Kindle Question

[anonymouse]

Yes I will wait only because I would kick myself repeatedly if I settled on something less than optimal. Ready for it though. Ready to completely eliminate paper books, newspapers, and magazines from my life. Music and video already in digital format only.. a great space saver. ... oh I will keep a book case with some old cool looking books, but for aesthetic purposes only. Something like in the movie "The Time Machine" based on the H.G. Wells book of the same title where the man picks up one of the books and it falls to dust in his hands. Then is able to move his hand through a complete shelf of books all turning to dust.

"Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy [things] we don’t need. We’re the middle children of history… No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our great war is a spiritual war… our great depression is our lives." Tyler Durden

What this has to do with what I have been talking about I am not quite sure but I love that quote...

However good these machines become, I'd cry if someone took away my book collection

Recently purchased Richard Dawkins ' The Greatest Show on Earth' in hardback, not only a great read but a beautiful object'

I've come to terms reluctantly with mp3's, saying that if I still lived in the UK I'd of kept a vinyl collection.

Dvd's are competing for space with my book collection , they might get a culling at some point.

Maybe I'm the last of the luddites, I got my first mobile phone only 4 years ago and still have the same one.

[swain]

I think of it as freeing.. you can get all your music, books, pictures, communications, internet and videos in a device you can carry with you. This is the future and the future is now!~

However good these machines become, I'd cry if someone took away my book collection

Recently purchased Richard Dawkins ' The Greatest Show on Earth' in hardback, not only a great read but a beautiful object'

I've come to terms reluctantly with mp3's, saying that if I still lived in the UK I'd of kept a vinyl collection.

Dvd's are competing for space with my book collection , they might get a culling at some point.

Maybe I'm the last of the luddites, I got my first mobile phone only 4 years ago and still have the same one.

[Ulysses G.]

E-books remind me of Segways. They are new and flashy. They are expensive and good for a few specific functions, but completely outclassed by trusty bicycles that have been around for centuries.

Paper books are like bicycles. There are not a lot of improvements that can be made after all this time, but they don't need any. They look nice. They are inexpensive and easy to ride on streets and park almost anywhere, and they are also healthy to ride.

Edited January 13, 2010 by Ulysses G.

[mcgriffith]

I segued from vinyl to Cds to mp3.

Used to have a huge music collection,; 78's 33's, 45's, rare stuff, early rock/blues. Really every genre.

Now every bit of music is on an HDD that fits in a shirt pocket.

OK, the audiophiles can quibble about analog versus digital sound, yadda yadda. Irrelevant to me.

Books are going the same way. Sorry, sad...but true. Why chop down a million trees, create paper, truck it and ship it worldwide with diesel-emitting ships and trucks, spend billions on distribution....all to produce a book?

I love books. One of the saddest days of my life was leaving the US, and having to give up my library. Luckily my son took them all, except for a few heirloom books; stored them.

Minute they come up with an e reader that is practical, easy on the eyes, lightweight and not too expensive....

[Thakkar]

I segued from vinyl to Cds to mp3.

Used to have a huge music collection,; 78's 33's, 45's, rare stuff, early rock/blues. Really every genre.

Now every bit of music is on an HDD that fits in a shirt pocket.

OK, the audiophiles can quibble about analog versus digital sound, yadda yadda. Irrelevant to me.

Books are going the same way. Sorry, sad...but true. Why chop down a million trees, create paper, truck it and ship it worldwide with diesel-emitting ships and trucks, spend billions on distribution....all to produce a book?

I love books. One of the saddest days of my life was leaving the US, and having to give up my library. Luckily my son took them all, except for a few heirloom books; stored them.

Minute they come up with an e reader that is practical, easy on the eyes, lightweight and not too expensive....

This is mostly how I feel. We're not there yet, but books, and textbooks in particular will be all digital pretty soon.

