E-Readers (Kindle, Nook, using iPad for reading) yay or nay

How does reading a book provide a faint narcissistic thrill?

yeah i was gonna say

maybe that poll option got truncated?

i have no interest in an e-reader because books are easier, more convenient, less breakable, cheaper and because i absolutely treasure NOT having to look at a screen for once

e-readers are v interesting from publishers' perspectives but from a consumer perspective i have no idea what the attraction is

it was, the full option was "I like the feel and smell of musty yellowed paper and the faint narcissistic thrill and I'm a douchebag"

i mean i don't fetishise the physical or anything but...like, when i'm on the move i prefer a paperback to a hardback book, and...similarly i prefer a book to an unwieldy fucking machine

All reading is on the iPad.

books are easier - nope
more convenient - nope
less breakable - ok
cheaper - it depends
because i absolutely treasure NOT having to look at a screen for once - then quit ilx

sorry guys just prepping my new persona as the e-reader hardman

sighhhhh technological evangelists are the worst people

i wouldn't object to using an e-reader but i'm not about to drop £££££ on one and neither is anyone likely to buy me a present any time soon

books are easier - nope
more convenient - nope
cheaper - it depends

Index or Table of Contents look up are much easier in a physical book.
Don't see why cheaper is always better, either.

e-readers have their flaws but i was picking at lex because he doesn't really seem to know that much about them. they aren't unwieldy (the newest ones are lighter and smaller than most paperbacks), they aren't particularly expensive, and the attractions to the consumer are pretty clear (being able to carry around a huge library of books, near-instant downloads of new books, including free access to pretty much any public domain text)

also looking at an e-ink screen is not the same as looking at a computer screen

if i find myself on a bus or train or in a room with some time to kill, and maybe i'm not sitting comfortably or whatever, it is obviously easier to pull out a paperback and then shove it back in my bag or pocket if i need to move on quickly, then to pull out and switch on a whole fucking machine that definitely won't be as easy to shove away afterwards

Books don't die when you get them wet, either.

why would i want to carry around a library of books? i want to OWN a library of books but i read one at a time

haw i heard the e-reader technology has failed to ensure that file-sharing of books can't take place. whoops there goes the publishing industry

the kindle on the amazon front page is £89, in what world is that "not particularly expensive"?

also looking at an e-ink screen is not the same as looking at a computer screen

people say this but given how much of my work and leisure time involves looking at a computer screen i do value the time i have not having to look at any kind of electronic device

Pulling out, switching on, and putting away my e-reader no more difficult than a book. I just slip it in a pocket like I would a paperback. Plus I don't have to leaf through to whatever page I was on, and it's easier to read one-handed on the tube.

ok lex you shouldn't get an e-reader

is anybody gonna talk about the resource cost of e-readers vs. books

e-readers are way more convenient than regular books on public transportation, you can hold it and turn pages with just one hand!

That's basically the best reason for getting one.

ie: an object composed of toxic chemicals that will be obsolete within several years vs. object composed of renewable resource that will last forever

xp

voted I own an e-reader and split my reading between that and regular books

xps

E ink is a world different from any backlit screen. I get overstimulated really easily and have to put away my computer, but E ink isn't any harder on my eyes than regular paper. When I 1st got my e-reader (nook) I wasn't sure if I would use it much, but it turns out that I use it constantly. I have a cover which makes mine really easy to read hands-free. I just have to tap it to turn the page.

My brother-in-law bought the new Kindle for my sister for Christmas, but loved it so much that he kept it for himself and ordered another for her. The newest Kindle (E ink) looks fantastic.

the environmental impact question of books vs. e-readers has not been settled; there are a lot of complicated factors involved
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/12/01/HOCR1M0J6B.DTL

I've owned a nook color for a year now. I love it and use it almost every day. I read books, subscribe to magazines, use some of the apps.

But! My wife just bought a Samsung Galaxy. MANY of the apps that I use on my nook - and have paid B&N money for - are apparently available free to her through whatever Samsung's interface is. Additionally, there are definitely a wider variety of apps available.

I own an e-reader (kindle) and it is awesome but still split my reading between that and regular books

And of course, because it represents one of the most proven models of "reuse" around, the greenest option of all is still your local public library.

^^^pretty conclusive to me

GHG emissions are just part of the picture. cuz the other problem with devices like e-books isn't the amount of CO2 emitted in their manufacture, it's the toxic elements involved

personally I read a lot (def more than 22 books per year) but everything I read is either used or from the library. I think the only new books I've bought are comic books.

including loads of stuff that (surprise) is not available for e-readers

iPad, some reading but not the majority yet. I've bought e-editions of the 2nd Alex Ross book and the ESPN oral history, gotten a bunch of older free stuff in the public domain, and *cough* discovered some science fiction and Faulkner here and there on the web.

if i find myself on a bus or train or in a room with some time to kill, and maybe i'm not sitting comfortably or whatever, it is obviously easier to pull out a paperback and then shove it back in my bag or pocket if i need to move on quickly, then to pull out and switch on a whole fucking machine that definitely won't be as easy to shove away afterwards

You really have no clue what an e-reader is, do you? Also, no interest in learning; only decrying (cf. Cooking) .

I love my Nook mostly because I don't have a lot of storage space in my house for print books and it is very portable -- I can throw it in my purse and have lots of books available to read.

The reason I favor the Nook over the Kindle is that Amazon has not been crazy about Kindle users using Overdrive so that they can borrow ebooks from libraries or to share books. I'm not trying to sound like a Nook commercial, I'm sure that's probably true of the iPad or other ereaders that aren't the Kindle.

No it's cool, Amazon really are a bunch of assholes.

You really have no clue what an e-reader is, do you? Also, no interest in learning; only decrying (cf. Cooking) .

wtf? fuck you, seriously

i'm sure amazon are assholes but kindles are compatible with overdrive now

i have seen e-readers, both other people using them and ones belonging to friends of mine. they don't look anywhere near as easy to handle as a book.

as for cooking i tried for ten fucking years.

Yet you still have enormous misconceptions about them that you insist on defending despite hearing evidence that contradicts them.

did you even read my post?

Bickering aside, what do advocates of e-readers have to say about their effect on the availability of books, etc. to those who can't afford the readers, or otherwise don't have access to them?

I own an e-reader but I think it's mostly dud/still mainly read regular books

I own an e-reader and it's pretty classic but I still mainly read regular books.

Was sort of considering buying my mother one for Christmas but she is not super comfortable with computers (she is fairly competent at various Office tasks but will complain about how illogical they are all the way) and I think she is kind of attached to the idea of paper books

(also e-books are super expensive unless you are adept at finding real ebook links among download scam sites, which is totally not a route I want to have to coach my mother to go down - the Amazon ebook price is rarely more than a couple of pounds cheaper than the paperback price, and I don't see my mother wanting to pay that for something "virtual" which she'll be scared she'll delete by accident, or which Amazon have the right to take away from you again without warning)

case spudette's mother is the person in this thread i feel i have most in common with (and all her concerns otm!)

i'm with lex on this one

also it's kind of annoying posting in a thread with actual reasons that haven't been disproven and being shouted down just b/c i'm not on-message technologically - how do you people cope with the vast majority of people who are even less comfortable using new technology than i am?

Your positions have been rationally countered. You had no rebuttal except to restate your original positions.

how do you people cope with the vast majority of people who are even less comfortable using new technology than i am?

laughing and pointing, mainly

"nope", "nope", "nope" ≠ rational countering

c'mon lex they told you you were wrong, what more could you want

kindle for majority

Easy, cheaper, instant access to books

Lighter and more portable than one paperback

Free books

easier to read in bed/bath too

E ink screen does not strain eyes/cause headaches like backlit screen can

Basic models are very simple to use. I recently got my 1st cell phone ever, a very basic one, and it was more complicated than my e-reader.

