Well, just because you can’t imagine it, doesn’t mean it can’t happen.
My kids are getting old enough for longer stories, so I downloaded “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” - original Baum version, copyright 1900. Every night they’d get a chapter or two, read by Dad. Very little language was changed from the original - I’d just explain what the strange words meant. Life has changed a bit in a century.
My five-year-old twins hung on every word, even without pictures.
Don’t forget some of the other advantages though. Like I mentioned above, using my Sony Reader, I can check out ebooks online from the local library. So, free is pretty good. But a bigger advantage for me comes on my commute or when I’m traveling. I always struggled to find a combination of books that 1) I could carry 2) would get me through a long trip 3) had some variety so I wasn’t stuck if it turned out I didn’t like a particular book. So now I’ve got this very thin, very light device that has about 38 books on it at last count.
No, it’s not. But what it does for me is maximize my reading time - because I always have content with me, it is of a varied sort, and if I have a spare five minutes, it can be filled with words as easily as music lovers fill their spare moments with tunes.
I have three small children and a full time job. This aspect of the Kindle makes it just about priceless for me.
I was assuming you’d buy the book new, then sell it. The used book stores around here can’t be counted on as sources for specific books; I can occasionally find somewhat new books there, but if I go looking for “book X”, I’m almost certain to be disappointed.
I also gave up selling to my local used book store (there’s only one in town) because they really don’t give me enough to make it worth it. I brought it a pile of hardcovers, all popular and published within the past 6-9 months. I probably paid $120 for those books. They gave me about $12 for them. For that price, I’ll keep 'em.
But regardless, no, you don’t necessarily buy a Kindle for the price of the books. In certain circumstances (like me, living in the middle of nowhere without a lot of bookshops), it works out. But if you’re looking for bargain-basement used prices, then no, the Kindle isn’t going to give you those.
I’m in grad school, so hell no.
As long as academia exists, and as long as its primary mode of information transferral is the reading of massive quantities of gray text, the book will survive and, indeed, thrive.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention - you do have to some conversions, depending on the file types. There’s free software out there (I use mobiPocket) that does a good job.
Books aren’t obsolete yet, but they’re clearly going to be.
Consider all the paper media that already is obsolete: reference books went obsolete first, simply because new editions take so long to prepare, and they are too bulky to be portable anyway. Web-based references are more accurate, and, now that telephones have internet connectivity, more portable as well.
Newspapers and magazines are rapidly becoming obsolete. Subscriptions are dropping and readership is aging. Again, as internet connectivity becomes easier and more portable, the benefits of carrying paper around with you to read news that’s a day or a month old keep dropping.
People in this thread are talking about mainly mass-market books, the kind that you can stuff in a backpack (or a back pocket) and read when you feel like it. The major factor holding back electronic readers on those fronts is cost and the ability to share. Cost will come down. In 10 years, the equivalent of the Kindle, which will be far more comfortable and feature-rich, will cost $50. It wouldn’t surprise me if they start giving them away with some purchases. Sharing will work itself out, too. Either companies will offer titles that can be transferred, or piracy will fill the void, or the publishers will hold out long enough that social attitudes about books change, and people will accept that you just can’t resell written works. I’m hoping for the former, but any of the above will allow electronic books to supplant paper ones.
The claims that books will never be obsolete because the feel of a book is special, or because you can’t fill a bookshelf with a Kindle are, frankly, pretty silly. Do you drive a car with a manual transmission? Do you watch movies only on a film projector? Do you listen to music only on vinyl, and write letters with quill pens and manual typewriters?
Yeah, I’m sure that a few of you do do those things, but the vast majority of people don’t. Convenience will win out over aesthetics in the mass market. There will always be a niche of book collectors and archivists that will guarantee that some limited print runs are made, but as far as the current distribution model, with bookshops in every major shopping center, the writing’s on the wall.
I’ll never curl up in bed with anything that requires batteries! Not anything educational, anyway. The book will live on.
Thanks, Athena. I think I still love books just because of the feel of the pages, the smell, the weight of the book. Also, if they go obsolete, will people be able to afford things like Kindle? Or buying new kindles if theirs break…books just seem so accessible to the masses.
How many people do you know that don’t have a DVD player and/or VCR? Those things both cost more at buy-in than going to the movies, but most people - even low income folks - seem to find the cash to buy them. Movie theaters haven’t been obsoleted, but the VCR certainly changed how people watch movies.
