Jun
15
2009
Busy. Back soon.
The title kind of says it all. I’ll be hanging around a little, but most of my attention is taken up with the third Strange Angels book. It’s veered off in a totally different direction, which is good. The point at which I throw even the faintest approximation of an outline out the window and trust solely in the work to carry me is the point at which I’ve found the right path into the book.
Or at least, I hope.
Back soon, but before I go, a question. I’ve been wondering about the true cost of ebooks once one factors in the cost of a computer/ebook reader (or access to one), Internet access, etc. Has anyone worked that out? I’m interested to find out.
See you around. My brain is being eaten by the boooooook…
Related posts:
June 15th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
Other thing I worry about with e-books is how do I keep them long term? Will I be able to re-read them 15 or 20 years down the road? Those play definite roles for me as I do re-read my books. I currently own abotu 3k books and I can still pick up a book I bought in the 80s and read it. Now, if it would have been on diskette instead, I can guarantee it would have long gone the way of the dodo from magnetic media rot.
June 15th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
i agree with susan…i actually tried a kindle last year (tried amazon’s 30 day thing) and sent it back…
things i liked: being able to get it right then
things i did not like and could not live with:
1) no physical book ( i missed the feel of a book in my hands and being able to see it on my book shelves and smell it)…i have thousands of books – it is my only vice.
2) and did not like the – what if it (the kindle) doesn’t survive..what would i do with my copies (those bought – cant read now since i returned the kindle (see note below)
3) and came to the conclusion that if i buy it in E version…i should be able to have it in any version i want (readable on kindle, sony ereader, PC, mac, etc).
4) i really missed my pretty shiny sci-fi/fantasy covers and spines…covers in the kindle are black white and sometimes dont even match the real book.
June 15th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
I have been very resistant to e-books, like the othe commentor I love my physical books, the turn of the page the feel of the paper, the covers. I don’t think I can give that up for something as slight as an e-book. Even though I own an iPod, I still buy the CD and burn it to my laptop first. I need to have something tangible and not just a file.
June 15th, 2009 at 6:25 pm
I tried the e-book thing back when a few authors were offering their works in that format (one that springs to mind was Stephen King’s “Riding the Bullet”) at hugely reduced rates.
Frankly, I’m not all up on that bandwagon. Sure, technology is the wave of the future, but for me nothing beats a nice bubble bath, and a book in hand to soak the cares away.
I have about 5000 books, and like the rest of you who’ve posted, I need that tangible paper in my hands, turning the pages. It’s just part of the whole experience.
June 15th, 2009 at 6:53 pm
Somewhat change of subject… I love it when my story and the characters take on a life of their own. That makes it as exciting for me as reading a new book.
June 15th, 2009 at 7:43 pm
I have been reading eBooks since Jan 2005. I started out reading on a Palm PDA, within a year a moved to an iPaq PDA with a bigger colour screen. I soon found that I was reading all my books on my iPaq and rarely picking up a paper book unless it was to read in the bath. When Cybook came out at the end of 2007 and supported the Mobipocket format I was thrilled. All the eBooks that I had read on my PDAs would be able to be read on the Cybook as well!
I love my books, I still have Early Readers from when I was a child and read them to my Son even though they sometimes make me sneeze. To me it’s the words and pictures that make the story, not the feel or smell of the book. In fact not being able to smell the dust and mildew that seems to gravitate to paper books is a good thing for me and my allergies.
I read and re-read my books so I have been slowly re-purchasing my favourite paper books in eBook format so that I can enjoy them again. This is especially good for thick books like the “Outlander” series which are the same size as a Young Adult book such as “Strange Angels” on my Cybook. I love not having my books close on me when I’m at the end or beginning of the story. I refuse to break the spines of my books so this is always going to be an issue for me with thick paper books.
I don’t count the cost of Internet or my computer when thinking of the ‘total cost’ of eBooks because I would have them anyway. I do consider my Cybook to be an additional cost, but the savings I get from purchasing eBooks in US dollars instead of Canadian dollars has paid for my Cybook over the 2 years I’ve had it. Yes, I read a lot, this helps justify the cost of the eBook Reader.
June 16th, 2009 at 5:09 am
I’m a modern woman, don’t get me wrong…however, what happens if you have a complete harddrive failure?
Is it possible to redownload an ebook, you have already paid for?