Lex: n/a, ledge, julia, silverfish and others have presented benefits that counter your detractions. There are on 54 posts itt atm so they should be pretty easy to find... Or Are you trying to rea this thread using a paperback format?

fake sandbox lex

ie: an object composed of toxic chemicals that will be obsolete within several years vs. object composed of renewable resource that will last forever

― aesthetic partisan (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, December 15, 2011 1:16 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Permalink

this kinda analysis is actually very difficult to do cause "someone buys a paperback" involves more emissions than just cutting down some trees, you also have the emissions from a. transit of object b. brick+mortar store c. transit of human being to buy object. then if you really want to drive this to the ground you can say 'well what else would people be doing with that bookstore location, what happens to the money we'll save/spend w/ ebooks, etc. also w/ the way the economy works right now, isn't any new economic activity basically bad for the environment somewhere down the line? a: yeah...' even 'just go to the library' is like, fine, okay that works on an individual level, but libraries w/ physical books depend on a system where lots of people publish and buy physical copies of books.

you also have to consider that people are buying tablet type computers *regardless* of how much they read, so it's not really and either/or decision w/ paper books. using myself as an example I might buy a tablet *instead* of buying a new laptop and eventually tablet-devices will probably do everything our laptops do so reading a book on them won't be any 'worse for the environment' than reading ilx.

in conclusion there are better things to worry bout.

I read pirated ebooks on my iPad, like I downloaded every Discworld novel recently. l1br4ry.nu is hit-or-miss for textbooky things. I bought a few indie tabletop roleplaying games as PDFs that I read on the iPad.

Basically I might pay $3 but not $10 for an ebook of what would be a backlist mass-market paperback and I don't really want to buy a physical backlist mass-market paperback. Humongous postmodern novels, physical all the way.

I say, "get that e-reader offa my lawn, you punks!"

iatee otm. Just think of the carbon footprint of this baby
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v296/WilliamCrump63/libraryken.jpg

reading a kindle in the city vs. reading a paperback in the suburbs

classic

Ytvgyivihbhi hjkhi

I just read that on my ereader.

The abridged version of Finnegans Wake with shorter thunderwords?

l1br4ry.nu

hmm, is this something that requires an invite?

Is the name in the URL of the image above being familiar just a coincidence?

Jesse, read me an ebook before bed. Plz.

The one with all the pretty pictures.

I am not especially for or against e-readers or paper. What was bugging me was that a couple advocates of paper ITT have been ardent and unrelenting in their derision of e-readers. Of course the poll is pretty inflammatory, but to me it feels like a reaction to the sanctimony coming from some of those in the throes of a backlash against e-readers.

I do not own an e-reader, but I will probably wind up with one sooner or later. I do most of my pleasure/personal interest reading on my iPhone, on my personal laptop, or my work computer. Reading on the iPhone is not great b/c it's just too small, and it's not e-ink.

As I see it - the merits e-reading and dead tree reading:

Paper:

- Flipping through and skimming is far easier

- Enjoyment of the tactile aspect, holding a real object, and being able to write on it (this is especially important to me). And autographable.

- Feels familiar and somehow wholesome, authentic, natural, earthy

- Won't malfunction, for the most part

- No great initial expenditure

- Accessible to more people

- Related to the last three: When the revolution or Armageddon comes, we will be able to use printed matter long after e-readers' batteries have died. (also, easier to smuggle paper - just try to carry a Kingle or Nook in your own "nook")

e-reading:

- Index or Table of Contents look up are much easier in a physical book. I find that this view is the other way around for me.

Nearly every single time I'm reading on paper, I wish for Ctrl+F capability. Especially if it's informational reading.

- Hyperlinks. To definitions, allusions, related information, etc.

- Portability. One light-weight device holds voluminous amounts of text.

- After the cost of purchasing the device, e-text is comparable or cheaper. And, as I understand it, e-books are available on loan from libraries (many? some?).

- Convenience of downloading reading material v. borrowing at the library, buying at a store, ordering online, borrowing from a friend, stealing.

- Kindle is idiot-simple to use. There are people in my life who are profoundly tech illiterate who enjoy their Kindles.

That is a big post.

maybe that poll option got truncated?

― nuhnuhnuh, Thursday, December 15, 2011 5:48 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Permalink

It said something about liking other people to know what you read in the park/on the subway etc. (b/c kindle ain't got covers right)

Anyway for the most part I just haven't taken very well to the e-reader experience. I don't especially dislike it, it's more like I just never felt like a book was something that needed improving. With the iPod I quickly saw the advantages of having a ton of different music in one tiny place, not having to change CD's, etc. With books it's pretty rare that I'd want more than one on me - in fact the vast possibility of e-readers is a distraction from reading for me (it's even worse with the iPad).

ie: an object composed of toxic chemicals that will be obsolete within several years vs. object composed of renewable resource that will last forever

― aesthetic partisan (Shakey Mo Collier),

this makes me realize you've never been to a paper mill.

Tonight I started some music with the Eno app Bloom, then I browsed through some books trying to decide which one to read next, and then I wrote two emails, and then Jaq started a Words With Friends game against me. Did all that from the same screen. SO difficult.

Lex's adversarial relationship with tech is such that I'd trust his opinion on e-readers as soon as I trusted his opinion on kitchen gear.

l1br4ry.nu

hmm, is this something that requires an invite?

― William (C), Thursday, December 15, 2011 9:17 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Permalink

lol no it's just g00gl3proofed

though when you visit it asks you to log in, and has no options to sign up

the ebook era adds a weird dimension to digital rights stuff - like I have a nypl card and my gf's college library has like every book known to man - between the two I can at the moment check out any book I'd ever want w/ a bit of legwork. and when I want to read something I generally do one of the two. otoh, if I found and illegally dl'd that same book for a kindle, it somehow seems harder to defend?

there was an ilxory party last week where virginia plain (librarian) and I were having a discussion w/ this twirpy author who kept claiming (w/ a shit eating grin) that he felt like libraries violated his property rights.

maybe there should be a spotify for books, idk.

xp to self whoa wait does it? I don't think it used to. I guess it does.

I own an e-reader and split my reading between that and regular books was my vote. Haven't bought a single e-book, I use gutenberg and yes I get pirated copies of non out-of-copyright stuff - but since I got my e-reader I've borrowed and bought more real books than ever before.

I don't especially dislike it, it's more like I just never felt like a book was something that needed improving. With the iPod I quickly saw the advantages of having a ton of different music in one tiny place, not having to change CD's, etc.

^^^^

With the e-reader I quickly saw the advantages of having a ton of different books in one place, e.g. when I am on holiday and don't want to fill my luggage with bulky weighty tomes.

or just y'know maybe not wanting to read the one book at a time

there was an ilxory party last week where virginia plain (librarian) and I were having a discussion w/ this twirpy author who kept claiming (w/ a shit eating grin) that he felt like libraries violated his property rights.

