, inevitable, part of what you accept as reading.

Once you've read a book free of those distractions, they become glaringly obvious.
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Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker)
Username: Stephen_theaker

Registered: 12-2009
Posted From: 62.30.117.235
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 09:10 pm:   

"You have twenty Folio Society books too impractical to read. Your point in owning these, then, is to express your identity somehow through them. You have them to show off. It's true, no? Don't be embarrassed ..."

No, I bought them to read. After a few years I realised I hadn't read more than a couple of them, and could have bought fifty paperbacks for the same price, so I ended my membership. They do look nice on the shelf, but that's not enough to justify buying more of them.
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Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker)
Username: Stephen_theaker

Registered: 12-2009
Posted From: 62.30.117.235
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 09:16 pm:   

"Still, seriously: This doesn't worry you? MP3's have effectively eliminated all record stores in the US. I'd hate to see bookstores go the same way."

I've bought pretty much all my books and CDs from Amazon since pretty much the first day I discovered it. Buying ebooks instead of paper books from Amazon isn't going to have much of an effect on anyone except printers (and I do feel for them).

I expect there will be fewer bookshops, and they'll focus on higher end books and collectables at one end, and gift books at the other. It may well be that if the chains collapse the independent bookshops they've destroyed will start to pick up again.
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Chris_morris (Chris_morris)
Username: Chris_morris

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 12.165.240.116
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 09:23 pm:   

>> How you deal with your proofs doesn't really affect my finances!

Indeed, but your experience doesn't match mine is what I meant. You can edit on the Sony Reader? Really? I'll have to take your word for it. But for most readers, the point still stands: it won't pay for itself.

>> When people say to Franzen, "I read your book on my Kindle", I very much doubt that he replies, "No, you didn't read my book."

True. I doubt he'd call them "book people." I suppose he wouldn't sign their copy, either. :-)

>> The thing with paper is, when it's all you've ever read books on, the irritations are invisible, inevitable, part of what you accept as reading. Once you've read a book free of those distractions, they become glaringly obvious.

That's a good point. Certainly I've encountered books printed in horrible fonts, for instance, and it may be nice to read them in a more readable typeface. But this is rare. In most cases I prefer to read the text as it was offered. I have a couple of New York edition Henry James books that I far prefer reading to my reprints. (Contractions include spaces, such as "did n't," that I find utterly charming.)

Still, dude: do what you want. I won't stop you.
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Tom_alaerts (Tom_alaerts)
Username: Tom_alaerts

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 87.64.254.7
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 09:35 pm:   

But I wouldn't want to drink wine from a paper cup, and no argument about cheapness and portability would affect that opinion.

Ok, I admit, more than anything else, this argument has touched me to my very core. Drinking wine from paper cups... shudder !

Tom

ps btw if the resolution of an e-reader is high enough, then it could easily display DeLillo's Electra font convincingly. Myself, I am more a Garamond man :-)
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Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker)
Username: Stephen_theaker

Registered: 12-2009
Posted From: 62.30.117.235
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 10:36 pm:   

Once you've drunk wine from a glass, drinking wine from paper cups is definitely less appealing.

I think we can all agree on that. We'll just agree to interpret it differently.
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Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank

Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 188.146.171.184
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 11:03 pm:   

How about wine from the bottle on a bench in a park...oh, shit, sorry, as the great Bill Hicks said, 'wrong meeting, tomorrow I'm at the docks.'
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Nathaniel Tapley (Natt)
Username: Natt

Registered: 11-2009
Posted From: 78.146.245.79
Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - 11:40 pm:   

"If you're an "unrepentant book fetishist" why do you want to support the technology to make them obsolete?"

Because I believe that the idea that e-readers will make books obsolete is charmingly absurd. Because you're posing a non-existent tension between the written word and books themselves.

If e-readers aren't any good, how, exactly, are they going to make books obsolete?

The fact is that the two formats, as I showed, can perform entirely different functions. You can fetishise books without fetishising all books. You can recognise that there are instances in which an electronic file is both more appropriate and more convenient.

I can want an e-reader because, unlike you, I have faith in the fact that the paper book is a robust enough thing to withstand competition from something that can replicate its content. I believe that a lot of people will always want to hold a book, smell a book, have the book on their shelves. Because I believe these things I do not think, for a second, that they are in danger of becoming obsolete.

