It’s been some time in coming, but the burgeoning digital revolution as pertains to the written word is now fully upon us. We’ve seen the forerunners, to be sure, but Amazon has now released what I can only describe as the new benchmark in digital text transmission, The Kindle. Sony, of course, is trying its best to compete, with an updated reading device of its own.
There are differences between the two, and those differences may or may not be significant. That delineation ultimately, I think, will rest in the hands of each consumer as he (or she) decides what is of utmost importance.
The main differences, initially, are that the Sony Reader can play mp3′s and view PDF’s, while the Kindle does neither of those. The Kindle, however, is wirelessly synced to a “virtual” bookstore and that connectivity is always on, and you never pay for it. To get e-books to the Reader, you have to connect through a portal similar to ITunes and download them to your computer before transferring to the Reader.
Each allows access to blogs and newspapers. I’m sure there are some minor differences here, but I doubt they are of much significance. The size and weight dimensions are essentially the same, though the Kindle boasts a “keyboard” with many more keys.
Ultimately, what concerns me is not that these devices exist. To be honest, I have decided that I really want a Kindle…or I want one for a month to test drive (now if only I was a critically acclaimed best selling author…). Nevertheless, I am concerned about where this may lead.
As you all know, I hope one day to make a meager living as a writer. I’ve spent a number of years retailing books, and I’m pursuing both an MA in English and MFA in Creative Writing. Words are less something I’m concerned with, and more a considerable part of how I define myself. And so, I think I cannot be faulted too greatly for being concerned with how these devices will impact the way in which reading (and more importantly, in my mind) and writing are digested and created in our society.
I can already hear your rebuttal…something along the lines of, what about the IPod? As much as the record companies want you to believe otherwise, digital music has, in many ways, been very good for the music industry. Sure, the recording industry hasn’t yet figured out how to really deal with people who download music illegally (though, I might humbly suggest not suing housewives for hundreds of thousands of dollars as, you know, a gesture of good will…), but eventually the corporations will embrace the technology, instead of trying to prevent it and most everyone on both sides will be happy (I say most because, someone, somewhere will want to steal just for the fun of it…).
The fundamental difference, I think, is that music hasn’t really ever had a set mode of transmission. In my lifetime I have owned (or my family has, when I was just a nipper) record players, cassette players, 8-track players, CD players, and digital players (I love you WinAmp!) . Other than issues with convenience, there really isn’t much difference between the different medias. Unless you’re a total nutjob and have thousands of dollars, a CD isn’t all that better than a cassette, than a record (and some would argue that analog sound BETTER for certain types of music), etc. Don’t get me wrong, I love music. I have just under 200 hours of music on my laptop, and that’s about half the total CD’s laying around my house, not counting classical (of which, I have an assload thanks to years of free promos…). But when it comes right down to it, the specific player I am utilizing at any given time is of little importance to me.
Such can not be said about the written word, but more specifically about books. It’s been 600 years since there’s been any real innovation when it comes to transmitting the written word. Sure, newspapers and magazines are not the same as books, but they are produced in similar manners, and they present a tactile experience on par with books.
A book is something that you necessarily interact with. In his endorsement of Amazon’s product, Neil Gaiman (not a man I usually disagree with) states that it makes no difference to him whether he is flipping a page or clicking a button, and that the device is so intuitive that you hardly notice the difference. I haven’t used it, obviously, but I find this a bit disingenuous. Maybe I’m a poor reader, but I often find myself flipping back through pages of a book to revisit passages from earlier after I’ve come across something intriguing or important later on. I don’t think any flat screened device, no matter how intuitive, can make that particularly easy. And on a similar point, I can’t be the only person to write notes in margins or underline important passages…
I’m also quite curious to see how digital transmission of writing will affect poetry. I’ve waxed philosophic on a similar topic in the past, but the impact of digitized content seriously concerns me in regards to a form of art that can have as much depth visually as it does linguistically.
On some level, I realize all of this stems from the fact that I have the soul of a 60 year old. I like my personal library (no matter how much it annoys my wife). It’s taken me, literally, years to collect all the books that I have, and there is something very unsettling about thinking that one day, all of it could be stored within a device that fits easily in a small bag. I really do believe that digitizing the written word will, in some way, degrade the regard we have for it. Book reading is on the decline, and I have a suspicion that these devices might inadvertently contribute to this even more, what with there online newspaper and “blog” reading functionality.
Of course, I could be wrong. Maybe people will get enthused about fiction once it’s so easily accessible, but at a the current price tag of around 400 bones, I seriously doubt it.
Plus I find that laptops and electronic devices to be a bit unwieldly while on the can. It’s hard to hold it and scroll with the same hand(I’m of course talking about using my other hand to wipe my ass and not to masterbate so just take all of your minds out of the gutter).
We may be turning a corner in the printed word department between this and the announcement by marvel comics that they are going to be offering their entire back catalog digitally.
I too feel that this may speed the decline of society’s illiteracy. I completely enjoy picking up my books and just flipping to a chapter that I especially enjoyed reading to relive the experience I originally had. Plus, when the powers out and I only have candles or a flashlight a good hardback can always keep you company and you don’t need to worry about the battery dying on you with no means to recharge it. That would scare me more, a dark age of technology where we store everything electronically and some huge crash occurs and we have no hard copy to fall back on.
the smell of a book, the feel of the pages on my fingers, taking it out into the weather and actually getting off my ass to go OUT into the world to purchase something and chance meeting other people. i cant lend a friend an ebook and i sure as hell cant throw it against a wall when the story turns to my dislike. so many great things a book has when compared to ebooks. the ambiance a book can give will never be matched by a computer and now im just complaining to people i dont know. can you imagine reading Lord Dunsany any on a computer? i wont.