You should tell us his name so we can all illegally download his books.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

re-reading Lem's "Return from the Stars" (1961) this morning, lol'd at this passage:

"No longer was it possible to pbrowse among shelves, to weigh volumes in the hand, to feel their heft, the promise of ponderous reading. The books were crystals with recorded contents. They could be read with the aid of an opton, which was similar to a book but had only one page between the covers. At a touch, successive pages of the text appeared on it. But optons were little used, the sales-robot told me. The public preferred lectons - lectons read out loud, they could be set to any voice, tempo, and modulation... The robot that served me was itself an encyclopedia, in that - as it told me - it was linkeed directly, through electronic catalogues, to templates of every book on Earth."

this makes me realize you've never been to a paper mill.

my point was that books are largely non-toxic and easily recycled at the end of their useful life, which is typically decades after being printed. this is not the case with e-readers, which will be obsolete in a few years, and cannot be easily recycled.

also dunno if yr aware of this but paper grows on trees and you can always grow more trees. after all the rare earth metals are mined, it's not like the earth's gonna make a lot more in a few years.

there's also the kid in 'stars in my pockets like grains of sand' who has an Absorb The Entire Western Canon brain plug or w/e

w.h. smith had demo units of their version of this idea out and i had a go on one and it took somewhere over a second to load the next 'page' of text -- are other units this bad? is it just me who finds this terrible and unworkable with?

if there was one that connected straight up to jstor etc i'd die for it. to read, like, novels, seems kind of pointless.

also the death of typography and the reading environment etc etc

like: I have no interest in an e-reader; I like the feel and smell of musty yellowed paper and the faint narcissistic thrill

understates the case of this stuff somewhat. thinking of the text of a book as some platonic ideal away from all decisions as to where it physically lies on the page = colossal dud

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-O1_Ky06bV30/TodrT6hyl2I/AAAAAAAAAqU/-8VkV8t8gZc/s400/Hepburn12_152.jpg

http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewFile/1405/1323/14245

I have idly wondered how material that plays with typefaces and typesetting (like, say Alfred Bester, or Aldiss' Barefoot in the Head) is handled by e-readers

gotta say, when i think of that kind of thing those are the two first names to pop into my head too

ha i just got a nook and its p cool but this thread makes me want to take a hammer to it

the other thing I idly wonder about is how e-readers handle books that aren't intended to be read in sequence - Cortazar's Hopscotch for ex.

Hyperlinks?

my point was that books are largely non-toxic and easily recycled at the end of their useful life, which is typically decades after being printed. this is not the case with e-readers, which will be obsolete in a few years, and cannot be easily recycled.

Huh? Paper mill effluent is very toxic (count the number of paper product-related Superfund sites), the ink used in printing is toxic (I write production software for a big commercial printer and we have to track, monitor, and report every bit of ink to the air quality board), then there's the all the oil used to transport everything from mill, printer, distributor, book store, doorstep, and recycler.

e-reader production is just as toxic, but you have to factor in total production cost to deliver that book to your house.

yeahh shakey's environmental accounting is v. 1-dimensional

Whenever possible, I'll purchase the electronic version of a book over the printed version - I move around way too much and moving the books that I have now is a logistical hassle.

Still, it's going to be a long time before an e-reader will be up to replacing a big coffee-table art monograph, museum catalog, etc.

the other thing I idly wonder about is how e-readers handle books that aren't intended to be read in sequence - Cortazar's Hopscotch for ex.

James Burke's The Pinball Effect comes to mind too. Reading it feels like the footnotes are the text and the text are the footnotes.

man i was in b&n today and the cheapest nook is hella small and light, looks p dope

voted this I own an iPad or other tablet but mainly do my reading in old-fashionied books but the truth is i just dont read that many books anymore cause im too busy reading the internet rip

my parents are very into their kindles and ipads

i'm not really feeling it

ipad is great for traveling, not really sure it was worth the purchase price for how much i use it tho, i subscribed to the new yorker and ive barely read it, when i got the print magazine i demolished every issue so idk

I'm pretty much an agnostic when it comes to reading formats (I'm still baffled by folks who leave email, twitter, chat, etc. up when they're reading - turn all that distracting shit off!) but at least electronic editions don't necessarily have a single point of failure (fire, flood, etc.)

Also

http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/images/Twilight-Zone-Time-Enough-At-Last-e1308174702152.png

In that Twilight Zone pic, most of the visible books appear to be old law books.

when the meteorite hits and the power grid is destroyed along with modern society, then you'll wish you'd eschewed these gadgets and kept a copy of 'the way things work' in a ziplock bag

The only thing that's srsly making me consider an e-reader is the previous 3 months I've been spending trying to read Infinite Jest on public transit. That shit is heavy to carry round and I can't comfortably hold & read it with one hand while standing on a packed bus. But I get most books from the library for free so I'd have to be doing a lot of commuting to justify the cost.

amazon kinder

In that Twilight Zone pic, most of the visible books appear to be old law books.

― Aimless, Wednesday, 21 December 2011 04:34 (4 hours ago) Permalink

what this teaches us is that howsoever the production and distribution mechanisms of the written word may change the logistics of set dressing will remain pretty much the same throughout

Ha

I use an iPad or other tablet for some of my reading

It's probably about half and half e-books on the iPad and paper books from the library. I love e-books for all the reasons stated above by others, although I really like paper books, too. I just like reading, so whatever allows me to read more makes me happy.

The iPad kind of blows as an e-reader on public transit so I have thought about getting a dedicated e-reader. I don't know, though. It feels kind of overly extravagant.

If I read on public transit I just use my phone. It's only 25 minutes, so not bad at all.

It drives me crazy when books aren't eAvailable. I've wanted to read Lore of Running for 2 years now but refuse to until it is available in ebook format.

i don't see the point of ipads either

is it really that they're just smaller than laptops? i kind of feel like i don't need a halfway house b/w the laptop and the phone

I use it as a laptop.

Also good for: reading books, watching movies/TV in bed or on planes, playing games, browsing the internet, light (and I mean light - if I have serious writing to do, I do it at the desktop computer) word processing, reading magazines, looking at recipes while you cook.

yeah - i think i'd rather have a keyboard i can type properly on (simply cannot deal with touchscreens) than a slightly lighter machine tbh

We also use the iPad to control our home theater pc. Although we can do that with phones as well. Basically the iPads are a constant couch companion. I cram mine in the cushions and just pull it out when ever I need to look something up.

You can get keyboard cases for it to give it a physical keyboard, but for better or worse, MS Word is where it's at for me and Pages, which is the wordprocessing app on the iPad, just doesn't cut it. But even when I had a laptop, I preferred to do most of my writing on a desktop machine - it's just easier on my body - so that wasn't a tough transition for me.

I know some people who write extensively using iPads, but I couldn't do it, and I am okay with touchscreens generally.

xp haha yeah they are good for settling arguments about the more famous roles of Star Trek guest stars.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Mises-Economics/2011/1219/E-books-get-pricey.-Will-customers-go-paperback

I think ebooks costing more is a good thing, BTW

Why?

people are gonna be more likely to pirate $15 books than $5 books

Well, it undervalues the amount of work going into writing a book, for one.

i almost always buy used books, which are cheaper than ebooks is one thing

Me too.

the amount of work that goes into a book has never had a strict correlation w/ how much money the author is going to make out of it

True, but I still think it undervalues the work.

Like if you worked on something 5+ years, would you really want to sell it for 99 cents?

you'd want to sell it for the price that will result in the most profit in the long-run, and $39493 probably wouldn't be that price even if you feel like that's the 'value', $10 might not even be that price

you'd want to sell it for the price that will result in the most profit in the long-run,

No, you'd want to sell it for the right price. No one is in the publishing business to make a profit!

marissa marchant to thread

ticked
I don't own an e-reader but I plan to get one/want one

I agree with most of the arguments for and against them. I'm hoping that getting one leads to more book reading and less internet reading.

lol @ "switch on a whole fucking machine" - like that's harder these days than "open a whole fucking book at the last page I was reading"

arent most ebook $10

there is not a set 'moral' value to prices or your work. in the long-term you prob don't want to create the culture of piracy that exists w/ movies and music, cause it's pretty easy to dl a book. so make things cheap and easy.

xp

The thing I love most about my Nook is that I can jump back and forth between reading on it and reading on the Nook application on my phone and the applications will sync to the last page I read if I am in a wi-fi location.

It's also great because I used to carry 3-4 books around with me at a time and now I don't have to because everything I'm reading is on the Nook.