Books are worth fetishising because they spread information and entertainment throughout the world, hand to hand. They are beautiful things, useful things, valuable things. And, for certain purposes, those books would be better read and distributed using an e-reader.
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Ian Alexander Martin (Iam)
Username: Iam

Registered: 10-2009
Posted From: 64.180.64.74
Posted on Thursday, April 22, 2010 - 01:45 am:   

I've given-up trying to explain and even justify the use of e-books. It appears that no-one bothers to read my contributions, but I'll repeat these specific points:
  • the e-book doesn't reduce the number of paper books
  • no one will shove an e-reader down your throat (although it's tempting at times)
  • back-lists can be maintained in ways they no longer are through e-books
  • any book, no matter what the format, needs a writer
  • Atomic Fez e-books are 20%–50% the retail price of paper ones
  • earlier today I located an e-copy of a book I'd like to read for $4.50, when the tradepaper edition was $12.95 +shipping
  • the Kobo Reader is $150, but you can read the same books on your computer/laptop/smartphone/Sony Reader/iPad/etc.
  • through Kobo you can read the same books on your laptop/PC/smart-phone/Sony Reader/Kindle/iPad and swap those files around to your whim
  • the same applies to any Atomic Fez files bought through the site (due to no DRM)
  • e-book files are insanely simple and therefore compatibility isn't a problem
  • if you drop a paper book or an e-reader in the tub, you're screwed no matter what
  • a paper-based book is delivering words to your eyeballs the same way words on a screen do it; you're using the same brain to interpret the letters no matter what the delivery method, unless you make a fetish of the thing, in which case you're not reading primarily, you're making reading into something different, like "the only real books are hardcovers, paperbacks aren't real books"; fess up to the fact you're kinky
  • merely accepting that anyone would have a use for an e-book seems impossible for some to admit
And now I'll reduce myself to simply reading this discussion and shaking my head upon occasion.
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Chris_morris (Chris_morris)
Username: Chris_morris

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 98.220.97.79
Posted on Thursday, April 22, 2010 - 03:52 am:   

Nathaniel: >> If e-readers aren't any good, how, exactly, are they going to make books obsolete?

The same way MP3s, a lossy format, have virtually eliminated superior media.

I wish I believed as you do, but I work for a publisher that has already discussed the possibility of giving up paper books entirely. (Admittedly, we're not doing it yet.) And I've seen MP3s, a lossy format, take over the superior-quality LP and CD formats to the extent that the latter are quite difficult to find. I've seen iPods, ridiculous devices, nearly eliminate the American record store. I've seen the recording industry orchestrating their own obsolescence. And for whatever reason, I see publishers lining up to follow suit.

Do I think books will be entirely eliminated? No, probably not in my lifetime. But that doesn't mean I'll enjoy watching their decline.


Ian: Let me address your points one by one.

* Not yet they won't.
* True, but they can limit your other choices. No one shoved an iPod down my throat either, but owing to the availability of certain CDs versus the availability of those titles on iTunes, I have one, and I hate it. And no one has shoved a cell phone down my throat, not yet. I don't have one, and when I mention that fact, I get reactions as though I've just coughed up a chicken. The phone company in my state recently began greatly reducing the number of pay phones. This may not be "shoving cell phones down my throat," but it's certainly limiting my other choices.
* True. Although this point is not e-reader specific.
* Was someone arguing against this? MP3s need recording artists as well, but fewer of those artists are getting paid. If you're arguing that e-books will cause a great many more authors to flourish, I see little evidence to back up your claim.
* They're free if you get them on fileshare sites.
* Good for you.
* Yep. Or you could borrow the book from the library.
* An advantage for the file-stealers
* Ditto above.
* So are books.
* True dat.
* And wine is the same when drunk from a glass or a paper cup. Light is the same from a candle or a fluorescent light bulb. Digital watches tell the same time as analog ones. Arguing against such nonsense would make me "kinky."
* I have accepted that there are those who would have a use for an e-book. A PhD student, for instance, would certainly value the convenience of having a hundred books in his back pocket. I accept that many thousands of other people will have "use" for them, if you mean that they will read them and pretend they are a technological advantage. But I won't like it. In my view the only people who need cell phones are policemen, doctors, and Batman, and yet every day I'm stuck behind a chatty driver struggling to keep his car on the road. Accepting that someone has a use for a product is a far cry from acceptance that every adult who can afford one should have one, but the latter is the meaning I see suggested all the time in the media.
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Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank

Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 188.147.243.225
Posted on Thursday, April 22, 2010 - 11:12 am:   

I won't try to improve upon Chris' last message. He says it all.