My mum and I have hundreds and hundreds of books, expanding monthly…I hate tatty, creased books…I think I’d rather prefer a book to hand then anything else.
June 16th, 2009 at 6:19 am
What happens when your hard drive fails? Just like anything else you keep there (documents, video, music, photos) you keep a backup copy of some type and go from there. All it generally takes is one big loss and you’ll start keeping backups if you don’t already. That said, most ebook retailers do allow you to re-download your books but there is no guarantee. A retailer can close, their distributor can close or cancel a contract to that particular retailer.
When I first tried ebooks it was on an old Palm III PDA and then later on a PC and my Treo cell phone. None of those really worked for me for anything other than short stories. Since I first got an eInk reader in 2007 I no longer buy anything but ebooks (well I did buy two paper books last year) and I buy lots of books every year (in the hundreds). I currently have a Kindle 2 and used to use a Sony Reader, both are nice. EInk is wonderful to look at and the space saving is wonderful. I have over 2,000 paper books and simply have no more room anymore. I’ve found that after getting used to a reader (about 2 books) I’d rather use that than a paper book. I just did some checking and since I got my Kindle earlier this year I’ve saved about $200 on books vs. buying a paper copy from Amazon. My Kindle will have “paid for itself” before the end of the year I suppose, but that’s not my primary reason for going ebook. I wouldn’t factor internet costs or the cost of a PC (assuming I had it for other things anyway), I’d say what you read on only really factors in if you’re using it as a dedicated reader or buying it primarily for reading.
The biggest problem ebooks have right now is DRM (basically copy protection). There are a bunch of different formats and usually if your device reads one format it doesn’t work with any of the others. This isn’t so much a problem if you like reading on a laptop or PDA as there is generally software you can install to read each format. It is a problem with dedicated readers right now. Not having a standard format can make it tough to keep your books and be able to use them on your device of choice long term. Using Lili’s books as an example if you buy a Danny Valentine book, or one of her other titles from a large publisher they will be DRM’d and you will be stuck with whatever format you initially buy. If you buy a title published by Imajinn (Demon’s Librarian, Watchers, Society) you can buy through Fictionwise in what they call Multiformat. These books have no DRM and can be redownloaded later in one of about 12 different formats. So far the only fairly large publisher to offer ebooks without DRM is Baen. They’ve been quite successful at it, but none of the real biggies (Penguin, Random House, Harper) have so far done so. Hopefully they will someday since DRM does nothing to stop piracy and just makes life difficult for legit paying customers. There are tools to remove the DRM from most formats and what a lot of folks do is buy a format where they can remove the protection and easily convert it to whatever format they need at a given time. Some say this is illegal in the US, others say it’s fair use. It’s never been tested in court, so no one really knows. Oddly even though it’s so easy to remove the protection most of the pirated books floating around come not from an ebook source, but from a scanned paper book.
Ebooks are certainly not for everyone, and are still quite young in the grand scheme of things, but they work great for me.
Sorry, I know it’s more than Lili asked about, but I figured it might answer questions others had posed. Hopefully I didn’t ramble to much.
June 18th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
I love the smell of books. Between my Mother and my Grandmother I attribute the smell to home and good memories. They both of libraries in their homes, and I’m even worse than they are because I read a larger selection than they do. I prefer to have my books organized by genre, author, and size but I have so many and no room for additional book cases that they have to be stacked to maximize what space i do have. Therefore, I plan to buy a kindle in a year or two when the price is not quite so high and more of the kinks are taken out of it. So far, the newer kindle already addresses the issues mentioned such as backups and wanting to reread the books you’ve bought. At least with Amazon they have a free backup system which will let you redownload anything you have already purchased in case your kindle breaks. Also, since they use hardrives you can accumulate hardrives with thousands of books on them. Since i am also a gamer, the idea of holding on to memory cards with information on them doesn’t bother me in the least. I love paper books, but i hate how my carrying around, no matter how careful i am will eventually cause a crease or bend in the cover, or in the case of books such as young adult books which come out in the larger paper back format the plastic film will eventually begin to peel back after i’ve read the book for the 5th time. I like the idea of this not happening. I like something that will fit in my purse and not be heavy like a hardback. I still plan to buy paperbooks, but will keep myself from buying everything that grabs my fancy and keep it to favorite books, or a new book by one of my favorite authors. In a few dacades I’m sure paperbooks will unfortunately follow VHS and cassette tapes.