Thinking about hacking it just because you can't really hack a book.

btw lex, the Nook has a sleep mode very similar to yr average smartphone, switching it on and unlocking it takes all of 2 seconds, about the same amount of time it takes to open a book assuming you're using a bookmark

you know he won't be swayed by anything resembling a fact, right?

dear lex,

nook is a feeling.

sincerely,

in the long-term you prob don't want to create the culture of piracy that exists w/ movies and music, cause it's pretty easy to dl a book. so make things cheap and easy.

eh, i think people are going to pirate stuff no matter how cheap you make things. songs are 99 cents on itunes & people still pirate music.

big reason book piracy hasnt taken off is only olds read

music piracy took off before itunes existed. I think it's gonna be hard to convince people to pay $15 for 2 megabytes of text in the future, but you might be able to convince people to buy lots of books for a few bucks each. or you could have some books-spotify thing.

the way people in this thread are pretending my objections are completely imaginary!

i basically feel with all of this that i am being sold shit i really, really don't need. sold for a prohibitively high price (still smh at being told this isn't the case)

People *are* paying 15 bucks for ebooks now though.

the way people in this thread are pretending my objections are completely imaginary!

some (not all) of your objections ARE completely imaginary

no youre completely imaginary

lol

"imaginary" isn't really the right word, more "arbitrary"; it's like you're afraid your valid concerns (you don't need it and you think it's too expensive) aren't enough so you keep going into things that aren't actually true (it's... difficult to turn on?)

yeah but ebooks still have a small marketshare, not very many people have tablets/readers, and people are still comparing the price to the price of the physical object. and as ice mentioned, mostly olds read and they don't really think of this like "hmm could I find a torrent site for this"

ultimately "$15" or whatever for a novel isn't some moral price that exists to give the author 'the right value' for his/her work. (almost) the only cost of production for an ebook is in the writing + eventually people are going to value the abstract data less than we value a physical object that also contained that data. in conclusion eventually I think we'll be buying most books for a few bucks.

xps

i have a kindle, and when i've used it (reading while carrying the baby, reading in subway, etc) it has been ridiculously easy + convenient. i haven't used it in awhile tho, and the reasons are:

a) a lot of the stuff i want/need to read are not yet available as ebooks
b) i tend to read more longform articles + online writing these days anyway and
c) i realized when i started using a kindle that i do a lot of page-flipping back and forth when i read, and e-readers are really terrible at, say, letting you flip thru the last 20 or so pages to refresh your memory on a particular detail. they're great if you know exactly what page it was on. less good if you need to scan a bunch of pages pretty quickly

page flipping hmm, interesting how new forms reveal these hidden habits

makes you reflect on the design of a book and how well it works

It seems the least-pirated item are the apps themselves - in part that's because (in stark contrast to music) they quickly set up an easy way to download new apps, and charged so little for them that most people didn't bother trying to find workarounds to download pirated software to their phones and iPads.

ultimately "$15" or whatever for a novel isn't some moral price that exists to give the author 'the right value' for his/her work.

I don't think morality has anything to do with this!

(almost) the only cost of production for an ebook is in the writing +

Ebooks still need editors, marketing!

makes you reflect on the design of a book and how well it works

totally

lol i pirate apps, tho not on my ipad atm, why tf isnt ios5 jail broken yet people

eventually people are going to value the abstract data less than we value a physical object that also contained that data.

That's. . . kind of stupid?

like u cant inscribe an ebook and leave it behind in a particularly charming guesthouse library

I don't think morality has anything to do with this!
vs
Like if you worked on something 5+ years, would you really want to sell it for 99 cents?

Ebooks still need editors, marketing!

well marketing can presumably pay for itself tho I think most publishers are prob screwed

what does an e-book do with things like maps, to which you might want to frequently refer?

if the cost of things is what the creator thinks they're worth, and not what buyers think they're worth, then most books will cost thousands (if not millions) or dollars

of*

freelance editors/marketers + self publishing will prob become more common

if the cost of things is what the creator thinks they're worth, and not what buyers think they're worth, then most books will cost thousands (if not millions) or dollars

I don't think the cost of things should be what the creator thinks they are worth, not by a long stretch.

Like if you worked on something 5+ years, would you really want to sell it for 99 cents?

if i could sell 10x as many of them id be overjoyed to, itd be interesting to see what falling prices would to to volume of sale

right if I were an author I would just want to make as much money as possible, if that meant selling my book at 10 cents, who cares

also getting it into as many peoples hands as possible, like would you take a 50% cut in profits if five times as many people read yr book, prob worth it from a career and personal satisfaction standpoint

lol 'personal satisfaction standpoint' get me to a ted conference asap people

not 50%

This writer has some interesting things to say re: 99 cent ebooks

http://amandahocking.blogspot.com/2011/03/some-things-that-need-to-be-said.html

Which brings me to another point. As much as my name has been thrown about, I haven't seen J. L. Bryan's name mentioned. He's the author of a fantastic young adult paranormal romance called Jenny Pox. Like my books, his is priced at $.99 EDIT: It's $2.99 now. But it was $.99 earlier. Like me, he has several other titles out. Also, like me, he has paperback versions of his book available and he reaches out to book bloggers. In fact, he just did an intensive blog tour for the release of his latest book The Haunted E-book. I even included an excerpt of Jenny Pox at the end of my book Ascend, because I like his writing so much, and I want other people to read it.

With all of that said, Bryan sells less books than I do. I don't know how many exactly, because I haven't asked, but I can tell from his rankings that it's not as many.

What's my point in all of this? By all accounts, he has done the same things I did, even writing in the same genre and pricing the books low. And he's even a better writer than I am. So why am I selling more books than he is? I don't know.

That's the truth of it. Nobody knows what makes one book a bestseller. Publishers and agents like to pretend they do, but if they did, they would only publish best sellers, and they don't.

blog tour

xp I actually haven't jailbroken my iOS 5.0.1 yet as there's nothing non-approved at the moment that I want (that will change as soon as someone finds a reliable way to use Siri on pre-4S devices though). I'm fine with paying $1.99 for some awesome apps that are better than the boxed software they used to sell for PCs and Macs for $50 or $200. Something like Instagram would never have legitimately sold for pocket change in the old days.

Makes me wonder if 99-cent books would ultamately make more money for the publishers because anyone with even a passing interest would download the book.

eh publishers aren't dead cause that woman sold a buncha ebooks, they're dead cause they don't have a unique service to offer anymore.

i know i am an immoral barbarian for pirating 99¢ apps, tho tbf many ipad apps are as much as $20!

also most apps are shit and youre all welp there goes another dollar, and tbqh im just habituated to never paying for anything that goes on a computer

I know this has been said before, but my only problem with e-readers is if they replace the book, they will replace the bookshelf. Already we're seeing CD and DVD racks banished from living rooms, and soon there'll be no way of expressing individualism through taste. I guess you can learn a lot about a person through what they read, watch and listen to - the bookshelf can become a talking point or the root of a common interest - especially for fellow literature/music geeks. I guess some people will be like "Hey, who cares? I'm not fussed about displaying my tastes, and I'm not interested in others", but I think it's a shame that all this extra-personal information could one day disappear from homes to be replaced with a list of favourites on Facebook or whatever. Taken to its logical conclusion, the advent of the e-reader and the death of the book means there'll never be an "Oh man, you like [insert author/musician/director] too?" moment.

bookshelves are visually v nice too, give off great vibes

on the other hand books r heavy when u move

fb etc. is prob already the primary way people do that

it's easier than ever to 'display your personal brand'

lol the whole displaying your taste aspect of physical book ownership is the worst part! it stresses me out.

totally^^^

but I love looking at people's bookshelves! :/

Just ask me what I like.

yes, then i can lie and pretend to have higherbrow reading habits than i actually do

But I want to see stuff you might not have liked a lot or stuff you havent read yet!

i mean, i don't have an ereader and i adore physical books; i'm just saying

maybe it's from going to a library science grad program but i think people who fetishize books as objects are weird. i love reading, don't care that much about books.

yeah, i love having a nose about people's bookshelves (and formerly cd racks). It definitely tells you a lot about a person than someone simply listing "Donnie Darko, A Secret History, dubstep" as their "Favourites" online. And book spines look lovely.

http://david-smith.org/blog/2011/12/17/estimating-kindle-sales

there was a guy on telly last night talking about "The Death Of The Book" and how he thought it definitely won't ever happen, but he wasn't very convincing.

was he strictly defining "book" as the physical object?

yeah

i love reading, don't care that much about books.