Ian - there's no use shaking your head as if nobody has read your contributions, I understand where you're coming from, and I understand that you think perhaps 'ours' is knee-jerk reaction, but it's also 'us' who are shaking our heads at the need to suggest paper is a hindrance to reading. Sounds plain daft to me.

If e-readers had never been invented would so many people be announcing their dissatisfaction with paper, books, etc?????
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Nathaniel Tapley (Natt)
Username: Natt

Registered: 11-2009
Posted From: 78.146.245.79
Posted on Thursday, April 22, 2010 - 01:07 pm:   

"And I've seen MP3s, a lossy format, take over the superior-quality LP and CD formats to the extent that the latter are quite difficult to find."

Where, exactly, are they difficult to find? MP3s have precisely nothing to do with the decline in availability of LPs. When I was buying a lot of LPs and 45s in the late 1990s they were available in the same places they are available now: charity shops, specialist record shops, flea markets, and a couple of racks at the back of HMV. If anything, eBay has made it much easier to find specific LPs than it was fifteen years ago, and there are still just as many places where I can go and flick through them, browse.

The idea that you cannot buy CDs is just fanciful. When I go into any decent-sized supermarket, what are the racks full of? CDs. Not mp3s, CDs. The largest distribution channel for retail sales of music does not even sell mp3s.

Maybe in America the situation is a lot more bleak, but, in England, the retailers that have found it hard to stay open have been the chains. The pile-it-high, sell-it-cheap store in which the staff knew nothing about what they were selling. Independent shops where people can go to find new things, explore new music, and offer something more than 'Amazon in a shop' have done much better than Virgin (Zavvi) and HMV.

Incidentally, there are a number of lossless formats like FLAC. Do you only object to mp3s, then, because they are of a different quality to the recorded studio sound? Would you be fine with your iPod if it were filled with .WAVs, which you can set iTunes to rip your music from CDs into. It will take up a lot of space but will be exactly CD quality. There is no necessary loss of any information from the digital file you have compressed to get it onto a CD, and the exactly same series of 1s and 0s stored on a hard drive.

I must confess to feeling slightly baffled at people's feeling nostalgic about a digital format that has been in common use for about twenty years. Let us weep, too, for the MiniDisc, and the Digital Compact Cassette.

I shall continue to buy music on CD because, again, I like the way they look on my walls, and I like knowing that, in all events, they are mine and no DRM can take them away from me. And I'm just old-fashioned like that.

However, a number of my CDs are scratched, some of the older ones just refuse to work, and trying to train wives and children to remove them from cases and put them back in the same cases is almost an impossibility. Unlike the tactile experience of putting on an LP, the clattering of a CD into a tray which will probably get jammed, is not one I will miss.
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Tom_alaerts (Tom_alaerts)
Username: Tom_alaerts

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.78.35.185
Posted on Thursday, April 22, 2010 - 01:37 pm:   

I only like the feel of CDs when they are packaged in digipacks or similar cardboard sleeves - I never took a liking to those plastic jewel cases.

Anyway these days I mainly buy iTunes downloads; only the tracks that interest me. Occasionally I will buy a cd when it's completely good.

