Until now, ebooks have provided me additional reading material – classics, the independent authors on Smashwords, and the occasional DRM-free book on Fictionwise – rather than replacing my paper book reading. But as I said in my last post, the fact that the Kindle app is now available in Australia and is far easier to get content for than the Stanza app thanks to Fictionwise and BoB not being very good (no browsing; unfiltered geographic restrictions; DRM not supported by my reading device, Stanza on iPhone), I can now begin to seriously contemplate converting from paper books to ebooks for at least a portion of my reading.
I already explained that format was holding me back from plunging on in to the Kindle store – Kindle format can only be read on Kindle devices and I don’t like that. Again, as I said, ePub is not really that much better, due to DRM basically making affected books device-dependent anyway and the fact that any electronic format is vulnerable to being made obsolete no matter what. I’ll buy the books I absolutely love in physical form to ensure I can keep them. So format/DRM is not so much of an issue in the long run, particularly when, to be brutally honest, most books are of the read-once-and-enjoy-but-never-read-again type anyway.
The other thing giving me pause is the price…not that I think that US$10 is expensive (I know how much work goes into a book and how little a percentage the author sees), but that I can get the paperback version for about that price – and then I can sell that paperbook or swap it for another book, or give it to a friend. The ebook version is a dead loss for what can be done with it after reading it due to DRM and format issues. And of course, many books are not US$10 – some are only a few dollars cheaper than the hardback.
But if I pay AU$3 for an hour-long TV episode I know I won’t keep or watch again (iTunes, please consider renting TV episodes as well as selling them; yes, I know about various legal streaming websites like 3click.tv but my internet here is just a touch too slow for it), I should be fine with paying 4 times that for an ebook I know will keep me entertained for at least 4 times as long.
I am trying to adjust my thinking to acknowledge that buying an ebook is like watching a movie at the cinema, and then later buying the DVD (ie the physical copy of the book, in my analogy) if I love it enough to want to own it ‘properly’.
We accept this particular entertainment trade-off, because movies and TV shows have always in a sense been preview-before-purchase: we pay to see the digital version, than pay again for the physical version if we want permanence. It’s a painful adjustment with books, because we’re moving in the other direction, from physical to digital (but then, to physical again, when we want permanence).
The other major plus of ebooks is that it saves an awful lot of paper, water, and chemicals to buy the electronic version of a book I just want to read but not keep, which is most of them. (So does borrowing it from the library, by the way – people, use your local library or we wil lose them.) Content is content, no matters its packaging, and what I have always found valuable and resonant in books is not the paper they’re printed on.
So I’m torn. I won’t be making any decisions just yet, because I am being very well-behaved and am clearing my current (physical) reading pile before I buy more books [um, so I just went and bought a book. I'm just well-behaved rather than very well-behaved].
But my attraction to the space- and resource-saving nature of ebooks, and the logic of the movie analogy, means I think I will overcome my reservations about format and the dead-loss nature of them.
In turn, this means that if I can get any book on my reading list in Kindle or DRM-free ePub format for a price I think is fair given its ephemeral nature, I will be doing so.
Dear Wendy
I’ve had similar thoughts for the past year- it’s a damned if you do/don’t type of thing. However, the Kindle does look good. Pity about the price gouging on ebooks, though. Even the Americans are starting to rankle if you believe the blogs. Hopefully ‘market forces’ will sort things out in the short term. Regarding the on-selling of real books, I wonder how relevant this really is to ebooks? I tend to hoard my books and then (usually at Xmas)every decade or so give half of them to a library or second hand bookstore. They age & lose value gracefully. It seems to me that if the ebook is not anchored to the purchaser in some way it would be almost worthless as soon as bought. Then if it’s given away or traded the author (& the publisher) get nothing and the whole system collapses. It would be nice if the purchase price was reasonable in the first place (see above). It seems to be one of those things that’s a fundamental shift in perceptions – I look forward to reading other comments.
Regards
iDM
Good point on the on-selling: funnily enough, I don’t sell my books either, I give them away or donate them. I think the idea that I _could_ re-sell them but can’t with ebooks is just part of the adjustment required to no longer getting a physical product for my money.
Publishers/authors have always had to cope with the secondhand trade and with lending…but then, that was local, with a single physical copy. Now, a “single” copy can be “loaned” worldwide through piracy. I do understand where authors and publishers are coming from (of course I do, I am one) with this, in trying to limit a book to its purchaser.