I love reading, but don't see the big deal people are making about e-readers. Yeah they are convenient and all, I can see them being cool on vacation. . . but a physical book works fine, I don't see that changing any time soon. E-readers seem too weird (for me) to read on, there's just something about the one page at a time, waiting to flip back and forth that seems alien to me. I don't make a fetish out of my book love, but I do enjoy the feel and ease of reading one.

I also think it's good to have options for reading, and if people want to use ereaders, fine by me, and I think it's cool if people are super into them or whatever.

I don't think physical books are going anywhere anytime soon.

i have you used one tho

not sure where that 'i' came from ~ihave~

Yup!

he was being asked why he believed the book wouldn't be replaced by an e-reader and his response was "I've been to lots of lectures talking about 'The Death Of The Book' and the more I attend, the less I'm convinced it will happen" and then he immediately said "What we're seeing is that most people are using both books and e-readers; so what this means is we're at a transitional stage where people like one and the other".

ok fine i swear every time i hear someone bitching abt how ereaders are an inferior experience to books theyve never actually like read a book on one xp

I feel like my "bitching" on this thread is coming off too harsh then. Sorry!

I don't own an e-reader, but I'd like to try one out before laying money down really. I get the whole "ease" thing. I find myself distracted incredibly easily while reading, so if I find the e-reader off-putting, that could ruin things for me. There's definitely a parallel with the ease that comes from choosing a record and physically putting a needle on it as it spins vs selecting from an mp3 playlist and choosing a book from the shelf and flicking to the right page vs selecting from a list of e-books and reading them off your reader.

Plus sides:
- no noisy turning of pages in bed
- less heavy to hold and carry (especially if it's a big book you'd like to read in bed)

Down sides:
- you can't physically see how far into the book you are
- flicking back and forth for things isn't quite a simple
- pictures? y/n?

I feel like my "bitching" on this thread is coming off too harsh then. Sorry!

― flexidisc, Wednesday, December 21, 2011 11:56 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Permalink

lol not its not at all, i was just speaking generally

you can't physically see how far into the book you are

can be argued to be a good thing, adds another dimension to books when you don't know when they'll end

- you can't physically see how far into the book you are

The Nook has a counter that says you are on page X of Y.

- pictures? y/n?

depends entirely on the book; the Nook can support them

kindle tells you how far you are through the book proportionally. graphic representations (maps, photos, etc.) are a weakness of the kindle, they're going to be black and white and pretty small.

never heard of the nook. is that US only? Anyone who knows about these things have a preference of make/model of e-reader?

it would be great to see one that can handle graphic novels in the future

the problem w/images is it seems like b&w eink is really the best for reading text where a conventional led display is best for images

Nook is the Barnes & Noble e-reader:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/u/nook/379003208/

I have a Nook Color; the tablet is brand new afaik

it would be great to see one that can handle graphic novels in the future

funny you should say this, they just added Marvel comics/graphic novels to the Nook

Anyone who knows about these things have a preference of make/model of e-reader?

I have a sony, will have a go with my dad's kindle over the weekend, i figure they're all much of a muchness though.

E-book readers have one critical advantage for me: easy, free access to classic or public domain literature. There are around 150 titles on my Kindle, only 10 of which under modern copyright. The would have cost a minimum of $1000 if purchased used, with another $150 for shelving, a move to larger quarters to find another free wall to store them all.

Still prefer traditional books for 90% of my reading, as used book shopping has never been easier, or cheaper (in time & fuel).

iPad is grrrrrrrrrrreat for graphic novels. I don't know if I would necessarily recommend it over a dedicated e-reader, though. Like I may have said, I often waffle about wanting an e-reader and then thinking it's just a waste.

i love reading, don't care that much about books.

OTM.

Also: if you have an Amazon Prime membership and a Kindle, you can "check out" unlimited books from Amazon's own "library." I don't know how good the selection is as I do not have a Kindle. If it's decent, I think that would be worthwhile.

hysterical OMG BOOKS ARE DYING ppl annoy the shit out of me - books will never die bc, unlike vinyl/CDs/DVDs/video-tape, the relationship between the form and the content is often so important, which is also why the fetishization of books as objects is so common. i think airport-type pulp fiction paperbacks will die eventually, but imo e-readers should be motivating small presses (and big publishing houses) to think a little more carefully about production, instead of just slamming out piles of ugly junk.

god, i wish i'd had an e-reader in college, probably would have saved a lot of back/neck/shoulder pain.

E-book readers have one critical advantage for me: easy, free access to classic or public domain literature. There are around 150 titles on my Kindle, only 10 of which under modern copyright. The would have cost a minimum of $1000 if purchased used, with another $150 for shelving, a move to larger quarters to find another free wall to store them all.

yes yes yes yes yes

i slightly prefer the kobo over the kindle, although there is a definite lag when when flipping frwd to the next page. The cheapest kobo comes with 100 classics pre-loaded.

god, i wish i'd had an e-reader in college, probably would have saved a lot of back/neck/shoulder pain.

OMG so OTM, especially for law school. I would have saved myself the humiliation of dragging around a rolling backpack, too.

but you can buy/borrow classic books for next to nothing. I am thinking of buying my girlfriend a kindle for christmas, but mostly so she can read her uni textbooks on it, and I'm not sure those will be available. It's just they're awfully big. I take it she'll have to buy them again in digital if she's already got them physically?

also can save thousands of dollars on textbooks

xp

Apple is known to be targeting schools for replacing textbooks with iPads. Besides not having to lug around a heavy backpack, the contents can easily be kept up to date, and unlike textbooks can offer links, sound, video, etc.

>- no noisy turning of pages in bed
- less heavy to hold and carry (especially if it's a big book you'd like to read in bed)

I've already heard some lolworthy "i take my iPad to bed" stories from friends, and given how many times I've awakened with my laptop on the floor, I fear that if I'm reading an iPad/e-reader i'll fall asleep, roll over it, and crush the screen. Still, reading in bed is why I prefer the backlit, color iPad-type screen to the "e-ink" Kindle screens that are great in sunlight, but not in dark rooms.

Which is less bothersome: your bedmate reading a book using one of those little book lights and flipping pages, or taking an iPad to bed and reading on it?

iPad is grrrrrrrrrrreat for graphic novels. I don't know if I would necessarily recommend it over a dedicated e-reader, though. Like I may have said, I often waffle about wanting an e-reader and then thinking it's just a waste

if you already have an iPad, I don't see any compelling argument to get an e-reader aside from wanting something smaller

That's my only compelling argument.

I prefer Jeff to read quietly using the iPad than rustle pages with a book light. iPad Kindle app has a white-on-black function that makes it easier to read in the dark and less bright to sleep next to.

(note: hate the white on black thing because I can't see it as well.)

I find reading real books harder. I get distracted by the shadows cast in the page, the edges of the page.

i find e-readers less distracting too because the one-page-at-a-time thing keeps my eyes from drifting over the next page

i love reading, don't care that much about books.

I have had an increasingly hard time reading books for a few years, so sincerely, no challops intended, I'm finding myself loving books more than reading.

Because you don't read them?

I like having them around. I've had a few books on my night stand for months that I don't read, but I like having there. They're nice objects.

