With a price point of $1.00 to $8.00, Dad should be able to buy his own copy, eh? I believe the need for sharing the physical copies is greatly reduced with ebooks. You and Dad can literally read it together.
Oh, I know it is just damned fool sentimentalism. I’m sure my opinions will change over time. I used to dislike MP3s, preferring CDs and record stores. It was nice to have something in my hand. A collection of CDS/records/cassettes takes up physical space and gave me a stronger sense of ownership than an MP3, which only takes up space on my hard disk(s). I got over that, though, and now seldom purchase albums on traditional formats. It’s only a matter of time, I’m sure, until I abandon books, too. Like I do today with music CDs, I may still buy books that I really like and merely keep ebooks of the rest. Until then, though, I’ll hang on to my musty tomes.
I definitely think that there’s something lost in the transition to digital media. I mean, if you poked your head into my garage you’d see an astonishing display of obsolete equipment; a letterpress, an Intertype, old press cameras, a typewriter or two. But I love that I have 60 or 70 books in my jacket pocket. I read so much more now that I always have most of my books with me at all times and that is a huge plus that outweighs the stuff I miss.
Quoth seodoa:
Just because the goggles are an inch deep, doesn’t mean that the images have to be an inch in front of your eyes. With some fairly straightforward optics, you can put the image at whatever distance you want.
What i was disagreeing with was this:
I am saying that if you pare back the hardware to just what is needed to load, store, and display books you could reduce the cost to what I consider reasonable (<$50).
To address your second point, yes you can break it or it can be stolen, but so what? That’s true of an iPod, a cell phone or a laptop. I bought my first PDA in 2000 and my fourth about two months ago. I cracked the screen on the first one because I had it in a cheap belt clip before I discovered cargo pants. The second still worked the last time i pulled it out, the third I carried every day for over four years. I took it to Europe, South America, Asia, and Australia. I took it to the pool, the gym, the beach, the mountains and the jungle. I did drop it multiple times, broke one metal case and beat the hell out of another one. The screen is still fine and I would be using it still if not for the fact that it started continuously locking up. But I consider the $185 I paid for money well spent since I know I saved twice that in book costs over the same period.
I do agree with you about reading from a cell phone. I consider the Palm screen to be the perfect size for ebooks. Small enough to read with one hand comfortably, but big enough for a reasonable amount of text. Pictures and diagrams do not come through well, but that is a trade off I am willing to make.
For me it’s because they aren’t actual books. You miss the experience of holding a book, curling up on the couch with a blanket, sipping a glass of wine and flipping through the pages. Or going to a bookstore and being around the sight and smell of all those books.
As much as I’m a technology junkie, I just don’t think I could give that up for an electronic device.
it’s gotta be cheaper. That is the bottom line.
We didn’t start really using MP3s until we learned how to pirate them. And we didn’t start paying for MP3s until they made buying them easier than pirating them.
The MP3 revolution came only because they made the price of getting a hit song go from the price of a nice dinner out to the price of a cup of coffee. Ebooks need to do the same thing. Ten bucks may seem like nothing to you, but for millions of Americans it’s a lot to pay for something you can’t touch.
Of course the chances of this happening soon are vanishingly small. The publishing industry is as much of a corrupt dinosaur as the music industry.
I work for a newspaper, so I think about this a lot, and I think the same holds true for books, although not to exactly the same degree.
With current printing technology, all of the infrastructure cost is on the publisher - presses, paper, ink, labor, distribution - and the result is (often) something that is disposable and is used only one time (or a few times if passed on to other readers). Of course many books are kept for a long time, or are re-used often in a library, but the actual value of most paper books or magazines or newspapers is small, because they can be replaced for a relatively small outlay. Hence the comment way upthread that someone might leave a paperback at their table while they went to the bathroom (or something like that) but wouldn’t consider doing that with an e-book reader.
