# Kindle vs Paperback: Where's The Advantage? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 22, 2011, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kindle-vs-paperback-wheres-the-advantage/589931 "2011-07-22T01:50:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Quasimodem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/e274bd/32.png) [@Quasimodem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quasimodem)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2011, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kindle-vs-paperback-wheres-the-advantage/589931/1 "2011-07-22T01:50:57Z")
Checked the price of Baldacci’s new one out in paperback today at the grocery store. Price: $10.99. A Kindle download of the same book:$12.99. I thought Kindle/Amazon were in competition with the booksellers? If I’m at the store anyway, I may as well pick up the paperback, right? Sounds a little like what Netflix is doing: not giving a shit. Thanks Q ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2011, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kindle-vs-paperback-wheres-the-advantage/589931/2 "2011-07-22T02:05:42Z")
The advantage is in not having to have the book. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2011, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kindle-vs-paperback-wheres-the-advantage/589931/3 "2011-07-22T02:05:58Z")
> [@Quasimodem](#): > > Checked the price of Baldacci’s new one out in paperback today at the grocery store. Price: $10.99. A Kindle download of the same book:$12.99. > > I thought Kindle/Amazon were in competition with the booksellers? > > If I’m at the store anyway, I may as well pick up the paperback, right? > > Sounds a little like what Netflix is doing: not giving a shit. > > Thanks > > Q Yeah but you can pay the extra $2 and have the book alongside 100 other books in one tiny device. You can read it one-handed laying in bed. You can buy it while sitting on the toilet. It won’t end up in a landfill. You won’t lose it in a fire or a flood. You don’t scratch your head and wonder why a loaf of bread is more expensive at the gas station than the grocery store do you? Convenience is the name of the game! ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2011, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kindle-vs-paperback-wheres-the-advantage/589931/4 "2011-07-22T02:21:41Z")
> [@ZipperJJ](#): > > You can read it one-handed laying in bed. You can buy it while sitting on the toilet. I can certainly do these things with paperbacks. > [@ZipperJJ](#): > > You won’t lose it in a fire or a flood. …you really hope. ---
**Author:** ![Sudden\_Kestrel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecd19e/32.png) [@Sudden\_Kestrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sudden_Kestrel)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2011, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kindle-vs-paperback-wheres-the-advantage/589931/5 "2011-07-22T02:24:53Z")
Kindles (and other e-readers, I assume) are great for those of us who have eyes bigger than libraries; we don’t have to provide shelf space for all of those books. I’m always running out of room due to my visits to the secondhand stores’ book departments as it is. The other advantage for me is that I read a lot of books that are large and heavy, and since I have repetitive stress injuries to my hands I would have a much harder time reading them in physical book form than I do on my Kindle. I haven’t run into any books so far that are more expensive in the Kindle store than otherwise, but that probably has something to do with the type of books I buy. I suppose it’s like anything else in retail: they charge more for the things more people are likely to want. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2011, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kindle-vs-paperback-wheres-the-advantage/589931/6 "2011-07-22T02:36:09Z")
> [@ZipperJJ](#): > > You can buy it while sitting on the toilet. Oh, _buy_ it. I thought that was “read it.” ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2011, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kindle-vs-paperback-wheres-the-advantage/589931/7 "2011-07-22T02:40:26Z")
> [@ZipperJJ](#): > > Yeah but you can pay the extra $2 and have the book alongside 100 other books in one tiny device. You can read it one-handed laying in bed. You can buy it while sitting on the toilet. It won’t end up in a landfill. You won’t lose it in a fire or a flood. Sure you can, e-readers aren’t indestructible. And Amazon can decide to reach out and delete or censor “your” books whenever they want because they aren’t actually yours. ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2011, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kindle-vs-paperback-wheres-the-advantage/589931/8 "2011-07-22T04:04:01Z")
The ebook in my online class wasn’t uploading. It took 2 emails and a tech call to fix the problem. This is why paper books rule. And I love having 2000+ books around my place. Gives it tone. ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2011, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kindle-vs-paperback-wheres-the-advantage/589931/9 "2011-07-22T04:06:32Z")
> [@ZipperJJ](#): > > You can read it one-handed laying in bed. Nah, the picture quality isn’t that good. ---
