This came up in a recent GQ thread on stripped books in which another thread on whether or not paper books are obsolete was referenced. While some of the issues are discussed, I think this deserves a separate thread. So, up for debate what is keeping books from making the digital jump that music is making?
My thoughts:
For any change in delivery method you must either offer lower cost or better experience. Since reading for most is a cherished activity, it needs to offer both in a fairly significant way. At this point ebooks could offer both.
Cost: Forget the Kindle and the Sony reader. They are both overpowered, over engineered, too big, and suffer from fatal feature creep. Get rid of the WiFi, BlueTooth, web browser, and other extraneous doodads. Here is what a dedicated eReader needs:
[ol]
[li]A relatively high resolution (160x320) monochrome non-touch screen[/li][li]An ergonomic design that can be comfortably held and operated with one hand.[/li][li]Easily carried[/li][li]Long battery life, or ability to change batteries/charge on the go[/li][li]Slow, low power consuming processor[/li][li]Memory expansion port[/li][li]PC synch[/li][li]Publisher/Distributor agnostic[/li][/ol]
You could take the cheaper Palm PDA, put in a slower processor, replace the color touch screen with a monchrome screen, remove some built in memory in favor of a MMC/SD port, strip down the operating system and put only a book reader on, and viola, you could have a sub $50 device that would meet my requirements. You could also have higher end devices, but there needs to be a workable, low cost reader.
Also forget Amazon and MobiPocket models of distributing. Look at Baen’s WebSubcription (now with more publishers signing on). Single books range from $4 to $6 (depending on when they were put on the system) and bundles of eight books (includingfor $15 dollars. They also have a free library with 100 sample books from various authors and series.
At worst you would save a few dollars over paper back price, at best you pay about 25% what you would for a paperback when the book is only available as a hardcover(so real savings of 90% if you can’t wait for the paper back). That would mean you would recover the cost of the reader after 25 books, worst case, and the reader plus a cover and 2gb SD card ($20 and $15 respectively) after two or three books.
This is getting long, so I will post now and come back to the feature issue in a while.
Add “non eye straining display”. I, and many others, would prefer to read books on paper as we already get enough eye strain from looking at monitors as it is.
I wouldn’t pay more than a dollar or so for an e-book if it weren’t in an open format and on a non eyestraining device.
Electronic paper technology is what is holding it back IMHO. A cheap, reprogrammable, flexible material that has some kind of WiFi or other data interface (ETA: and very small power requirements or some kind of light powered technology embedded in it). Something cheap enough that losing it or breaking it won’t be a major problem but is user friendly enough that anyone can use it.
I think the current tech is too expensive and thus it’s cheaper and easier to simply buy a book (or download an audio version and listen to it on your MP3 or iPod…which is what I generally do these days when I travel).
Most new electronic books, such as the Kindle, use electronic ink, which uses real ink particles rather than glowing dots to show the letters. The advantage is that it looks much more like real ink on paper, producing much less eyestrain. The disadvantage is, like real ink on paper, it requires a separate light source to read by.
I have a Kindle and I really like it. Sure, it doesn’t entirely take the place of paper books, but I like the way it can hold a whole bunch of books I’m reading at the same time, while being no lighter than a paperback. And I can read on it for hours. Perfect for long trips.
One hitch is that most screen technologies are less comfortable to read than printed paper. Another is that books are incredibly more robust than any electronic device: When you buy a book, you have a single self-contained unit that never runs out of batteries, never crashes, can survive being dropped or bent, and needs no other hardware to use.
In addition to the technological obstacle, there are also financial obstacles. Most companies (with Baen being a notable exception) are still very uncomfortable with the idea of books that can be so easily copied. So they either build in some sort of DRM for their e-books, which are a hassle and a half for the legitimate users, or they don’t release e-books at all.
One thing that puts me off is that it’s another gadget I have to be careful with.
-I can leave a cheap novel on my seat on a train when I get up to use the toilet - I would not do the same with an ebook.
-I can put a paperback in my coat pocket and it won’t suffer too badly if I use the coat to sit on damp grass - an ebook is likely to be broken.
Convergence with some other gadget that I am already committed to looking after would be one way to market it to me - my phone would be an obvious choice - but I’ve tried reading ebooks on several handheld devices - mostly PalmOS powered - and it was not a comfortable experience at all.
Both replies so far refer to eye strain. Monochrome LCD does not flicker and can have excellent resolution in good light, or in poor light with a backlight. With the proper text size, do you get eyestrain when looking at this type of display? I got my mother reading books on Sony Clie and she loves it even though reading on an LCD monitor gives her a head ache (she had fibromyalgia and holding regular books sometimes hurts here wrists).
BTW, a few years ago some friends of mine and I kicked around the idea of producing menu’s for restaurants using some kind of electronic paper that would be reprogrammable and allow data to flow both ways so you could, in theory, order your meal, drinks, snacks, whatever, right from your menu without having to have a waiter to take your order. You could check your orders progress, receive menu updates on specials and such, make changes to the recipe, etc etc…perhaps even view your food as it was being cooked.
All of this stuff is possible and we actually wrote some prototype software that would do all this stuff, as well as worked out the wireless data connections…but it was simply too expensive at the time. I understand that there have been some breakthroughs in electronic paper since then and wireless data tech has gotten a LOT smaller, so I wouldn’t be surprised if someone out there is thinking along the lines we were and actually developing such a system. We figured if you could make electronic menus for around $5 per unit it would be cost effective for restaurants to put in such a system…the novelty as well as the enhanced service alone would justify the cost.