As to environmental friendliness, I'm not yet convinced. It depends on the environmental costs of producing the readers, disposal of toxic batteries and how often people replace their readers. With electronics like these, three year cycles are common.

I can empathize with you about giving up your library. I had to do the same when I came here—leave them to someone.

As soon as there's an e-reader that's got a color screen and supports open standards, I getting one.

[Thakkar]

E-books remind me of Segways. They are new and flashy. They are expensive and good for a few specific functions, but completely outclassed by trusty bicycles that have been around for centuries.

Paper books are like bicycles. There are not a lot of improvements that can be made after all this time, but they don't need any. They look nice. They are inexpensive and easy to ride on streets and park almost anywhere, and they are also healthy to ride.

Paper books are great. And so are bicycles.

But will the eReaders go the way of the Segway? Not likely.

With the Segway, laws needed changing, and, for widespread adoption, entire cities would have had to have been redesigned. Plus there was only one manufacturer, one patent holder and plenty of established business against the thing.

With eReaders, the many manufacturers, all the publishers as well as authors are on board because widespread adoption will be good for their business. In many ways, it will be good for consumers as well. My big concern is: will I really own all the digital books I buy, or will I only own them for as long as I keep buying replacement eReaders from the same manufacturer? In spite of this concern that I and many other readers have, like it or not, the eReader juggernaut is barreling down fast. I think that we'll all be surprised at how quickly eReaders will take over.

[Ulysses G.]

Obviously, I have an ulterior motive for not wanting e-books to succeed, but on the other hand, my objections are quite sincere. IMHO, despite the hype, there is almost nothing about Kindles and such that would improve on paper books, other than using less paper. Paper books will only be replaced by something else that uses up wood, so I'm not sure how important that is in the long run. Instead of books, we will have more choices in toilet paper - big deal.

As far as being good for business, I disagree that e-books will help anything. It is my opinion that book reading and book sales will go down quite a bit just because the format is so much less satisfying. We have been losing readers for a long time even though attractive books almost advertise themselves.

Of course publishers will save on paper costs, but those paper costs are what keep pirating books from skyrocketing. Buying the paper means much less profit for those who cannot buy it in huge lots, so pirates mostly avoid printing books.

The truth is that if e-books succeed, no one is going to want to pay for them, they are going to download them for free and writers will have no reason to produce them anymore - money is one of the main reasons that professionals make writing a career.

I know I sound negative, but when it comes to e-books, I feel more than justified. After the dust settles, and all the giving stuff away and the tricks to get people to accept them have calmed down, I'm afraid that we will realize that we have lost much more than we have gained.

[swain]

Paper books will only be replaced by something else that uses up wood, so I'm not sure how important that is in the long run. Instead of books, we will have more choices in toilet paper - big deal.

hmmm yes your right for sure. If we aren't making books we will still chop down trees to make greater stores of toilet paper. We wouldn't want to actually leave any trees for trees sake?

As far as being good for business, I disagree that e-books will help anything. It is my opinion that book reading and book sales will go down quite a bit just because the format is so much less satisfying. We have been losing readers for a long time even though attractive books almost advertise themselves.

Your right again.. the idiots on Wall street and Madison avenue couldn't possibly come up with more exciting ways to advertise and promote e-books and content. In fact through out the years I have seen less and less advertising coming from this group of dullards.

Of course publishers will save on paper costs, but those paper costs are what keep pirating books from skyrocketing. Buying the paper means much less profit for those who cannot buy it in huge lots, so pirates mostly avoid printing books.

The truth is that if e-books succeed, no one is going to want to pay for them, they are going to download them for free and writers will have no reason to produce them anymore - money is one of the main reasons that professionals make writing a career.

Wow dead on again.. Things that are easy to pirate could not possibly any make money and will all but disappear. I have seen a steady decline in the money being made on video games like Tour of duty, Modern warfare.. ( they reported 1 billion dollars in sales so far in the first 6 months ) Musical artists have all but disappeared as well. I think we will see Brittney on food stamps any day now.