Incidentally, now that Nathaniel mentions FLAC (which is sadly not supported on the ipod; you need to convert it first); well there are a very few online audiophile music stores where you can purchase and download files that are actually higher in quality than CD; more like the rare format SA-Cd! You need a top-flight hifi system with a good D/A convertor linked to your computer to benefit from the increase in quality.
Info from one store (scroll to "studio master"):
http://www.linnrecords.com/linn-formats.aspx
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Chris_morris (Chris_morris)
Username: Chris_morris

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 12.165.240.116
Posted on Thursday, April 22, 2010 - 04:43 pm:   

>> Maybe in America the situation is a lot more bleak

It is. No 'supermarkets' sell CDs, and although a few 'big-box' stores, such as Costco or Wal-Mart, sell them, they only sell top 40 material, and only pop and country. It's true that the big music retailers have taken the biggest hits, but it's also true that independent music stores are disappearing with great regularity. In 1995 my little burg had more than fifteen independent stores, offering a variety of genres, and at least eight large-scale retailers. Now we have have three independent stores, all of which sell more or less the same thing (alternative rock, with a smattering of catalog rock and rap/hip-hop -- only one of these stores sells LPs), and no big retailers at all.

Admittedly my tastes are obscure but I can find nothing of interest at any of these stores. It's not just the obscure stuff that's hard to find, though: A few months ago I went to buy a Zappa CD for a nephew of mine (he heard my disc and liked it). He complained about Zappa being unavailable on iTunes, so I thought I'd buy him the CD. I had a surprisingly difficult time finding it. It wasn't an unfamiliar title -- Hot Rats -- but none of the record stores carry more than a couple of his discs around here. Yes, I ultimately got it on the Internet, but it seems pretty clear that we're moving away from CDs entirely.

A friend of mine who runs one of those independent record stores told me that he was surviving by carrying things iTunes didn't sell. Certain artists -- Tool, Bob Seger, AC/DC -- have yet to make the jump to iTunes so he tried to carry all the catalog CDs from them. (Don't ask me why he wasn't carrying more Zappa.) He tried to carry cutting-edge stuff from his niche market -- alternative rock -- as well: new artists, about-to-break artists, stuff like that. (iTunes may have those artists, but they aren't promoting them like he can in his store.) And he carries a lot of used CDs and imports, many of which aren't on iTunes. He tries to minimize common catalog items, though: he keeps no top 40 in stock, and he stocks only greatest hits titles from former alt-rock heavyweights. He keeps no catalog albums at all from legends like The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, or the Stones. His shop is just off campus of a local university, and yet he's told me how worried he is about how few young people come into the store. "My customers keep getting older," he said.

My problem with MP3s aren't just that they're lossy -- it's that they are lossy and have taken over the market. If you listen to classical or jazz you know how crappy the sound is from a MP3, and yet classical and jazz CDs/LPs are getting more and more difficult to find. Sure, I can find copies of jazz LPs on the Internet, but as many of them never enjoyed large-scale print runs in the first place, these titles are often rare and expensive. I went looking for a Don Cherry release recently and discovered it had never been issued on CD; the LP, a rarity, was fetching $75.00 and upwards. A little more digging revealed the fact that the album had in fact been released on CD -- with the track listing rearranged and with a different title -- but only in Japan. This Japanese pressing was expensive as well. Nonetheless the title was available on iTunes for $7.99 -- but on crappy MP3 format, of course.

Maybe this has never happened to you. Maybe your tastes aren't obscure. But if books are headed the same direction as CDs, it won't be long before the only paper titles you can find are the bestsellers, and obscure and semi-obscure authors (such as Ramsey himself, no doubt) will become difficult to obtain on any format other than the digital version.

>> I shall continue to buy music on CD because, again, I like the way they look on my walls, and I like knowing that, in all events, they are mine and no DRM can take them away from me. And I'm just old-fashioned like that.

Me too. But in America, at least, this is getting to be a rare point of view.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Thursday, April 22, 2010 - 04:54 pm:   

One of the most fundamental flaws of the ebook format is the fact that you lose the whole thing of browsing bookshops at random, selecting books off the shelf because they look interesting, reading the first couple of pages before either buying or putting them back.

I discovered several of my favourite authors this way, Rupert Thomson and Leslie Glaister for example. These are not authors who would ever be recommended to me by the Amazon “You liked this book, you’ll love this book” functionality which appears to be sponsored by Dan Brown.

I get at least one email a week telling me I’ll love Dan Brown because I like Mo Hayder, or Steven King, or even Ramsey. It’s got to the point where if Amazon recommends a writer I’ve not heard of before it puts me off.

As I said in another thread, E-readers are the solution to a problem that doesn’t exist. They’re another sign of the throwaway society that’s becoming so prevalent.

