Collusion!

[kennychaffin]

Well said! E-books are not for me either.

They will be. It's the future.

[Mekrath]

E-books are The Devil, and I will have nothing to do with them. Books are paper - real wrinkly, rustly, mildewy, smelly, yellowing, broken spines, falling open at your favourite parts paper. When you start a book you have a big chunk of pages in your right hand and just a few in your left; you can judge where you are in a story by how that balance changes. You can re-read a book and remember the feel of it in your hand, the weight of THAT book, the curl of its page corners, that weird splodge on page 296. When you read and love a book, you can have the excitement/disappointment of going into a bookshop a few years later and seeing it has got a new cover. E-books, however, are sterile joyless ugly lifeless horrible horrible horrible things. I'll never never switch to using one.

Aaaaaand relax *breathes*.

Couldn't disagree with you more

I would only buy a paper book if the price was significantly cheaper than the e-book.

[cgw]

I'm flexible. I listen to vinyl, tapes, CD's and MP3's. I have a beta VCR, VHS VRC and DVD player. One thing you can not do is put an e-book on a shelf. I would rather have a book case full of books than a nice painting on the wall. I like to look at them and to have them there. I may read ebooks some day but I hope the regular books to not disappear in my lifetime.

[kennychaffin]

I'm flexible. I listen to vinyl, tapes, CD's and MP3's. I have a beta VCR, VHS VRC and DVD player. One thing you can not do is put an e-book on a shelf. I would rather have a book case full of books than a nice painting on the wall. ....

Sounds like a market waiting to be addressed!

[Asimovking]

Yes, but that is in a perfect world where there are no backroom deals and people always know what these guys are doing. They were caught this time, but given time and the likely small slap on the wrist they will get, they will try something else. This is the way our free market actually works, Enron, Tyco, etc.

If all the parties involved agreed to the contract then there's nothing wrong with it. And by extenstion a consumer agrees to it when they pay the price for the product. You don't have yo know what they are doing behind the scenes to decide for yourself whether or not something costs more than you are willing to pay. People don't realize how much power consumers have. Consumers set the price by either paying it or not.

And we don't have a free market so Enron and all that are invalid examples.

[Randy M.]

E-books are The Devil, and I will have nothing to do with them. Books are paper - real wrinkly, rustly, mildewy, smelly, yellowing, broken spines, falling open at your favourite parts paper. When you start a book you have a big chunk of pages in your right hand and just a few in your left; you can judge where you are in a story by how that balance changes. You can re-read a book and remember the feel of it in your hand, the weight of THAT book, the curl of its page corners, that weird splodge on page 296. When you read and love a book, you can have the excitement/disappointment of going into a bookshop a few years later and seeing it has got a new cover. E-books, however, are sterile joyless ugly lifeless horrible horrible horrible things. I'll never never switch to using one.

Aaaaaand relax *breathes*.

I read something on-line recently that pointed out what happened to music: It went from being a product to being a service. And I think that's what bothers me about e-books. How can you loan an e-book to hook a friend on a favorite author? (Traditionally, one way a newly published writer begins to establish an audience) How can you buy an e-book cheaper when there's no chance of finding it at the used e-book store?

BUT ... and it's a big but ... when I see what sites like Ash Tree Press is offering as an e-book, either works that have been out of print for years if not decades, and works that were originally published in smallish editions, I think an e-book reader looks a lot more attractive.

Randy M.

[shirunei]

I don't get where people come from saying they will never switch. I could care less what format it comes in as long as i get to actually read the book. Placing tactile sensations before cerebral thinking is for primitives.

[Contrarius]

How can you loan an e-book to hook a friend on a favorite author?

Actually, even if you limit yourself to DRM-tagged ebooks (not all are), and even if you limit yourself to legal means (there are of course illegal means around DRM), ebooks can be loaned. For example, Amazon has a free lending program. I've never used it, but there's a blurb about it on many of the Kindle book pages. Also, you can easily loan an ebook by simply handing your Kindle over to a friend, just as you would hand your book over to that friend. So it's far from impossible.