I know I sound negative, but when it comes to e-books, I feel more than justified. After the dust settles, and all the giving stuff away and the tricks to get people to accept them have calmed down, I'm afraid that we will realize that we have lost much more than we have gained.

I think your right about one thing. You do have a vested interest in books.

[Ulysses G.]

You do have a vested interest in books.

That is not what this is about, I just find very little use in a machine that tries to recreate the feeling of reading a book when I can read a real one that had all the kinks worked out centuries ago.

As to saving trees, I don't know if they will literally use them for toilet paper, but there is a very good chance that they will just find another use for them that may be far less worthwhile than books.

Edited January 15, 2010 by Ulysses G.

[zippydedodah]

i did not buy my sony ereader with the idea that it would recreate or replace the "feeling of reading a book" at all. I bought it so i can have access to hundreds of books, instantly, without carrying around a suitcase full of paper product.

I find it quite useful to be able to take my ereader with me to the dentist or immigration, be reading a story, decide that i want a change of pace, and just scroll down and begin reading another, different book of any type, genre, or length.

that is very difficult to do lugging around full size paperbacks.... that's why i bought my ereader, and i suspect many others will agree... it is just darn convenient...

yes, i lament the losing "feel" of a real book

I lament losing the "warm sound" of tube amplifiers and vinyl records too, but i would not trade the convenience of my ipod any day, for anything, unless it is smaller and produces better sound.

[Ulysses G.]

Although I have been an obssesive reader all of my life, I have never had any need to carry around more than one or two books at a time and maybe a magazine unless I'm traveling and carrying a few more. The only other reason I could think of for wanting to do so, is moving to a Communist country like Vietnam or China where books are very limited or somewhere where English books are not available at all. A kindle would be much better than no books at all.

I sell books and it seems to me that the market for people who need to carry around a lot of books on a machine is a very limited one, but I guess we will find out for sure in a year or two.

[DavidOxon]

I won't be interested in ebooks until they make one guaranteed not to break when dropped

from my bed as I drop off to sleep!!

[swain]

Apple tablet could write a new chapter for e-books

Electronic books make up an estimated 3 percent to 5 percent of all book sales.

[chrgrims]

i have a kindle and love it. wireless works in CM too.

[sleepyjohn]

I've inspected a Kindle and it seemed to me they'd tried to make it the same size as a book but a fair bit of that area was taken up with the keyboard, making the screen too small.

Any owners comment on "too small"?

The annotation feature was a plus, but the quality of the annotation (ie no colour as I annotate with on my MacBook) reduces that......a lot.

Overall I'd wait......maybe a long time as books don't break and get battery failure, and they feel, well, nice and bookish.

[Ulysses G.]

Electronic books make up an estimated 3 percent to 5 percent of all book sales.

That is what they want you to think. More ebook hype!

January 23, 2010 10:37 AM PST

With Kindle, best sellers don't need to sell

By Mokoto Rich

The New York Times

• How to make your book a best seller on the Kindle?
  

Answer: Give copies away.

That's right. More than half of the "best-selling" e-books on the Kindle, Amazon.com's e-reader, are available at no charge.

Although some of the titles are digital versions of books in the public domain--like Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice"--many are by authors still trying to make a living from their work.

Earlier this week, for example, the No. 1 and 2 spots on Kindle's best-seller list were taken by "Cape Refuge" and "Southern Storm," both novels by Terri Blackstock, a writer of Christian thrillers. The Kindle price: $0. Until the end of the month, Blackstock's publisher, Zondervan, a division of HarperCollins Publishers, is offering readers the opportunity to download the books free to the Kindle or to the Kindle apps on their iPhone or in Windows.

http://news.cnet.com/With-Kindle%2C-best-s...col;mlt_related

Edited January 26, 2010 by Ulysses G.