With e-books, much of the infrastructure cost is being borne by the user/reader. This is what several have already complained about, the devices are too expensive. The payoffs (e.g. being able to carry around several hundred books at once if you want to) are not yet perceived as valuable enough to offset that initial infrastructure expense. Also the fact that much popular content is not much cheaper for e-book readers than it is for a paper book.
To really turn the corner on this (especially for newspapers) the devices will have to be cheap, or else they will have to be nearly indestructible, difficult (or worthless) to steal, and easy to recover if lost. There is a ways to go on all of those fronts.
Roddy
The chances of it happening on a widespread scale immediately are very small. But there are plenty of thriving epublishers and by and large, the books are much cheaper than $10. There are other large publishers getting in on the epublishing scene. For example, Harlequin has released many current and classic titles. They also have specific lines that release exclusively through ebooks. That might not seem like much to people who don’t read romance, but it’s the largest publisher in the largest market in publishing. If they see the money making potential, and they succeed, others will eventually follow suit.
I really don’t get the fetishism surrounding “holding” and “smelling” a book. And I say that as somebody with a BA in English and an MA in British Literature. I love to read. I’d rather have a dozen books in my purse than one heavy, clunky thing to pack around under my arm.
It’s a visceral experience. Yes, I get most of my news online, but I still enjoy sitting and reading the newspaper on my lunch. There’s just something immensely satisfying about turning the pages and going through each section. Similar with a book for me. I just love having a book in my hands or going through a bookstore, especially a used bookstore. I can spend hours going through the stacks and finding a new book or sometimes better, an old favorite.
I have a friend who will never stop talking about all the ebooks he has downloaded and seems really into the technology. But on further investigation, he has adopted the technology primarily because he can now read any book he wants without paying for it thanks to piracy.
As has been mentioned by myself and others, it’s akin to the fetishism of LPs vs. CDs/MP3s. Several people have also pointed out the aesthetic value of a good book collection. I think a private library filled with rows upon rows of books is immensely more aesthetically pleasing than a room of empty shelves save for a Kindle. Yes, you saved so much space, but at what cost, man, at what cost?! 
On that matter, I would much quicker to adopt ebooks if they had a system like CDs where you can rip and encode into a digital format. Many people still buy CDs but then rip them onto their computer to transfer to an MP3 player. They get to have the simple pleasure knowing that the physically own a CD rather than being licensed the rights to some 1s and 0s. (Yes, I know licensing comes into play with CDs, too, but it is not quite as apparent to the end user) Without an option like this, people are forced to purchase the book and then pay an extra fee for the convenience of the ebook. Some won’t mind paying the fee, but I think other people like me will.
ebooks will be widespread when you don’t have to buy them separately. like how everyone carries a camera with them nowadays.
Nothing. The technology is fine and getting better. I’m a big fan of e-books but I am not a fan of being ripped off. Before I give up the advantages of a DRM-free dead tree version I expect two things:
- Non-proprietary formats
- Substantial cost savings.
Regarding point 2. No - I am not paying 50p less for an electronic version. I expect to save substantially more than that. Books are ridiculously priced and available at discounts if you shop around so usually I’m being asked to pay more for the electronic version of something I want.
When a paperback that retails at 8.99 comes in well below £5 get back to me. It’s the same as with CD’s. At £15 a pop I buy none. At £6.99 they become impulse buys. The industry has to figure out what they want:
100% of nothing or 25% of something.
How about another sort of test: I will both drop my library (the one on my e-book reader( and the device that stores it from a height of three feet onto my head. You will do the same for the equivalent amount of books and its storage onto your head from the same height.
Btw, I have 600 books on my Palm Lifedrive. It will always weigh about half a pound no matter how many books I place on it. How much does a 600 book library and its bookcases weigh? Also, the cost of the bookcases for that library will equal the cost of a good PDA or ereader. How much space do you use for book storage in your house?
My goal is to remove all but one book case (I have 5 at the moment) from my house. I’ll leave the current text books, reference books, and those that have some specific meaning in my past. Everything else goes to the used bookstore for the Luddites.