Well, I can’t imagine reading Lord Dunsany at all…but, each to his own.
I mean, I can’t expect that everyone else in the world will consider Terry Pratchett to be their personal lord and savior like I do…I mean, I think everyone should, but I guess I can’t expect it.
And while you may not know us…you’re one of our six readers, so I know a few things about you. All of our readers are:
A. Highly intelligent
B. Not geeky in the slightest
C. Totally hot (women readers) or totally ripped (men readers)
D. Have the most discerning of tastes, and
E. Are the envy of your enemies and friends.
My book sensebilities are totally at war with my ungeeky love of gadgets. As someone who not only has thousands of books in a tiny apartment that caused all three inspectors this year to ask if I’m moving, I also am into the book arts and bind my own, alter journals, and generally love all paper arts.
I think the general idea of books on a reader is a sign of the apocalypse, but my love of nifty little things to program and play with whispers in my ear that an electronic reader solves many problems, like not having to carry around five books with you, not buying a book at a used store and finding out the last chapter has been ripped out, easy print magnification, not having to wash your hands every fifteen minutes for all the ink on your thumbs, or finding a place to dump old books that you don’t want anymore but can’t bear to throw away.
Otherwise… no. No cover art? What about internal illustrations? I cringe at my beautiful architectural books’ prints turned to pixelly black and white monstrosities. What about glossaries at the backs? There would be no easy way to get there and back. And the already mentioned problems with battery life and the delicacy of machines.
And I don’t want to see authors in the same binds as the record companies, losing money (that frankly they need more than the hard partying rockstars of today) for people ripping books off, copying them and sharing instead of buying.
And yes. 400 bucks. Not gonna happen. Maybe if they made one that cost 19.95.
One of the main reasons I’m interested in The Kindle is that the illustration display is quite good. I’m sure that full color illustration is only one or two iterations away…the battery life of the Kindle, also, is quite good. It can run for nearly a week if the wireless capability is disabled.
The other great thing about it, as you say Kerri, is the storage capacity. Something like 200 books can be held in this first version. That’s a crapload of books!
As for the sharing…. Music artists, today, make most of their money from live performances and touring, not CD sales, so it’s the record companies that are really impacted by illegal music sharing. Authors have no similar recourse (well, a scant few can do speaking engagements, but there’s no “touring” there), and if the bottom fell out of book sales authors, and publishers, would die. Then again, maybe it’s just me, but I think that since fiction readers constitute a niche audience already, they are probably more likely to pay for their niche content.
It’s already possible to download PDF versions of best selling hardcovers on any Bit Torrent site, but I don’t think a lot of avid readers care. Especially when a much more usable electronic copy is available for 10 bucks.
Considering the cost of IPhones, IPods, Zunes, and the like, I don’t actually think $400 is an out of hand price, I just don’t have 400 dollars on me to spend on the thing…
The Kindle might have good illustration reproduction, but nothing compares to full page color prints that can’t really be scrunched down into the size of a paperback or even a hardcover. But yeah, if I got about… er… 3 Kindles, it might be able to get rid of my paperback collection. But then if one of them breaks, I’m out a third of my books. Hopefully they come with spaces for drives so you can back them up, but then it leads back to the sharing problem.
Part of being a sci-fi/fantasy reader though, is how quickly books go out of print. They barely have a shelf life of five years unless they’re classics like Tolkien or Bradbury. I’m still tracking down Peter David’s Star Trek New Frontiers series (which is SO funny; I don’t even really like Star Trek and I love this), and I can’t see the eBook people trying to keep on hand ‘niche’ books like that.
Another place to read much older books is Project Gutenberg, which I have used several times.
On the price… mmm. Print documents take up a lot less space than music and video files, but I suppose there’s the battery life and picture quality to think about. Wonder if you could eventually read a manga on it. (Though buying comic books on a flash drive? Scares me to death.) I’m sure if it catches on, the price will come down and the quality will go up. I don’t have 400 dollars to spend on anything.
I think that, if approached correctly, the used book economy could completely go away if devices like the Kindle really catch on.
The reason that books go out of print, I’m sure you know, is because the demand for them has dwindled to the extant that printing more copies is no longer profitable. However, if keeping a book in “print” only requires that the digital version of it stay housed on a server somewhere, a place where, literally, thousand of others are as well, then the cost incurred to keep it in print is negligible. If properly exploited, Amazon might consider partnering with a third party provider to house all those niche books you and I want so desperately to be easily accessible…
See, the problem with that is that I LOVE used bookstores. They are my third reason for life past comic book stores and new book book stores.
I guess my faith in the digital age is still unfirm. I see some lightning storm or weird virus sneaking in and wiping those drives clean and losing gems like Rainbow Man and The Ugly Little Boy forever. Sort of like the fires at Alexandria.
Devices like The Kindle could be really handy in the case of doing research for papers, or cross referencing notes. But there is a nice tangable feeling with having paper pages to flip through making notes in between lines that you will have a hard time adding on a machine like The Kindle.
With the Kindle too, you can’t have eight books out at once. Just one.
And Kilian, I looked a little harder. On the Kindle you can write notes in the margins and highlight. It also does come with an optional SD memory card, and your purchases are backed up online in Your Library on Amazon, which keeps them there so you can switch books out.
I found it funny that Gaiman was doing his plug in front of a backdrop of books…
So I got to fiddle with Sony’s reading service for Free, and I shall continue to have access for the next 30 days or so. While I do find the novelty of it to be rather enjoyable, reading however is not something I do not off a solar flare’s blindingly bright screen.