This post, however, is about my issues as a reader, and one of those issues is that DRM makes my book device-dependent (ie at risk of loss) and in fact prevents me from reading many books in ebook format completely (because my device, Stanza, cannot handle DRM…yet).
Part of the problem, I believe, is the retailers, because they are the ones who want to lock you to a particular device – that way, you are also locked to a particular store. Amazon has Kindle, B&N has Nook (which reads a particular DRM-ePub version), for example. And they are the ones who take 50-55% of the recommended retail price of an ebook (re price gouging).
A lot of these teething problems are due to the conflicting requirements of author, publisher, retailer, reader. Authors have the right to have their content protected and paid for; publishers have the right to earn something for the risk they take and the process involved in preparing content; retailers need their cut; but readers want to pay a fair price.
I just don’t think the threat of piracy is as extreme as is claimed. People who knowingly steal content weren’t going to pay for it in the first place. They don’t represent a lost sale, they represent a minority pain in the arse.
I _do_ think the de-valuing of content is a problem, however, more so than piracy. I complain about an ebook being only a little cheaper than the hardback…but then, it is entirely possible that the price difference there is made up of the saving on the printing costs – publishers still need to pay for cover design, editing, layout, formatting, advertising, etc, etc (and, of course, the content itself).
Again, the value of the physical object outweighs the fact that the content itself is the most valuable part of the book. It requires a re-adjustment of thinking…including this terrible internet-driven notion that content must be free or close to.
On the other hand, part of what a reader pays for in a hardback – which is the most profitable form for the publisher, by the way – is the advantages of durability and early availability, not something that can be said for ebooks…and therefore, pexpecting readers to pay more for an ebook than a paperback is just silly.
But as you say, market forces will eventually settle it…as Apple did for music.
Whoo, long comment. This could have been a blog post in itself!
Hello Ms. Palmer;
Thank you for your reply.
I would not have written to you if this was an incompatibility issue. Evidently, you did not clearly understand from my original post; IT WAS WORKING fine, as long as I went through the Shortcovers icon which I no longer have. The reason I do not have it, is because after I loaded the Kobo update which appears when you open SC’s icon, I deleted the Shortcovers from my application list. Kobo is on the list.
Talk to Kobo? LOVELY! Do you happen to have a number for them? Please give it to me if they have a USA number, or an email address, or a snail mail address. All web searches for Shortcovers and Kobo take you to the same, lame website for downloading the app, (which is the same one I have btw, I checked) according to what type of phone you have.
What they do not have, Ms. Palmer, is contact information. I have not been lucky enough to find that yet. If you have any contact information as I requested in the previous paragraph. Please send it to me.
Thank you,
C. L. Wright-Harris
Hello again.
I understand you must be frustrated. However, I think I may need to point out here that I do not actually work for Kobo, use Kobo, or know anything about Kobo other than that they are an ereader app. Nor do I run an app helpdesk. I was just offering you something from my own experience with apps for a different device. I’m sorry that it wasn’t what you were looking for, but this website is also not what you are looking for.
Here are Kobo’s contact details, by the way.
http://www.kobobooks.com/companyinfo/contact.html
This includes a snail mail address.
Here is their help information:
http://www.kobobooks.com/companyinfo/help.html
And here is their FAQ.
http://www.kobobooks.com/faq
Perhaps there is something there that can help you.
Certainly, I think you are better off pursuing options via that website than continuing to ask me, because, as I think you are probably aware, I am just a blogger. I am not in any way affiliated with Kobo. Have a nice night.
Hello Again Ms. Palmer,
There is certainly no need for the ire you expressed in your reply to me, i. e. about what you are not, one thing you mentioned, being an app helpdesk, another was a Kobo employee or something.. Of COURSE you are not, and I didn’t approach your publication as if it were.
I had already run the gauntlet of those resources. Your blog came up during the search. I do thank you for the information you were able to provide me, Ms. Palmer.
I disagree with your description of yourself as ‘just a blogger.’ In my experience, bloggers are very important, because they haven’t sold out to media, and are honest, and responsible. This is why you have such a following internationally, from what I have seen on your site, which is phenomenal.
This is why you get the tough questions, and the tough customers…we know you understand our absolute anger about companies who can leave us twisting in the wind, like the confusion of what has happened to some of us during this transition of Kobo’s.
I will share with you whatever I discover about this problem with you.
Many thanks to you, Ms. Palmer.
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