[Ulysses G.]

From The Times

February 15, 2008

E-books will never be our friends

Traditional books are here to stay. Some things are worth cutting down a tree for

Ben Macintyre

On my bookshelves sits a rare first edition. At ten years old it is already an antique, but it is in excellent condition for it has hardly been read. It is a lump of moulded plastic, one of the first attempts to replicate the reading experience on a handheld screen. Back in 1998, on this page, I predicted that this little machine would become “the most revolutionary concept in publishing since the invention of the mass-market paperback in 1936”. The e-book, I prophesied, would change the way we read for ever.

Having written those words, I put my e-book away, and never turned it on again.

The death of the traditional book has been predicted, wrongly, from the very start of the digital revolution. This week, as British publishers announced the further digitisation of their lists, the demise of the book was announced yet again. The electronic book would replace the paper variety, many of us believed, as surely as the grey squirrel has driven out the red. Yet this has not happened: the printed book is the same object, in essence, that it always was. Music, film and television have all transferred rapidly to digital format; reading in short form - blogs, journalism, e-mail - has thrived on the web since its inception.

But long-form literature has proved stubbornly resistant. Alongside those of us writing premature obituaries for the paper book were the traditionalists, insisting that the act of reading is so sacred that no machine could replicate it. In 1994, the novelist Annie Proulx declared: “Nobody is going to sit down and read a novel on a twitchy little screen. Ever.”

In fact, both sides of that debate were wrong. The electronic book will soon be a fact of culture. It took roughly five and a half centuries to perfect the paper book; the perfect electronic book should arrive in about a year. But it will never kill off the traditional book. Indeed, the two sorts of book may turn not to be rivals, but symbiotic species, sharing the same territory in amicable co-existence.

The problem with early e-books was technological and aesthetic. I never read my lump of flickering plastic again because it made my eyes water; the battery tended to run out on the edge of a cliff-hanger moment; many books were then unavailable in digital format, and the object itself was remarkably unlovely.

Book lovers argue that the tactile experience of reading can never be reproduced by a bleeping gadget - the gentle musty smell, the heft in the hand, the possibility of dropping it in the bath.

They are right, but those physical factors are secondary. Books work because, at their best, we forget they are there. The physical book magically disappears, leaving the reader to enter another world. The e-book, by contrast, with its buttons and hard plastic, tended to intrude on the consciousness, standing between the reader and the words. It was hard to get lost in an electronic book, because one kept tripping over signposts.

The new e-readers have addressed many of those problems. Some come bound in leather, and all are designed to look not like gizmos, but like books. The print, thanks to the invention of E Ink, which uses chemical beneath the screen to define each letter, is now as clear as any printed book. Increasingly, books can be downloaded from anywhere and carried around in their hundreds, in a pocket. Permanently linked to the internet, the book becomes a way of discovering new books. Electronic books may even fuel a new boom in literacy, for in the new electronic bookshop nothing need go out of print, and buying a new book is cheap, easy and instantaneous.

But as soon as one problem is solved, e-books have another on their hands. Whatever the potential of digital books, the issue of copyright remains crucial and unresolved. Unless copyright in the written word is defended with equal vigour on paper and in digital form, then the very technology that may revitalise publishing could also inflict huge damage. The costly and unnecessary Hollywood writers' strike, now ended after more than three months, is a stark warning of what can happen when potential profits from technological change are not fully understood nor fairly distributed.

Sorting out the copyright issue is vital, because, even farther into the future, the acts of writing and reading may become complementary, even mutually reinforcing. Just as readers of newspapers react and comment on live news and opinion, so books may become less the product of one individual writing in lonely isolation, and more of a collaborative effort. Naturally, this is more applicable to non-fiction writing: Zadie Smith is unlikely to react well to having readers peering over her shoulder. Already several books have been published as a result of reader feedback from ideas that began as blogs.