I suspect electronic book readers to be the same thing. I don’t see them as obsoleting books, rather I see them as alternative ways to read. I, too, like the feel of a real book, and as I said before, held off buying a Kindle until Mr. Athena got sick of me talking about it and just bought me one.
And speaking of the movie metaphor, I see a Netflix type thing for eBooks as being the way to go. You pay $15/month (or whatever) and can have X number of books “checked out” at a time. Audible.com does something like this for audio books. I sure would like to see someone do it for eBooks.
When you’re waaaay out in the desert, you can’t start a fire or wipe you butt with a Kindle.
Several literary agents, including mine, have purchased Kindles or other eReaders and love them. These are people who live off the publishing industry, and they’re seeing the benefits of eReaders. I do believe the printed book will become more-or-less obsolete within 15 years as the technology improves and/or cheapens. Books won’t disappear entirely, of course, but hell, you could probably buy illuminated manuscripts if you wanted to these days; but it’s not like they’re common.
That just kills me. I decided to load an audiobook on my iPod for my last short flight, and I got a nice pair of noise-canceling headphones because it’s a noisy prop plane. From the time I sat down on the plane until the time I got off was just under 90 minutes. I couldn’t use the iPod for 37 minutes of that time. And that’s a device that doesn’t transmit or receive anything!
There will be a place for an electronic device, but for someone active like myself, there are places that I read that I’d never bring a hand held recreational electronic device.
Hunting. A paperback book dropped from a stand won’t break. Electronics could.
Fishing. Water and electronics don’t mix. If I drop a book, it gets wet, and may be ruined, but it won’t be as expensive a loss.
Camping… often with water travel. See wetness issues above (reading in front of the campfire before it gets dark is a great joy of mine, when camping with the right group)
Car/engine repair manuals. I don’t mind if the paper gets grease on it, but I’d be angry if I got grease on my electronic device. You also can’t make notes with a pencil/pen on an electronic copy. An electronic stylus on a screen doesn’t have the same feel, or ease of use when writing IMO.
Any situation where it could be left behind. I’ve left behind more than one book on a plane, and while annoying, it was easily, and cheaply replaced. And a flight attendant will never tell me to turn my book “off” in preparation for departure or landing. (See InvisibleWombat’s post re: MP3 players)
A book will also never run out of batteries with 4 pages left to go, an hour from the nearest plug to recharge. (also mentioned before)
Cool toy, but like the “paperless office,” it’s unlikely to completely replace the printed copy.
I’m definately old school as far as liking the feel of a book in my hands, but it looks like the Kindle has begun addressing my biggest point of resistance, the display.
It’s big step in the right direction, but it still needs color and a faster refresh time for me to seriously consider it. Just not enough umph to justify $400.
re: the cost. When DVD players first came out they were $500 and up. Now you can pick them up by the cartload for 30 bucks a pop at Wal-Mart. The cost will go down with improvements in the tech and someone finally coming up with an interface that people are comfortable with.
At that point they will be waterproof to 100m with a similar shock rating and will survive being dropped down a flight of stairs or being used as a teething toy by Jr. And if it doesn’t survuve it is still disposable. If it’s a book you’ll have to borrow or buy another copy to finish it.
Just had to address this one. Not exactly an ebook target audience. Most of them won’t be interested in reading anything more mind expanding than the National Enquirer to find out where Elvis was spotted this week.
Or for the more homebound of us, reading in the bathtub, or poolside.
While I think digital medium has changed music radically I don’t see it changing books in the same way. It will have some effect but that doesn’t mean that it can’t be adjusted for.
I would be more worried about kids not reading books as a trend because they spend time playing computer games. Newspapers are disappearing because they aren’t keeping up with their own demographic audience.
I think the problem with running a bookstore is that you have to be an expert on everything when it comes time to buy inventory. Example, I wanted to buy a book on Origami and I went to a huge bookstore. The selection was horrible. But unless you’ve tried origami you wouldn’t know what to look for. I ended up buying a number of books online based on consumer feedback and examples. I often go to websites to get feedback and then buy books locally.
I think I love you.
(I own a bookstore)
Nothing to add to this thread except that I posted this from my Kindle.
(So do I, partly, that’s why I started the thread!)