I have been looking at eBook readers, and have decided that now is not the time to buy. The new Kindle DX (link purposefully omitted) does not change my mind. In my view, eBooks are not a value added item. Why? Because in my home they are competing against the public library, where books, and many audiobooks are free.
Even if I were are more frequent book buyer, I certainly would not buy digital. One of the pleasures of owning a book is sharing a copy with a friend. Not possible with a new eBook. Certainly having all of your textbooks electronically would be convenient, but not when I can’t easily highlight and annotate them. And the resale value of your textbooks drops to ZERO.
Did I mention that the DX is almost $500? I can buy a new PC for that.
I’d be happy to pay you $1 to read your DRM protected books with a 2 week license on a $150 reader. Not until the vendors figure this out will eBooks be a viable alternative to print.
I think most of your points are well made, Alan. Publishers, distributors/libraries, authors, and readers are all pushing at various boundaries to learn and choose what works and what does not. i do think the trend will be away from DRM. i do think pricing on both content and distribution will come down. And I think that the roles of all the players will change. Publishers are becoming brokers rather than manufacturers. Libraries are becoming distributors rather than warehouses.
Why do I have a Kindle? At this point, for two reasons. First, because as a publisher I need to understand, from a user’s standpoint, what works and what doesn’t in critical developments emerging in my field. I had our house buy a Kindle 2 for each employee this year, with encouragement to use them in whatever ways individuals chose and the request to share their experiences with the rest of us.
My experience: within two weeks I found myself reaching up to the corner of the Kindle to turn the page. The machinery had “fallen away” and the core experience of reading a book remained.Ii can bookmark pages, highlight and annotate passages, check the dictionary on the fly, and even do basic Internet searches. I can travel with any number of books and periodicals. As a reader, I really like the product and the experience, and at my rate of book purchase and consumption, it would pay for itself in 12-18 months.
As a publisher, I like the fact that e-books use no paper, that I am now reaching new customers, and that I don’t have the boxes-of-$20-bills-on-the-shelf I call inventory. Cash flow, baby. 🙂
I once was skeptical about digital books and readers, but no more. I do not prefer it to a paper book, but neither is it my poor substitute.