I’m not saying that they have no uses at all. I just think that the traditional ink on paper beats them on every count and no amount of proselytising by the gadget junkies will persuade me otherwise. I bet the people who are arguing so forcibly on their behalf all carry the latest i-phone or blackberry.
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Mick Curtis (Mick)
Username: Mick

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.182.229.104
Posted on Thursday, April 22, 2010 - 05:00 pm:   

More and more sites are starting to offer lossless formats - mostly FLAC, as Nathaniel says. I've bought quite a few albums online (delivered by download) and I'm a fussy bugger so I'll not touch MP3, but the FLACs go on a NAS and I have lovely music streamed to the front room at the touch of a few buttons. I still buy CDs, but pretty much all online, apart from the odd visit to places like Rough Trade East.
And I still buy vinyl. Hoo boy do I still buy vinyl!
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Nathaniel Tapley (Natt)
Username: Natt

Registered: 11-2009
Posted From: 89.240.106.50
Posted on Thursday, April 22, 2010 - 05:36 pm:   

I think we're talking at slightly cross-purposes, Chris. You seem not to count a CD as a CD if it's bought online. You can find Hot Rats within a couple of seconds on Amazon. On CD.

I buy lots of CDs from Amazon. I've had poor experiences with downloads from certain sites (we7) in the past, and, lots of the time, the CD is cheaper than what iTunes or Amazon would like to charge for the mp3s. My answer is to buy the CD and rip it to a digital format at a higher bitrate for convenience.

That's why I don't think CDs are being made obsolete. Having a shop which sells a limited number of poorly-chosen CDs with inexpert staff is becoming obsolete.

Personally, my tastes were so obscure that the Internet has done nothing but make the music I like more available. Try trawling high-street or independent record shops for music by Ivor Cutler or Jake Thackray. In the late 90s it was pretty impossible in suburban towns, or even small cities. I had to get HMV to order a CD by Jan Garbarek and the Hilliard Ensemble (one that was being heavily promoted at the time). Now, back catalogues are only a couple of clicks away. I can order anything I want myself.

Yes, iTunes store is terrible. There's a poor choice of low-quality, DRM-crippled music files. Fortunately, there are lots and lots of other places to get music online.

Music is easier to get hold of than it used to be, and my being able to buy it is good for the musicians and good for me.

With your Don Cherry example I can't help but think that you're blaming mp3s for something that is nothing to do with them. Given that he died well before mp3s became common, the fact that the album was never pressed onto CD in the west has nothing to do with them. Look at it this way, if you hadn't had the option of downloading it from iTunes (say, back in 1999) your only options would have been the LP or to buy an import CD (and good luck finding one without the Internet).

Try checking out the audio files made from old 78s at the Internet Archive (www.archive.org). Far more music, and far more obscure music is available to anyone with an Internet connection than ever was when we were dependent on high-street music shops. I shan't mourn their passing.
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Tom_alaerts (Tom_alaerts)
Username: Tom_alaerts

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.78.35.185
Posted on Thursday, April 22, 2010 - 05:37 pm:   

One of the most fundamental flaws of the ebook format is the fact that you lose the whole thing of browsing bookshops at random, selecting books off the shelf because they look interesting, reading the first couple of pages before either buying or putting them back.

That is in general true but internet bookstores are excellent if you do not live in an area like London where -if you look around- you can actually find interesting small press books in physical shops. Without the internet I would never have discovered Tartarus, PS Pub, Ash Tree and the like; or writers like Reggie Oliver.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Thursday, April 22, 2010 - 05:41 pm:   

Without the internet I would never have discovered Tartarus, PS Pub, Ash Tree and the like; or writers like Reggie Oliver.


But how much of that was through recommmendations from people on sites like this? And how much was the really satisfying thing of finding them for yourself? You can't just randomly search the internet for books by writers you've never heard of. That's a situation which is only going to get worse if e-books become more endemic.
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Nathaniel Tapley (Natt)
Username: Natt

Registered: 11-2009
Posted From: 89.240.106.50
Posted on Thursday, April 22, 2010 - 05:53 pm:   

For those who think CDs have somehow been made obsolete:

"PORT WASHINGTON, NEW YORK, August 18, 2009 – According to The NPD Group, a leading market research company, while CDs remain the most popular format for paid music purchases, digital music sales are making up an ever-greater share of U.S. music sales. CDs comprised 65 percent of all music sold in the first half of 2009 compared to paid digital downloads, which comprised 35 percent of music sales."

http://www.npd.com/press/releases/press_090818.html
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Chris_morris (Chris_morris)
Username: Chris_morris

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 12.165.240.116
Posted on Thursday, April 22, 2010 - 06:21 pm:   

>> You seem not to count a CD as a CD if it's bought online. You can find Hot Rats within a couple of seconds on Amazon. On CD.

