1. No more waiting for that book to arrive from Amazon, go on sale, or show up in the local used book shop. Most readers can download books almost instantly and considering the enormous amount of public domain (FREE) books out there (everything from the Inferno to Shakespeare) there would never be a dearth of reading material.
2. Shelf space. I haven't got much and I'd like to use it for something more useful. Like a fish bowl. Or catstacle (cat obstacle) course - which is it's default purpose nowadays anyway. My shelves are packed with paperbacks, GNs and TPBs, video game action figures, forgotten bank statements, the occasional cat, a handful of hardbacks, and usually one or both pairs of my glasses so getting some space would be nice.
3. Slightly cheaper books. I don't know why E-books usually cost like $2 less than their printed siblings, I mean, it's not as though the file needs to printed out, bound, shipped, unpacked and put in a sales window somewhere so why the cost?(My guess is its a contract issue but that's a shot in the dark.) Still, that's $2 I don't have to spend and like another $4 I don't have to spend on shipping or gas.
4. Go-Go-Environmentally-Conscious-Ash! Not having to print, bind, ship, and display books means fewer resources being used including fuel for electricity and shipping etc.
5. They're freakin' cool.
6. You can read some of them in bright daylight (E-ink readers) outside - you remember daylight, it comes from that agonizingly searing neon sky thing. This thingy lets you read your books in it! Unlike my trusty attached-at-the-hip laptop which is useless in any kind of sunlight. So theoretically I could take my bad ass E-reader off to the beach. Well, maybe not the beach, maybe the woods. I don't like beaches, too much direct sunlight :P
7. The potential for obscenely efficient batteries. The readers that use E-ink systems are not constantly drawing power in order to illuminate the screen so their batteries can last for a couple weeks.
9. Textbooks I can take with me. This is a specific gripe of mine. I go to school online and I've always taken two courses at a time. Every quarter I get a single physical textbook and then the other class will have a solely digital book. Now, I get it, shipping, printing etc all cost money so okay fine but my laptop isn't really that portable. It's kind of a beast and I can't afford to replace it when I inevitably do something awful to it on my journeys. But most readers are comparative lightweights and again, and being able to read the E-ink versions in bright light is a win. I would have to have a .pdf compatible reader to take advantage of this.
And now, because I like to be difficult I shall summon cons.
1. Cost. I know, I know that was a plus right? It still is but as with any electronic hardware purchase you're going to lose money. Aside from some game console companies that sell their products at a loss planning to make up the difference on game sales most hardware is marked up enough to produce a profit. Fair enough that's the way the system works. But, the other side of this is the next-gen model. I can get a most excellent reader now but will likely be able to get an even more excellent reader say six months down the road for the same cost. That said that will pretty much always be the case until a technology is worn out or replaced by something sleeker and more versatile (think mid 90s cell phones compared to smartphones, y'feel me?).
2. No printing process. Again this has two sides. By cutting out the printers the publishers might save money but that just cripples more jobs and industries, how long before big printing companies are huddling around garbage barrel fires in alleys with the newspaper publishers and unemployed reporters? One of the downsides of a digital economy is the loss of jobs and products from the old economy. I don't think e-books will overwhelm the marketplace, at least, not for years and some books I will always have a physical copy of (The Stand, Summer of Night, a few others) simply because I sometimes just prefer the smell, feel, and weight of a real book.
3. Compatibility. I think this is becoming a negligible and niggling difference in general. Most readers can handle .pdf and similar formats and there are freeware converters available for more specialty formats. I can't speak to the effectiveness of the conversions as far as readability, ease etc (Incidentally if any of you fine readers are more knowledgeable toss me a comment and lemme know) but they do exist. The other issue is compatibility or access to the various digital stores for readers, Barnes and Noble has a specific format as does Amazon etc. Which means purchasing from these stores could be a challenge.
5. Re-buying all my books. One thing I think we can all agree on is that the last fifteen years or so have been pretty annoying as far as updating our visual media. First it was fancy VHS tapes with THX then it was the Special Ed- oh dang that's Star wars... my bad ;). Okay, not really, the douche-move of making an uber THX remastered VHS version of the original wonderful trilogy then bringing out the vomitously awful 'special' edition on THX uber VHS and then rinse repeat with every media format that happened with Star Wars is a very good example of the media upgrade evolution most consumers have danced to. Books have, until now, avoided that. I mean sure you may've had a beloved title that you've repurchased several times as copies went walkabout, wore out, or a shiny new version appealed to the magpie in you, but in general, re-buying a book was a choice not driven by outside forces moving onto the latest and greatest in technology. That might be changing.
I don't mind paying money for books. Really I don't. Especially if its a small or indie press. I'd rather shell out the money and support the existence of these companies and artists than download a badly ripped .pdf etc. Also, I suspect they have a better profit margin on their digital books than the printed copies. But it will bug the shit out of me to pay hard money for anything by a well known gagillionaire writer. Not because he/she doesn't deserve to be paid but because charging near-new retail prices fora digital book guarnteed to sell like gangbusters seems...wasteful. So if I re-buy books it will be slowly and only on sale.
6. Not being able to read in the dark without a clip on light or other light source. One downside of the E-ink readers is that they are not self illuminated. I don't think this will be a huge problem. I have a lamp by my bed for a reason. If I really wanted to or needed to read something in the dark I can use my phone.
All in all the juicy awesomeness of a reader is outweighing the various cons. I have to admit I'm leaning toward the $189 Kindle but I'm curious as to what anyone out there with an e-reader has to say. Do you like it? Was it worth the cost? Are there any problems or quirks you've encountered? What kind of documents do you use it for? And so on. If you have any experience with an e-reader feel free to comment and sway my heart and mind.
As always, thanks for reading :D
- Ash
Note: Comments are still on moderation, they won't show up right away. If you fill in a comment and hit submit a second page will load and show you a captcha pic, once you've submitted at that point I'll see the comment in my mod box and be able to post it :)
Update: See a follow up post here.