I just got a set of lamps for my birthday made out of old books

find ereaders more distracting because my eyes can't drift, but I've made my peace, sort of.

I have had an increasingly hard time reading books for a few years, so sincerely, no challops intended, I'm finding myself loving books more than reading.

http://www.readbreatherelax.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/coffeetablebooks.jpg

That makes me angry.

Show me other pictures and I will tell you how they make me feel.

^^ at last a use for coffee table books

i get the sneaking feeling that i will be getting one of these for christmas (kindle prob) and i dont know how i feel about that yet really. i buy almost all my books (and i buy lots of them) used so idk if there will really be any cost saving aspect. i guess we'll see.

The thing I love most about my Nook is that I can jump back and forth between reading on it and reading on the Nook application on my phone and the applications will sync to the last page I read if I am in a wi-fi location.

this is awesome

so which e-reader has the least ugly kerning

i don't know that books are any more linked form-to-content as a uh fetish i guess than eg music to vinyl sleeves or film to reel/vhs case. Maybe a little more so, but not to the extent that books won't nonetheless become a vintage statement accessory for future hipsters or w/e

they're significantly more linked form-to-content than are music and films, which themselves are significantly more linked f-to-c than software, say

wait i sort of skipped over 'as a fetish' there, though i probably still agree with myself (i always do)

I dunno. Based on the fact that books-as-fetish-objects have been around for 575 years (and even before Gutenberg, as rarer things), they're probably going to stick around in a way that cassettes/vinyl/film reels won't. There have been lots of challenges to the physical form of the book before, schisms and failures, and I doubt that a new form of distribution is going to kill them b/c it is currently in nascent vogue.

People thought vinyl was dying in the 90's, and it still hasn't.

for some reason ereaders are like the one piece of new-ish technology that seems tailor made for old ppl, like they feel really stodgy and middleaged to me.

re: gutenberg

http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/sacredtexts/images/gutenberg_lg.jpg

http://www.crossway.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/41.gif

for some reason ereaders are like the one piece of new-ish technology that seems tailor made for old ppl, like they feel really stodgy and middleaged to me.

― ice cræmde (є(٥_ ٥)э), Wednesday, December 21, 2011 1:20 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Permalink

Because you can make the font bigger.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

one my e-books I had on hold from the library is now available. i wonder how this will work....

it will only be a matter of time before the number of e-copies of titles will go from finite to infinity

After which, it will go to infinity plus one, then plus two...

interesting thoughts here on how primitive and perhaps wrong-headed the epub format is, don't necessarily agree with his conclusions but errrrrrr makes you think...
http://crookedtimber.org/2011/12/21/e-books-and-ipads-and-pdfs-some-thoughts/

I pretty much completely disagree with that article

ebooks becoming more like pdfs would be terrible

ha yeah that guy doesnt really get technology

"b b but why would you want to do it any other way?" = apple user.

I don't get the problems he's talking about. Websites might show up with problems on certain devices, but ebooks are usu just text, right? And it's pretty readable? Idgi. What is he getting at?

lol its funny he has a whole long update clearly inspired by people telling him hes an idiot where hes all yeah i know ebooks need to be readable on lots of different devices but what this blog post presupposes is what if they dont

Aye you're right, there's nothing wrong with text that flows to fit whatever device it's on. "Layout" beyond chapters and paragraphs just isn't an issue for 99% of books.

hes right that ebooks tend to lack the polish of printed matter, but his solution is just silly, and he doesnt even particularly identify the specific qualities of the problem, like there are a lot of people working really hard on this doggie, lol pdf

Well I don't know that things are that easy. I think there is a place for both a variable, scaleable, context-/device-dependent format and a locked-down, .pdfish model. (Although something a little more sturdy and robust than .pdf would be nice...). In other words, I can see, say, comic book geeks really liking to read things w/ certain well-defined dimensions and presentation standards, while most books/articles will be seved equally well by being read as 160 words on a b&w iphone screen as enlarged on a 27" monitor.

yeah obvs 'books' thatre primarily images have a whole nother set of demands

This issue is v. prominent in adaptive/assistive/instructional info techology, where the divide b/w 'image' and 'text' is pretty fuzzy.... somebody's gotta come up with something better than a .pdf to allow input and the preservation of precise, functional formatting that is somehow useable on more than one type of device. HTML5 isn't a bad option, frankly, but it'll need wider acceptance/support.

was just thinking abt ui design in adaptive/assistive technologies, not really something i know anything abt, but it seems p interesting

OK, so I guess I was understanding him to the extent that he was making sense.

But is flowing text "plug ugly"? It doesn't seem that way to me, a non-techy consumer.

its just 'people talkin abt fonts for no good reason' m/l

But is flowing text "plug ugly"? It doesn't seem that way to me, a non-techy consumer.

c/f images upthread

I meant, does it seem "plug ugly" to you, dear reader.

the problem with the crooked timber thing is that 'just use pdf!' is a ridiculously awful solution to the problem. but it's still a solution which would produce better looking results than the current paradigm

here's some text on the nook:

http://int64.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/badjustify.png

that's from an article which has the even better thesis at least if you have a nook you can dump your epubs into pdfs and redo the typesetting yourself and read that which i am guessing probably even more of a non-starter for most people

however i feel like this is right:

"My only real gripe is that, like al­most every other e-​read­er out there, it has such poor type­set­ting that you have to won­der if it was de­signed by soft­ware en­gi­neers who aren’t big read­ers"

which, you know, ding ding ding

xpost: yes.

I tried for like 5 minutes to be a typeface snob, but I realized that I don't detect any difference in value between similar typefaces. "Readability" is not an issue for me beyond actual illegibility.

Concur

it's not the typefaces so much as the spacing

http://www.hanselman.com/blog/content/binary/WindowsLiveWriter/AmazonKindlevs.KindleDXTheFinalWord_CE5C/screen_shot-35927_thumb.gif

lookit the paragraph starting "'Fangtasia,' Pam said" -- there's places where the gaps between words are larger than the words themselves -- now admittedly i. a small subset of people will care and ii. this appears to be from one of those true blood novels so w/e

i don't know, i assume the normal response is "why in the hell would that bother you" and then i say "you don't know it but it's crippling your reading experience" and then i turn into that guy who starts the dynamic range compression threads and refuse to go outside because i might hear some music that's not on my perfectly magnetically balanced insulated and feng shui-ed hi fi system

I honestly don't notice stuff like that, and I read a lot. That paragraph looks fine to me.

xxxp

I get distracted by weird spacing. I can push through it, but it will take me out of the reading headspace, if that makes any sense. Like, it will remind me that I'm reading, and it takes a minute to get back to where I am no longer aware of the process of translating words into brain images.

the main offense of that formatting is the that text is justified rather than aligned, aka itd be more readable were it jagged along the right margin

its p unconscionable tbqh, is there a setting for that or something

i mean its like a super easy fix

I don't know why all these things use whatever random just-above-MS-Word-quality line-breaking algorithms when they could be using something closer to the TeX line-breaking algorithms, which are pretty much the gold standard of doing this sort of thing automatically.

xps the Sookie Stackhouse novels are in first person? ick

having just said that, though, reading it in my head, that "'Fangtasia,' Pam said" did come out slower than it should have. So maybe I guess I do notice this stuff.

xp to myself

I like the ability to change the font for each book I read. The more "formal" the book, the more likely I am to want a serif font, for some reason.

Kids book = sans serif
Classic lit = serif
Pop science/history = sans serif

I appreciate a typesetter advising me with which font to use*, but now the tech exists to change it, I would be mighty annoyed if it was taken away.

And justifying the paragraph so it fills up the entire line is some bullshit, dnw. I'm one of those who notice this and would really prefer it didn't happen.