E-books could work in a similar way if they could also get web updates in real time from news and periodical companies…would be way cool if someone puts it all together. It will all come down to unit cost though…and ease of manufacturing.
I’ll relate my personal experience. I was an early adopter. I bought a RCA Gemstar eBook back in the late 1990s and absolutely loved it.
I was a little frustrated sometimes with the book selection, but much of what I wanted was available, and I could always find enough books to buy to load 6-7 novels onto the device prior to going on vacation.
It had backlighting so I could read with all the other lights out. It was also readable in bright sunlight on the beach. The text size could be changed. All in all, I was very happy.
Then they went out of business and my investment was lost. Sigh. Apparently they were far ahead of their time.
Other than selection which doesn’t seem to be a problem these days, the only issue I had is the difficulty with sharing. When my wife and I go on vacation, we’ll both take books. When I finish one she’ll put it into her pile. And vice versa. With the eBook, this wasn’t possible. When I finished a book, I couldn’t give it to her to read because I needed the eBook to read the next book that I had downloaded.
In spite of my overall positive experience with the eBook, I’m resisting buying a Kindle because of a) fear of obsolescence, and b) the sharing problem noted above.
My hesitation has nothing to do with form or design or functionality, and I never had a problem with eye strain.
I still use an old Toshiba Dynapad tablet computer running Win 3.11 for reading. It has all the heft someone would want, if they were looking for something that weighs as much as the OED (not really) and reasonable battery life ~8hrs. Would suck for proper, store-bought eBooks (note the OS) but the world of Project Gutenberg is my oyster.
Forget the nostalgia for a minute. Some people will always prefer the feel and smell of a book, just like some people love the sound of vinyl or tubes. That did not keep CDs or MP3s from succeeding. Here are the advantages of a good digital reader distribution system (outside of cost):
[ol]
[li]Portability: I can fit my PDA in my pocket (I always wear cargo pants/shorts whenever possible and it lives in my left front pocket). I can carry a library on the plane, in the car, or where ever I go. Since I tend read anytime I have a spare moment (computer booting, I can get a few pages in), this the big one for me.[/li][li]Readability: I can read anywhere, in any lighting conditions without strain. If I am alone at a movie or waiting for my wife to come back from the concession stand, I read instead of watching the stupid slide show. When my newborn son would only sleep while laying on my chest at a 72 degree angle in the dark, I could read to pass the time. If I get in bed after my wife is asleep and I need to read a little to wind down, I can do it without turning on the light.[/li][li]Automatic bookmarking, search functions, and notes. I sometimes read multiple books at the same time. I can close one book, read part of another and when I reopen the first I am at the right place. I rarely use the other options, but they are there if I want them.[/li][li]Storage. I do not have enough room in my house for all the books I want. The library is great, but with ebooks I don’t have to return them or even go pick them up. I just download and go.[/li][/ol]
At this point and time I do not think portable digital makes sense for books that depend on illustrations (comic books, graphic novels, collections of comics, or text books), but for most books it is a better reading experience for me
The nice thing about the ebooks I use is there is no DRM. You could beam the book via IR port or just load it on both readers. Eric Flint wrote a lot about DRM and piracy and why he was pushing digital books. Look here under Prime Palaver. Baen books is great about their digital books because when you buy them, you get all formats, forever. They currently offer HTML and RTF as well as several proprietary formats for different readers and OSs. I can download as many times as I want and transfer them to any reader I own.
I still maintain that if you stuck to just a dedicated book reader without web browsing and games, you could do it cheap enough to make the economics work out for everyone except bookstores. Unfortunately digital books will hurt bookstores even more than online bookstores hurt brick and mortar ones.
What’s holding back e-books is the fact that real books are convenient, cheap (at the library, free) and rugged; e-books are trying to solve a non-existent problem, IMO. Mangetout is right: e-books are too fragile, and their price tag makes them too stealable. Drop one on a hard surface or in the tub, or roll over on it while sleeping, and whoops, there goes $400. You can’t relax with them, and relaxing is the whole point of reading. Just be careful, you say? Howzabout I go with a real book, so I don’t have to? You can shit all over a real book and suffer, what, a few dog-earred covers? I spilled an entire large drink on a library book once. All I did was curse a blue streak and let the pages dry out. I then finished the book, returned it, and no one was the wiser. Try that with your e-book.
Turn the question around. What’s the appeal of e-books?
I was skeptical of the ebook concept until this summer. Then I bought a Sony Reader. I don’t think the technology is still where it needs to be for mass acceptance, but it’s close enough for me.
I can check out ebooks from the local library directly from their website. I can get books, for free, no trips to the library needed.
I can carry a lot of books at one time. This is especially important when I travel. The bulk I have to carry is greatly reduced.
The ebook library tool I use also formats and loads my choice of current newspapers and magazines on to my Reader every time I plug it in. Very convenient.
The screen is very nice.
I’m puzzled by the comments in this thread that the Sony and the Kindle are too big. If anything, I think their screens are maybe a little too small. The screen on my Sony is just about paperback-sized. If it got any smaller, I’d spend more time flipping pages than reading. I tried out one of the iPhone-based reading applications and did not like it. Just not enough screen real estate.
eta: reason 5. I can easily eat and read. No need to hold the pages down or crack the spine to make the pages lie flat.