{"id":97,"date":"2009-07-23T07:41:13","date_gmt":"2009-07-23T12:41:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ilsajbick.com\/?p=97"},"modified":"2009-07-24T06:48:59","modified_gmt":"2009-07-24T11:48:59","slug":"bns-big-yawn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ilsajbick.com\/?p=97","title":{"rendered":"B&N’s Big Yawn"},"content":{"rendered":"

Actually, more about ereaders: A very nice point-by-point rebuttal of why the B&N announcement ain’t much on Booksquare<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Like I said, I’ve written ebooks, and I’m certainly not slamming them.\u00a0 I think I’m more disgusted by the marketplace. For the record, I have a Sony eReader and received it years ago in its first iteration, the “old” PRS-500.\u00a0 I was thrilled.\u00a0 But, to put it bluntly, the Sony ebookstore isn’t such great shakes; the prices are pretty high (and, many times, higher than a mass-market paperback); customer service is lousy; the interface works only fitfully if you’ve got Norton (a known issue that the Sony tech people have known about for YEARS and still haven’t fixed).\u00a0 Do I mind that I have to connect to my computer to download books?\u00a0 Heck, no.\u00a0 I connect for a bunch of stuff: my Palm, my iPod, my Alphasmart.\u00a0 Ain’t no biggie.\u00a0 Do I care that things aren’t available at the touch of a button–i.e., “whispernet?”\u00a0 Uh . . . no.\u00a0 Cuts down on impulse buys, you ask me.\u00a0 (Which, btw, is what Amazon is counting on when they make such instant gratification available.)\u00a0 Being at the computer means I also have to pause and think, Is this book available in my library?\u00a0 For free?\u00a0 Well, for having paid taxes . . . <\/em><\/p>\n

Amazon hates people like me, same way Audible does.<\/p>\n

So here’s the deal.\u00a0 I like my eReader, I really do.\u00a0 A few weeks ago, I broke down and traded in my old 500 for an upgraded 505 (in Sangria Red and with an engraving . . . okay, I’m a sucker for a nice color).\u00a0 Is it substantially better?\u00a0 Yes: faster page turns, better battery life, more storage.\u00a0 Do I read TONS on it? Nope.\u00a0 I have established a habit, for better or worse, of reading certain authors on my reader.\u00a0 Don’t ask me why because I don’t know.\u00a0 Just . . . habit.\u00a0 I started OUT reading them on my Sony and now I’m comfortable reading them on my Sony (not ONLY, but for the most part).\u00a0 But will I preferentially read on my Sony?\u00a0 No.\u00a0 I still prefer the feel of a real book, environmentally unsound as\u00a0that may be.<\/p>\n

I won’t wax lyrical about the virtues of a book.\u00a0 If you’re a bibliophile like me, you already know and if you’re not, then I can’t convince you.\u00a0 But I care enough about books that I’ve learned how to bind my own (very tedious work but the result is well worth it) and I want to learn more about binding in different materials and, maybe, restoration.\u00a0 There’s just something about a book.\u00a0 For the record, my daughters LOVE books.\u00a0 Hate the eReaders.\u00a0 Won’t even consider them.<\/p>\n

Which brings up a very interesting point.\u00a0 My kids grew up on a steady diet of books.\u00a0 They are bored if they don’t have a new one to read.\u00a0 They’ve read some so many times I’ve bought new copies.\u00a0 Books are proven technologies; they wear and travel well; they are satisfying, low-cost experiences (frequently less than a movie and last longer and you just have to bring your own popcorn).\u00a0 They are beautiful works of art.<\/p>\n

A reader is a brick.\u00a0 A very nice brick, but it’s a brick.\u00a0 It\u00a0has no\u00a0character.\u00a0 There is no way I will look fondly at my brick or even remember a book I read on it\u00a0FIRST by its cover because it doesn’t really have one.\u00a0 Yet the fact that I WILL read certain authors on my reader because I read them on a reader first is really, really interesting.\u00a0 This suggests that reading behavior can be trained (duh) and that just as I read certain authors in hardcover right away, I will wait, patiently, for the library copy to become available or the\u00a0paperback of others because I’ve done it before.\u00a0 Simple familiarity.<\/p>\n

I don’t think this does the writers of those books I read first on a reader a great service.\u00a0 If anything, it means that I don’t go to the library to seek out their older stuff, or necessarily spend a lot of time on the computer looking for newer work.\u00a0 Like many friends, I sometimes buy an ebook for the express purpose of deciding if I like it well enough to buy the hardcover\/paperback.\u00a0 And, of course, I can’t lend my books out to anyone, which completely sucks because all writers know that word of mouth and passing around a physical object is quite, quite persuasive.<\/p>\n

Shrinks say that you remember 30% of what you hear, 30% of what you see, and about 66% of what you see and hear. (This is why it’s better to give a lecture with Powerpoint or slides;\u00a0trust me on this.)\u00a0 I’d like to add another category.\u00a0 I suspect that you remember more of what you read if you both see and TOUCH the actual medium.\u00a0 Not the bloody reader.\u00a0 The real, honest-to-G-d book.\u00a0 I know this is true, because I can tell you where my books are in my library not because they’re all alphabetical but because I remember the look, feel and shape.\u00a0 The color.\u00a0 I can tell you what shelf and which book is shelved next to it.\u00a0 I can’t do that with my reader even though I pretty much know which books are on my reader (I think).\u00a0 But I can’t tell you WHERE they are–in what order.<\/p>\n

Something to think about.<\/p>\n

Anyway . . . this started out being about B&N, sort of.\u00a0 For the record, I agree with the Booksquare post: a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing.\u00a0 Right now, the ereader market is getting confusing and crowded, and I don’t want them to make me have to work so hard to get a bloody book.\u00a0 In a bookstore, I know the format right away.\u00a0 Buying an ebook, I feel sometimes like I got to be a computer genius and I’m much more likely to pass that up and spend my time curled up with, you guessed it, a good book.<\/p>\n

Currently reading: Tales of the Madmen Underground<\/em> by John Barnes<\/p>\n

Currently listening to: Feed<\/em> by M.T. Anderson<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Actually, more about ereaders: A very nice point-by-point rebuttal of why the B&N announcement ain’t much on Booksquare. Like I said, I’ve written ebooks, and I’m certainly not slamming them.\u00a0 I think I’m more disgusted by the marketplace. For the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-on-reading","wpcat-11-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ilsajbick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ilsajbick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ilsajbick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ilsajbick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ilsajbick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=97"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.ilsajbick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103,"href":"https:\/\/www.ilsajbick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97\/revisions\/103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ilsajbick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=97"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ilsajbick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=97"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ilsajbick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=97"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}