No doubt. That's where I bought it. My point was that even artists that are not obscure -- and are unavailable on iTunes -- are no longer available at bricks-and-mortar shops.

Apparently 76% of Americans have Internet access either at home or at work. No telling how many of those who have it only "at work" are able to use it to shop. Still, that means at least one-quarter of the population has no access to Amazon or its CD shop. This is not insignificant. This means that, for them, Hot Rats is effectively out of print. So are the bulk of catalog rock CDs from many classic artists -- the ones not carried by Wal-Mart or bothered with by the local independents. It's strange to me to think that for many Americans, the Led Zeppelin catalog is no longer available, but it appears to be true.

>> Try trawling high-street or independent record shops for music by Ivor Cutler or Jake Thackray.

No doubt. My point exactly. But you can get LPs by Cutler on iTunes for $9.99. How much longer do you think record labels will even continue to press such material on the more expensive formats?

(Incidentally, for what it's worth, I'd never heard of either artist, but having looked them up, I can say that both sound pretty good to me. I'll have to check them both out later.)

>> Music is easier to get hold of than it used to be, and my being able to buy it is good for the musicians and good for me.

It's true that music is easier to get a hold of than ever, if you have an Internet connection, but it's not true that people are always buying it. Filesharing is rampant, and is a legitimate threat to the music industry.

Finally, my Don Cherry example was only to show another example of how easy it is to find the cheaper, inferior quality MP3 version of obscure material. Yes, it's true that if it weren't for iTunes, I'd have to pay much more for it, although it could be argued that without iTunes, eventually the record label would press a CD version. The record label was responsible, after all, for releasing the music to iTunes. Clearly they decided it wasn't worth the effort nowadays to release an American CD and chose iTunes instead. How much longer before all titles follow suit?

(Additionally, I'll check out your music archive link when I have more time. Thanks for that.)
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.4.228.123
Posted on Thursday, April 22, 2010 - 08:48 pm:   

(Not read this whole thread, so maybe this has been mentioned, but Chris's comments about OOP music and such reminds me....

(A used bookstore owner the other day was telling me about how the tax law changed regarding inventory, specifically as it pertained to books; and that this change in tax law, devastated the printing decisions, and the "out of print" inventory/backstock situations, of booksellers and dealers and publishers, etc. He was getting confusing, and losing me; but, from what he claimed, it seemed to be the number one reason why so few older books are reprinted, etc., anymore?... Does anyone know what he was talking about?...

(Back to your regularly-scheduled program)
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Tom_alaerts (Tom_alaerts)
Username: Tom_alaerts

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.78.35.185
Posted on Friday, April 23, 2010 - 09:09 am:   

> But how much of that was through recommmendations from people on sites like this? And how much was the really satisfying thing of finding them for yourself? You can't just randomly search the internet for books by writers you've never heard of. That's a situation which is only going to get worse if e-books become more endemic.

Yes indeed sites as these help, but what I wanted to say is that I can't find a large portion of the kind of interesting small press books I crave in brick and mortar stores. I order nearly all of these online.
It is true that it is fun to discover something really good when browsing in a bookstore, which is less common when browsing say on amazon - but it happens. I found that their evil data mining system that says "people interested in this book also bought that book" regularly (not always) comes up with suggestions that are really good & totally aligned with my taste.

Finally, while I understand that many here prefer the look and feel of physical books (in fact I do as well); I don't see why it is necessary to write dismissively about people who actually like ebooks for various reasons (or who think that they can be good enough). I mentioned my colleague who loves taking her big electronic library on all her business trips, and I am not going to suggest to her that she won't be able really appreciate the stories this way.
Books and ebooks can and will coexist for a very long time to come.

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