[kennychaffin]

Actually, even if you limit yourself to DRM-tagged ebooks (not all are), and even if you limit yourself to legal means (there are of course illegal means around DRM), ebooks can be loaned. For example, Amazon has a free lending program. I've never used it, but there's a blurb about it on many of the Kindle book pages. Also, you can easily loan an ebook by simply handing your Kindle over to a friend, just as you would hand your book over to that friend. So it's far from impossible.

Correct, it is built in to both Amazon Kindle books and Nook Books, as well as being able to borrow library books and borrow books from Amazon's Kindle lending library.

[sic's mom]

I have loved books all my life. Yes the smell and feel of them as you read. That being said I have a Nook and I love it too. I read in my room at night and I see two rather large, overstuffed, overflowing bookcases. Getting to that middle aged mark I have this urge to cut down on some of the "stuff" in my life. So slowly I am trying to convert a lot of my books and give a lot away. My hardbacks will never go, but I just don't want the space taken up anymore. And I love reading on my Nook. I love laying in bed in the dark being able to read without bothering anyone. And as lazy as this sounds finishing one book and not having to get out of bed to find another I will never get rid of all my books, but I do realize that ebooks are the way of the future. In many ways that is sad. My great grandchildren will probably never go to a used bookstore, or spend hours trolling the shelves at the library. But reading is my greatest joy and I refuse to be left behind or miss out on something I love.

[PeterWilliam]

Placing tactile sensations before cerebral thinking is for primitives.

1. According to you.
2. A gross oversimplification of a position with which you disagree.
3. A statement that, in tone and sentiment, is hardly necessary to convey the notion that you disagree - unless of course you want people to know how low of an opinion you have of them (i.e. a statement not germane to SFFWorld).

[Whiskeyjack]

Well said! E-books are not for me either.

For better or worse, ebooks are likely the future of publishing. Just as hand-copied transcriptions yielded to the mass printing presses, so too will paper books give way to electrons floating around in the ether until they pop up on a blank screen! Hopefully, print versions will always remain an option for those so inclined.

[Randy M.]

Actually, even if you limit yourself to DRM-tagged ebooks (not all are), and even if you limit yourself to legal means (there are of course illegal means around DRM), ebooks can be loaned. For example, Amazon has a free lending program. I've never used it, but there's a blurb about it on many of the Kindle book pages.

I hadn't heard that before. And I wonder how long that will last, but then I suppose I'm being skeptical if not cynical. Still, it's heartening.

Also, you can easily loan an ebook by simply handing your Kindle over to a friend, just as you would hand your book over to that friend. So it's far from impossible.

Well, that's a bigger risk than loaning a book ranging in price from $7.99 - $15.99, or even a hardcover. Plus, if your books are on the e-reader, that would leave you without the means to read something else. Until the readers come down in price, I wonder how many people would loan one.


Randy M.

[kennychaffin]

I hadn't heard that before. And I wonder how long that will last, but then I suppose I'm being skeptical if not cynical. Still, it's heartening.



Well, that's a bigger risk than loaning a book ranging in price from $7.99 - $15.99, or even a hardcover. Plus, if your books are on the e-reader, that would leave you without the means to read something else. Until the readers come down in price, I wonder how many people would loan one.


Randy M.

No it only affects the particular book you loan out, not the rest of your "library"

[Contrarius]

Well, that's a bigger risk than loaning a book ranging in price from $7.99 - $15.99, or even a hardcover. Plus, if your books are on the e-reader, that would leave you without the means to read something else. Until the readers come down in price, I wonder how many people would loan one.

That's really not Amazon's problem, though.

Think of it as lending out a leather-bound limited edition book.

Or, think of it this way: if you send a friend a copy of an ebook file, you are doing the same thing legally as though you Xeroxed a whole book and handed the Xerox copy to your friend. Would you ever consider that such a thing would be legal? Probably not. But when you hand your friend your physical Kindle, it is legally the same as handing over the physical book. If you don't trust that friend with your Kindle, then you probably shouldn't trust em with your book either.