**Author:** ![obfusciatrist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4af34b/32.png) [@obfusciatrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obfusciatrist)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2011, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kindle-vs-paperback-wheres-the-advantage/589931/10 "2011-07-22T04:07:27Z")
They could, but I’m not too worried about it. And if they do I can then go out and buy a paper copy of the book if I need one. I’d pay the same price as paper for the convenience of not having the physical object to deal with (since 99% of all the books I ever bought were of no value to me after I finished reading it). That said, Amazon doesn’t get to set their prices in a vacuum, the publisher has something to say about it. Amazon’s eBook edition is likely from the hardcover publisher and priced in relation to that. Eventually the price will likely come down. If you look at the other Baldacci titles that have been out in paperback for more than a couple weeks the prices are all similar to the paperback price. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2011, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kindle-vs-paperback-wheres-the-advantage/589931/11 "2011-07-22T04:11:02Z")
You can load NONAMAZON books in a kindle as well. I have every book Baen has published to date, which includes a bunch of free books, all sorts of stuff from Gutenberg, and there are other places to get free books, or to buy books that are not amazon and not locked with DRM. [My roomie currently carries my kindle, I prefer to read on my droid. I would not have bought the kindle but it was a christmas present] ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2011, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kindle-vs-paperback-wheres-the-advantage/589931/12 "2011-07-22T04:17:30Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats](#): > > And I love having 2000+ books around my place. Gives it tone. That too. A place just doesn’t feel like home to me until I have my bookcases all up and filled. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2011, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kindle-vs-paperback-wheres-the-advantage/589931/13 "2011-07-22T11:56:51Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > That too. A place just doesn’t feel like home to me until I have my bookcases all up and filled. Up and filled and those unsorted piles that I’m really going to get around to in odd corners. (I shop thrift stores for books almost exclusively, and I like science fiction and fantasy series. The unpredicatable availability means I have several series with Book 1, Book 2, and books 5 through 7 waiting until I find books 3 and 4. Jim Butcher readers don’t donate their copies anywhere near quickly enough.) ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2011, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kindle-vs-paperback-wheres-the-advantage/589931/14 "2011-07-22T12:05:14Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats](#): > > The ebook in my online class wasn’t uploading. It took 2 emails and a tech call to fix the problem. My argument against electronic textbooks is the phrase “I couldn’t do the assignment - my book crashed.” > [@Der Trihs](#): > > Amazon can decide to reach out and delete or censor “your” books whenever they want because they aren’t actually yours. This was actually a plot point in one of Jasper Fforde’s Tuesday next books, which predated the Kindle by several years - the proposal to limit books to three readings to stop people from sharing them. Scary. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2011, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kindle-vs-paperback-wheres-the-advantage/589931/15 "2011-07-22T12:37:47Z")
I love my Kindle, but that doesn’t mean I have to give up paperback or hardcover books. Or the library. Some books are worth having physically. Some are cheaper in physical form. Most are cheaper in ebook form and most aren’t worth owning physically. I have a 3500 square foot house and too many books already - plenty of bookcases up and filled, plenty of stacks of books in corners and we are constantly giving away books because we have no more room for them. But the nice thing about the Kindle is that when I leave for lunch and get finished with the book I read, I have 40 sitting on my Kindle I can reread. Or, as long as I’m near an open wifi, I can buy another one. And there are TONS of really cheap books out there. The kindle is - surprisingly - a better reading experience. Its lighter than a paperback. It has a better form factor. I find it easier to read. And, when my 44 year old eyes get tired, I can change the text size. Mine fell into my hands for free, I would have NEVER thought I’d like one and only gave it a try because I had one and thought I’d try it before I gave it away. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2011, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kindle-vs-paperback-wheres-the-advantage/589931/16 "2011-07-22T12:45:17Z")
If they’re not going to pass along the savings they get by eliminating publication and distribution costs, I’ll just keep buying paperbacks, thanks. ---