*that first sentence's grammar got me confused, so apologies for the clumsiness.

years and years and years of publishing precedent argue against left justification, is the problem

I totally get why that spacing issue would bother some people, and sometimes when it's very obvious, it bothers me too. What did bother me about that text was that it was fully justified (which accounts for the spacing problem). I like ragged right edge.

I'm the same with audiophilia - I am usually OK with getting the "gist" of the music I'm hearing. Though I appreciate why it would be different for other people.

You know what irks me though? Is the way some "audiophiles" and "font snobs" seem to care about those things (and care very vocally) b/c it makes them seem refined and sensitive. Again, SOME of them.

many xps

years and years and years of publishing precedent argue against left justification, is the problem

― OH NOES, Thursday, December 22, 2011 1:23 PM (17 seconds ago) Bookmark Permalink

yeah idgi is that really the default setting on the nook

I mean justified text blocks pretty much empirically look better and read better when they are carefully tweaked by hand and hyphenated and whatnot. One of the big reasons that a lot of these justified blocks look bad is that they are averse to automatic hyphenation of words, whereas TeX is all about automatic hyphenation. You can't fill up lines in a pleasing fashion without being able to auto-hyphenate, since really all you're doing in that case is taking the ragged-right paragraph layout and stretching all the interword spaces until each line is justified.

as an example, in the Fangtasia excerpt, this paragraph:

"Fangtasia," Pam said, as if she were bored more
completely than anyone had ever been bored.

would look better if it were set like this:

"Fangtasia," Pam said, as if she were bored more complete-
ly than anyone had ever been bored.

because a lot of that extra interword space in the first line would go away.

yeah but then you have the hypen

yes but that's why hyphens were invented, so justified text blocks could have aesthetically pleasing amounts of interword space!

I find hyphens dis
-tracting

maybe because you are using them incorrectly?

fine

I find hyphens dis-
tracting

I find hyphenating less
annoying           then
badly justified text.

Do you actually find hyphens distracting? like I promise you every book you've ever read has about three words that are hyphenated across a line break per page, are you distracted by them every single time? xp

no

a little distracting yes

what really bugs me is how shitty that sentence is

all books should just be printed on one long fortune cookie fortune

I don't think the issue is either hyphenating or bad justification -- it's that the column width on most readers is so small that either one would need to do massive overtime to correctly set the text, and intrude pretty obnoxiously.

one word at a time is a good way to read

there's a left-justified example of the lorem ipsum paragraph in the link. it doesn't look v good either tbh

these are actually sub ms-word algorithms they're using; kerning is somewhat better in word since the last big redo. i don't really get why something that ought to be a core technology on these is so slapdash.

i find this a deeply odd argt.:

I appreciate a typesetter advising me with which font to use, but now the tech exists to change it, I would be mighty annoyed if it was taken away.

bcz typesetting is a craft with half a millenium of experience and weight behind it; there are people who are just good at this - ! otoh i did just go look up the physical version of that novel on amazon and that's pretty shoddily set too tbh so

I don't think the issue is either hyphenating or bad justification -- it's that the column width on most readers is so small that either one would need to do massive overtime to correctly set the text, and intrude pretty obnoxiously.

thank you for articulating what was really bothering me, there we go^^^^

maybe that's why I don't like reading on e-readers, the page is too small!

I fear the day when my eyesight goes and I can't use teeny tiny fonts anymore

all books should just be printed on one long fortune cookie fortune

http://www.addamsfamily.com/addams/tickertape2.jpg

I've got three books open on my desk. One of them is 1Q84; it's got +/- 44 lines of text per page, +/- 100 characters per line. There are 0-3 hyphens per page, and only prominent – immediately noticeable - weird spacing due to justification. The text is fairly dense, and it easily absorbs a lot of spacing issues w/o seeming too deliberate. I have yet to see an ereader/electronic screen that can display that amount of information in a way that is not overwhelming or eyestrain inducing...

there's also stuff like - pretty much all faber poetry is typeset the same way. it's a part of how the meaning and the weight of the words you read are constructed. i'm not sure i like the idea of taking that away from the interaction you have with the text. (there's an argument that having personae reduced to the same standards as a self-published .epub of poetry about vampires is a democratic step forwards and a good thing but i think it's an argument that's basically wrong.)

xpost yeah that's another thing -- pretty sure that a lot of ppl who read a lot will use this things with smaller text; screenshots always seem to have like a 35-45 character wide line. (this is in part bcz if you want a screenshot that works on a monitor which is most likely going to have a smaller dpi you need to not use the smallest text size.)

only ONE prominent - immediately noticeable – spacing due to justification.

hyphenating bothers me a lot more than weird spacing. I only notice weird spacing in extreme cases. Not being able to read a whole word without moving my eyes from one side of a page to the other is way worse. I notice it every time even after 20+ years of reading books.

hyphenating to facilitate a line break is a crude last resort, compared to deft leding

ur thinking of kerning/tracking

Woot's got refurbished Kindle DXs for $199 today.

Main problem with the Sony one - or my first gen one at least - is that it has a separate socket for charging and won't charge through the USB socket. Which sucks if you forget to charge it beforehand and to bring the right cable when you go home for Xmas.

Weird thing about the syncing is that in my experience the Kindle iPhone app will try to sync to the last page read on the actual Kindle, but not vice-versa.

Just got me one of these things today. Trying to figure out how to hack it.

Had a look at my dad's kindle. Not the latest gen, has a keyboard, but page turning still a lot faster than my v old Sony, and can see the use in having a keyboard for searching. Wifi connection handy too although my uncle wanted to know how much the new Clive Cussler would cost so i took a look at the price, then went back to the home screen - or so I thought. Turned out I'd bought the damn thing, although I never clicked the 'buy' button and certainly didn't see any confirmation screen :|

one of my law partners is obsessed with reading books on his cell phone and -- even moreso -- audiobooks. i have no interest in either option. i want to feel a book in my hands. it's weight, packaging, the pages themselves add something to the experience for me that an efficient machine (or the assistance of a narrating voice) will never match.

I love reading books on my phone on the train while commuting

ditto, it's amazing.

C'mon people don't really give a shit about "the feeling of the paper"
and stuff, is that really what you're thinking abt when you read?

I'm pretty sure my e-copy of Nixon has the same words in it as the physical copy

If reading text doesn't provide enough excitement by itself, maybe you hate reading

no. i like reading. i get no feel or excitement from the technology. feels very cold to me.

i can read!

read a book just last year, in fact.

bizarre.

true story.

I just don't get this hypersensitivity, like is it impossible for you to read an ebook because you can't stop thinking about how "cold" it is?

The Internet is even colder

it's really not hypersensitivity. i'm not adamantly against kindles and similar devices; i just prefer physical books.

i also prefer vinyl to compact discs, and compact discs to mp3s. but i've made the switch to mp3s because they're so much cheaper. if the price-gap with physical and electronic books reaches those levels, i'd likely go with a kindle-type device.

alright fine but you could have mentioned that in the first place before I started goin all hardman

merry christmas!

(from a jew)

The tactile qualities of a physical book are a bonus for me.

kindle evangelists really will not stand for any dissenting point of view, will they

You are a ding dong. xpost Jesse.

That is not what the content of this thread would show. At all.

Xpost to lex

Also to lex, you are a ding dong.

you know he won't be swayed by anything resembling a fact, right?

William (C)

i don't really get the impression that you think there are any valid facts or reasons not to want a kindle

The tactile qualities of a physical book are a bonus for me.

― Sandbox Jesse, Sunday, December 25, 2011 9:11 PM (27 minutes ago) Bookmark Permalink

Dont agree with ding dongs.

The ergonomics of books are pretty important (re: paper feel, etc.) - mass-market paperbacks usually have shitty printing and paper and especially with longer books are unpleasant to read. I don't like hardbacks in general (more of a pain to carry and read), but I especially don't like books with uneven pages opposite the binding.

