An Xbox is gonna be the same price online as it is in the b&m, more if you count cost of shipping. Why wait 2-3 days for FedUPS to throw a mangled box in your house’s general direction instead of walking out with it now?
I should have included “in the longer term” + :). Anyway, it costs manufacturing and transpert energy to deliver an e-book reader or similar device and I can assure you that in 10 years time most people won’t be reading from the same e-book device they have today.
Transport not transpert.
It probably takes more energy to manufacture a reader than a book, but I doubt it takes more to transport one. So, unless it takes hundreds of times more energy to make the reader than to print the book, the e-reader will win.
I’d actually be interested to see any studies on the impact on total energy consumption of the increase in electronic rather than physical media. My gut feeling is that in total they’d use less, but I couldn’t say how much. I assume server farms use less energy than fleets of mail trucks, but I can’t be certain.
Well, I found this summary that puts the environmental break-even point for e-readers vs dead trees at somewhere between 30-60 books in the lifetime of the device. I imagine that the energy break-even point must be pretty similar.
Interesting. I was thinking on a slightly larger scale than that, as in a few decades time I suspect that any sort of physical media, for books, music, films, video games, or whatever, will be almost obsolete, and if they exist will be small scale collectors items, and that that will have a significant effect on energy consumption and environmental issues, but it’s rather hard to predict what it will be.
I think I may be a Luddite, but it’s as much from ineptitude as conviction; I don’t have an ereader because I don’t even have a cell phone. Because I’m not convinced I’ve hung up unless I hear a “click”, if I can even find where “off” is. And who has fingers that small to correctly hit the right numbers, and letters?
I just realized I’ve never ordered a book online. I do have a mile-long Wish List of used books on Amazon though. Maybe one of these days I can order the whole lot.
My thing is, I have several books that relate (to me.) Case in point: for some reason I’m fascinated with the turn of the century. (Not this one, the last one.) Teddy Roosevelt, King Edward…the period before WWI and the clothes. Especially the clothes. I have an illlustrated book of fashion from around the 1880’s to the 1920’s maybe. One of the innovative designers of that latter time had a famous sister who wrote fiction. (She later worked as an advisor in films. She started the term “It” girls.) I don’t have her most famous book but I do have a less well-known one found at an Old & Rare bookstore. squee
Anyway, I have a “shared” biography about them. Also an art book with a painting illustrating one of the first sister’s style. And an article from an old Parade Magazine depicting a “look” that was prominent in the 1890’s and some illustrations of how Princess Di emulated Alexandria’s style (whose book of photograpy I also have)…all in all about a dozen books full of torn scraps of paper with the other book title and page number jotted on it so I can go back and forth.
How can an ereader allow me to do that?
The last bit? Yes. You can make notes and “tab” pages of an e-book, at least on a Kindle or the Kindle app. They’ll even show up when you open the same book on another eReader. I’ve started buying my law school casebooks in e-book form so I can read them on my laptop at school and on my Kindle in bed, on the toilet, etc.
In that case I need to give it a try.
Question: are all college books available as e-books? Are they cheaper?
And that, as I’ve said in this and other threads, is a day to be feared, IMO: when the publisher of a work has complete and utter control over our access to it, and the used market ceases to exist (and thus every replacement must be a completely new purchase, most likely at full price).
Not all (certainly not law school books), but I know a couple of undergrads that haven’t bought a physical book yet. This is complicated by the occasional professor who doesn’t allow any electronic devices in class, though you can always print the pages you need for that day.
They’re cheaper than buying new books, usually. Not always cheaper than buying used ones.
Thanks for the info. Good luck with your studies!
Here’s a question, inspired by my thoughts above: what do you think will happen to those prices when there IS no used textbook market, because they’re all e-books?
As a published author, I think libraries and children will keep prints afloat for least a generation. I have no problem letting my ten year old borrow books from our great library with the enthusiastic and loving children’s librarian to advise her on her choices. I’m not so sure I want her and her messy little fingers near my kindle. My publisher has had great success targeting libraries. Librarians like paper books because that’s what their libraries mostly have. Lending out e-books is more complicated and hasn’t been sorted out quite yet. People like libraries because the books are free to read.
So I think the children’s market and the good old fashioned library will still have print books and form a market for them for a good long while. I buy my 4th grader books all the time. She can mess up a five dollar paperback at no great fiscal loss but I shudder to think of her and her dripping ice cream cone near the much pricier electronic device.
LavenderBlue, when a Kindle-like device is $10 will you think differently?
I probably would. But there’s another factor as well. Right now I buy my daughter books through the Scholastic book club at school. The school sends in a check and they deliver the books a few weeks later. She likes getting books at school through the mail. Getting them that way is very exciting for her.
I think there are certain niches that just won’t be filled by kindles. I like large, pretty hardcover books. I buy them as presents. Those aren’t the same on kindle. I also agree with the people who said cookbooks aren’t the same with a kindle.
Another factor is the problem we have around here in my NJ town with a reliable power source. I can read paper books during the day without a power source unlike the kindle. If we get another Hurricane Sandy with no power for nine days I like having my paper books around for entertainment.
If anything, I suspect they’ll come down a bit. The end of the used textbook market means increased new-book sales. An increase in new sales volume means the books don’t have to be quite so astronomically expensive in order to be profitable.
I don’t know anything about the publishing industry, but I’d guess that the process will be less expensive once books are no longer being published in parallel print and electronic editions, too.
Kindles are about as cheap as they’re going to get for the foreseeable future without outside help.
That’s for the Fire, which is more of a tablet than an ebook reader. There’s no reason the no-frills versions for those of us who just want to read stuff couldn’t get cheaper. My wife got me a Kindle Paperwhite for Christmas, which was exactly what I wanted, but I can’t really figure out why it costs more than $100. Other than Wi-Fi connectivity and screen size, it’s no more complex than a mid-90s cellphone.
The largish touchscreen, the battery, the wi-fi, the built-in memory…
It’s not very complex, but there’s enough parts that $50-$100 will probably always be the price of even a basic Kindle.