**Author:** ![NAF1138](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naf1138/32/3245_2.png) [@NAF1138](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NAF1138)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2011, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kindle-vs-paperback-wheres-the-advantage/589931/17 "2011-07-22T12:52:16Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > The kindle is - surprisingly - a better reading experience. Its lighter than a paperback. It has a better form factor. I find it easier to read. This. I only have 4 or 5 actual amazon books on my kindle, everything else is public domain or purchased from the publisher (like Baen). I have a few hundred books on my Kindle. I read it all the time, at the gym, in line at the grocery store, in bed before going to sleep. Hell if my wife wants to go to sleep I switch to the kindle app on my phone (or for non Amazon books a different ebook reader, the kindle app has limitations). Then the new George R R Martin book _A Dance With Dragons_ came out. I really want to read this book. I have been waiting for six years to read this book. I was given a copy of this book in hardcover (I have them all in hardcover) when it was released. It’s frustrating to read the damn thing! It’s not portable enough. It’s heavy, and clumsy and huge. I can’t take it with me easily to the store or the gym, and I can’t read it in the dark on my phone. When my wife wants to go to bed I have to go to the living room to keep reading. I know these are petty things, and it’s not like I am not reading the book, but the eBook experience is nicer in a lot of ways. I am not going to buy it again on eBook, but if I could get a copy of the eBook with the hardcover for free (like Baen does) I would probably be reading that version instead and using the paper version just to look at maps and reference appendices. Edit: the pricing thing is stupid though. All eBooks used to be $9.99 on Amazon until book publishers stepped in and started mandating their own prices. This is a large part of the reason why I won’t by Amazon eBooks if I can help it. There are enough good eBooks to be found elsewhere and non price gouging prices. ---
**Author:** ![Shakester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shakester/32/437_2.png) [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2011, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kindle-vs-paperback-wheres-the-advantage/589931/18 "2011-07-22T12:52:44Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Amazon can decide to reach out and delete or censor “your” books whenever they want because they aren’t actually yours. I’m pretty sure we’ve been over this before. I strip the DRM from all my eBooks. It’s quite simple to do. I have secure back-ups of all of my eBooks, including the ones I bought from Amazon. In fact I have backups of all my important data in completely separate locations, so even if my house burned down or was carried away by a flood, I’d _still_ have copies of my ebooks. Can you say that of your dead-tree books? I don’t use the wi-fi thing on my Kindle anyway, and I haven’t registered it with Amazon. That means that Big Brother Amazon couldn’t delete anything from my Kindle even if they wanted to. So, no, you are wrong. I own my eBooks and they’re completely secure. ---
**Author:** ![NAF1138](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naf1138/32/3245_2.png) [@NAF1138](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NAF1138)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2011, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kindle-vs-paperback-wheres-the-advantage/589931/19 "2011-07-22T12:58:12Z")
> [@Shakester](#): > > I’m pretty sure we’ve been over this before. I strip the DRM from all my eBooks. It’s quite simple to do. I have secure back-ups of all of my eBooks, including the ones I bought from Amazon. In fact I have backups of all my important data in completely separate locations, so even if my house burned down or was carried away by a flood, I’d _still_ have copies of my ebooks. Can you say that of your dead-tree books? > > I don’t use the wi-fi thing on my Kindle anyway, and I haven’t registered it with Amazon. That means that Big Brother Amazon couldn’t delete anything from my Kindle even if they wanted to. > > So, no, you are wrong. I own my eBooks and they’re completely secure. How do you strip the DRM from the eBooks? PM me if this gets into questionable legal territory. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2011, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kindle-vs-paperback-wheres-the-advantage/589931/20 "2011-07-22T13:02:13Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > I love my Kindle, but that doesn’t mean I have to give up paperback or hardcover books. Or the library. Ditto. I own a Kindle. At this point I have 70+ books on it, slowly building up my library. And yet I still have a whole bunch of books at home, and I went to the library on Wednesday. It’s not a replacement for books. It’s an addition. I just don’t have the space for all those books. And I also have secure backups for all of my e-books. I never download from Amazon straight onto my Kindle; I use the interim step of my computer and then I backup my computer. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kindle-vs-paperback-wheres-the-advantage/589931.md?page=2)