Reading a quality trade paperback is probably still better than on a e-ink reader, but I'll take my Kindle over mass market pbs or hardcovers whenever possible.

Simply not wanting an ereader is reason enough for me.

I have the ability to see why one would want one

And reasons one would not want one.

I have problems with the unilateral damnation of them with attendant refusal to acknowledge any good in them, "lalala no no no not listening."

Xp

Ok, got the thing working. Not bad, but I already brought 4 other books with me on this trip along

Overall experience of reading physical book still the best. The iPhone is obviously the most portable but after a while the glare causes a bit of eyestrain, find it good for reading samples but not whole books. The Kindle device with the e-ink splits the difference.

I like my iPhone Kindle app for non-fiction, stuff I can pop into for a few pages while I'm in line somewhere. Can't get into novels that way, though.

amazon kinder

I just got one for Christmas! And I can apparently get books from the library, which was one of my main concerns.

Dont agree with ding dongs.

No one was agreeing with me. Or with lex.

I don't care if people like kindles or not but the whole "books are better because they have soul" thing is dumb as hell. Hearing about how people like to run their fingers through pages is gross.

I mean, what the hell is this "experience" people talk about wrt real books? Is it erotic?

sometimes.

brb . . .

Sensual yes, erotic no.

What books have going for them is that, when they are well-designed, they represent the culmination of many centuries of design iterations and refinements. otoh, only some books are designed with that level of care and knowledge. Cost factors almost always rule the book design process, so in a typical year you get a ton of shitty airport-bookrack mass paperbacks, a plethora of mid-range coffee table books, a smattering of oddly sized and self-concious "look at me" designs, plus a few well-printed literary books that make good use of quality paper, binding, typeface and typesetting.

Hearing about how people like to run their fingers through pages is gross.

― moonbop, Sunday, December 25, 2011 11:11 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Permalink

haha

this all just seems to be an extra expense. you can pick up cheap paperbacks, secondhand books everywhere. ridiculously cheap on like abebooks for example. i bought the new biographical dictionary of film for £2 secondhand hardback including delivery but its closer to £20 as an ebook. it just seems like you would need to be reading A LOT for these to make any sense economically. especially when books do not come super cheap. i mean w/ mp3 its like yes well you always need some sort of player for audio or video but with books you never needed like an extra thing (unless you count like "light" and reading glasses)

i mean there are obviously pros and cons. i think talking about these things not having souls is kindof unhelpful. just think how nostalgic people will be for these rudimentary gizmos in a few decades.

Xp you know there's a whole load of legit free out-of-copyright ebooks out there.

oh yeah i'm sure. its kindof stupid to posit this as a straight binary but like what if you're really into sci-fi and you can just constantly pick up a barrage of cheap paperbacks. kindle requires this upfront investment that other reading doesnt and if the books are not super cheap its not like you make that money back. i just assumed ebooks were gonna be super cheap when i first heard of them. it was a surprise to me that they were gonna be priced as though they were, like, books.

i mean people who want one should buy one. i just keep thinking of this guy i know who bought one and then spent about a month reading some lame indie magazine off it and he kept talking about how it was free but i was like really you have to divide the price of the machine across the number of books you read on it and people who don't really actually read that much are paying proportionally higher. like i get that if you are planning on reading a lot of 19th century literature it might make sense and its a fun gadget but like

Speaking of sci-fi, the sf gateway seems to be about as cheap as buying the used paperback for those old out-of-print classics.

That lame indie reader's analysis reminds me of this discussion:
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/an-sdjDJt4b2h7b4/the_lonely_guy_1984_talk_about_hair/

Have y'll been fronting on not seeing this BBC documentary on this very subject? It's kinda rambly but really quite interesting.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01871m9/hd/Imagine_Winter_2011_Books_The_Last_Chapter/

I'd watch it if it was available in my country.

I use the US version of this software to watch US TV stuff despite being in the UK. Only turn it on when you're actually watching something cos browsing with it on is supremely annoying, but it's good for what it does.

http://download.cnet.com/Expat-Shield/3000-2092_4-75211377.html

That's a slick little thing. Sadly, I'm on a Mac.

the states are a different country, and you can never BookMac

lol @ "switch on a whole fucking machine" - like that's harder these days than "open a whole fucking book at the last page I was reading"

― mortified of ILX (onimo)

So I got a kindle and it turns out that, as I thought, you press one (1) button and the whole fucking machine starts up at the last page you were reading in less than 2 (two) seconds.

I've read one and a bit ebooks since Christmas and it feels like... reading. I don't feel I'm really missing any tactile or sensual experience, but then I usually read cheap/used paperbacks.

I agree with some of the concerns upthread about spacing/justification but it hasn't bothered me too much - I'm used to seeing a similar thing in newspapers.

"switch on a whole fucking machine"

Indeed. There are thousands of circuits and valves and tubes. How can the average man be expected to learn how to make them work?

/trying to switch on a dead horse

quick question as i've just got one of them machines. i have a couple of books in rtf format that i need to convert to epub. so i downloaded calibre. is there anything to set up in the options before converting to a new format or do i just click on convert and hope for the best?

forget if i've already posted this but while ebook prices are usually too high to make any sense (on amazon they are often higher than the price of the physical book), plug project gutenberg into one of these and the world changes.

Given my penchant for used books and hole-and-corner odd books, I would not consider an ebook reader at all, if it weren't for free book sources like Project Gutenberg and the growing number of ebooks at the public library.

Though I've seen some books on Amazon where the Kindle and physical prices were the same, I don't think I've run across any where the Kindle version was more than the physical book. Being able to rent a textbook on the Kindle for a class I was taking (~$24 for 6 months) vs. buying the physical book (for ~$180) was interesting.

Holy crap, that's a game changer. I am going to be back in school pretty soon and I hope like hell I can rent my textbooks!

"often" was probably untrue because it's not like i've done a survey but it's happened to me more than once! most recently here vs here and here vs here.

textbook rental is a beautiful thing yeah.

I had no idea that was possible. And I've only been out of the textbook market for less than a year.

i have two copies of 'postwar' if you want one

i ended up making it part of my annual book-raid on my parents' house (along with two volumes of robert a. caro's a song of ice and johnson; the plane home was the first time in my life i've struggled w/ the overhead bins). much thx tho!

(did you like postwar?)

yes v much so

me too.

wait there's textbook rental??? swoon

Amazon UK is doing a '12 days of kindle' with lots of good, cheap (99p) titles: http://www.amazon.co.uk/b?ie=UTF8&node=1503253031
I looked to see if Amazon.com is doing the same but it seems not - I could only find a list of '$3.99 or below' titles that all looked shit.

You can rent physical text books, too - http://www.bookrenter.com/

I've rented text books. I've also sold text books I've found in dumpsters. Protip for all the hobos out there, untapped market.

I just want a cheap source of 60's scifi stuff. Tho, this format seems to work with all the classic short-story collections put out back then.

i picked up the entire wheel of time series for free, that was pretty economical imo

jibe i had to convert those, fwiw- i used an online converter but can't remember what it was called so i'm not actually any use to you but there you go

me too.

have you read 'ill fares the land'? i cant recommend it highly enough tbh

ha thanks darragh. i'll see how those books come out without any settings modified.

thanks to the democratization of publishing my friend who is way better at writing lots and lots of words than he is at writing good ones now has a bunch of ebooks in the kindle store. I don't recommend spending yr money.

unless you want to read his self-insert fantasies about managing a rock band or being a computer hacker and dating large-breasted women

have you read 'ill fares the land'? i cant recommend it highly enough tbh

― є(٥_ ٥)э, Thursday, December 29, 2011 6:16 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Permalink

yeah i read this in like two hours and immediately donated my copy to the occupy portland library; as a (very personal and rightly so) manifesto against The Problem it's sterling.