I use my PDA as a reader because it is very convenient. I can adjust the font, I can adjust the back light to whatever level I want (only direct sunlight washes it out), I can bookmark, I can make notes on what I’m reading, I can make notes, I can carry thousands of books, I can search all my books, I can beam (send) my books to others who use the same ereader software using infrared or bluetooth, I can play games, I can browse the internet, I can read at night when the wife is sleeping without disturbing her with a light or making noises turning pages, I use it as an address book, I use it as my alarm clock, I keep my travel itineraries on it, I have a program that keeps track of calories, I have a cookbook that allows me to create a shopping list so I can easily click off items I already have in my cupboard and shop for the rest, I have a world clock that adjusts the time to wherever I am at the moment, I carry family pictures on it, I use the calendar to remind me of important events, and I have a storage vault on it that encrypts the hundreds of logins and passwords that I use on the net and at work. Pretty good for 1 item that fits in the palm of my hand. What book do you have that does all that?
The only drawback is that it doesn’t display PDF files well and it probably won’t survive a drop from 6’ (any less and I’ve already dropped it from). BTW, I don’t throw my physical books on the ground or leave them on a seat of a train, either.
Another issue is standby time. I put a paperback in my pocket, read it for half an hour at lunch every two days.
Another issue is Alternate Books. I’m reading a phonebook-sized collection of Bone, the comic, and I also refer to a Dungeons and Dragons book which is coffee-table sized, frequently.
Actually, I tend to refer to the PDF of said D&D book for referring to the specific rule, but if I’m looking for something I’m not sure of, the paper is handier to flip back and forth in.
So I’d need multiple readers. Plus, ah, not all these books are available in PDF form, or text-based PDF form…
Another issue is that, when I was using my Palm for e-books, either I read faster than the screen was convenient to show, or the text was a bit small. A page on a PDA sized book is not a normal page. Screws with layout.
I guess I should address the OP.
From the people I’ve talked with I’ve heard all the reasons posted here as to why they like regular books, but the majority of those people are the ones least likely to use newer technology if another method is available.
Example: My wife won’t send an email if she can call on the phone. Even for things that a quick email would suffice. I gave her one of my older PDA’s to read books on. She tossed it. She didn’t like the size of the font. I changed it for her. She threw it away anyways.
Another example: A friend will call me every time something changes on his computer. Even when the dialogue box only has one choice 'OK" he feels the need to call me. “This is different, is there a problem?” No it isn’t different, but, yeah, there is a problem, you won’t hit ‘OK’. He likes the ‘feel’ of a real book.
Not complete Luddites because they will gladly use the latest MP3 player and mobile phone, but will curse like mad if it doesn’t do exactly what they want when they want it to. And both will ask me how to set them up even though I’ve never seen them before and could care less about MP3 players or phones.
I think if they don’t find an obvious use for the technology they won’t use it and don’t care to spend the time and money to see if it is useful when an easy, convenient, and known alternative they have been using for years is available to them. Why switch? I understand that as I probably wouldn’t have switched if I didn’t travel so much. But now that I have switched and enjoy the so obvious real benefits, I can’t see any reason to go back for the few benefits of books on paper. Plus I’m not killing trees. Hopefully all you traditional book lovers aren’t environmentalists, too.
I would add to this that we are already carying around a laptop, an MP3 player and a cellphone. Three gadgets which are becoming more and more like each other. In a few years, you won’t need a separate phone and MP3 player (I only keep both because I haven’t bought a smartphone yet and none of them have the capacity of a 120 GB iPod). What do I need to carry yet another device that perfroms a function can easily be handled by one of the other devices?
Rendering HTML (especially the subset of HTML that would be sufficient to allow e-books to have basic formatting and picutres) isn’t all that intensive. As far as the display goes, I’d hold out for color so that the e-book reader could also be used as a photo album.
Hmmm… “goggles” set me off. What would make me shell out the cash? Technical & monetary issues can be ironed out, but I want something more. I’m not alone.
What about books with color pictures?