None of this, however, spells doom to the physical book. A reader who falls in love with a book, even if first read in electronic form, will still want to own it. Books do more than furnish a room: they are our intellectual companions.

Some books are worth sacrificing a tree to make; others are not, and that is the distinction that the electronic book offers. Ruskin once observed that literature is “divisible into two classes, the books of the hour, and the books of all time”. The books of all time will remain on paper, but those of the hour will increasingly be digital: the airport novel, the reference book, the celebrity memoir. A personal library will no longer be the repository of unread paperbacks, but a genuine index to individuality, as it was in the days when books were rare and precious.

Annie Proulx was wrong: people will read novels, including hers, on a screen, but whether they then decide to own the book, and keep it as a reflection of who they are, will depend on how much they love her writing.

[Ulysses G.]

I was pretty sure that the reasonable price of ebooks at Amazon would not last long and it looks like I was right. The prices are temporary. The ebook "publishers" have no intention of passing the money they are saving for paper costs on to consumers. They are just trying to trick consumers into switching to a format that they can control completely - no more less expensive used ebooks - and that costs them a lot less money. Buyer beware!

January 30, 2010

Amazon Removes Macmillan Books

By BRAD STONE and MOTOKO RICHAmazon.com has pulled books from Macmillan, one of the largest publishers in the United States, in a dispute over the pricing on e-books on the site.

The publisher's books can be purchased only from third parties on Amazon.com.

A person in the industry with knowledge of the dispute, which has been brewing for a year, said Amazon was expressing its strong disagreement by temporarily removing Macmillan books. The person did not want to be quoted by name because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Macmillan, like other publishers, has asked Amazon to raise the price of e-books to around $15 from $9.99.

Macmillan is one of the publishers signed on to offer books to Apple, as part of its new iBookstore on the iPad tablet unveiled earlier this week.

Macmillan's imprints include Farrar, Straus & Giroux, St. Martins Press and Henry Holt. Popular books, including "A Long Way Gone" by Ishmael Beah, "Wolf Hall" by Hilary Mantel, "Middlesex" by Jeffrey Eugenides and "Finger Lickin' Fifteen" by Janet Evanovich, could be purchased only from third-party sellers on Friday night.

Apple will allow publishers more leeway to set their own prices for e-books. Although the prices will be tethered to print book prices by a formula that will generally yield prices between $12.99 and $14.99 for most fiction and general nonfiction, that is significantly higher than $9.99 discount that Amazon offers on its Kindle.

Publishers have been concerned that such pricing devalues books. Tensions between publishers and Amazon have been rising as publishers have withheld select e-book editions for several months after the release of hardcover versions of books.

It is not clear yet if publishers can withhold books from Amazon while giving them to other parties like Apple. Antitrust lawyers said it could raise legal issues.

Macmillan and its imprints have not yet returned requests for comment. Amazon refused comment.

Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company

[WinnieTheKhwai]

Possibly it'll go the way of photographs.. We used to print all of them as there was no other way to even view them, never mind keep them. These days most of my pictures never make it beyond digital files, only the very special ones I end up printing and framing. It might go the same way with books; the usual fodder you'd read on whatever's your favorite digital device, the special ones you'd want on real paper so you can put them on a shelf in your living room.

Not any time soon though. And, used/specialty book stores will have less to worry about than the Barn's & Nobles and Se-Ed's of this world. We'll be blessed with excellent book stores in Chiang Mai for some time to come.

[swain]

There will be jockeying for position and new venues too. When the world moves to a new format there are bound to be problems. There were issues when the world went from records to CDs as well. In a very short time we will see digital libraries and checking out a book will never be easier. A used digital book store absolutely.

Sounds like your grasping at straws, looking for the problems. Yes there are bound to be even bigger issues in the near future. But kicking and screaming the world will move towards what can only be described as a more enlightened future. If knowledge is power then this is a very powerful change for the better in our growth as a people.

Edited February 1, 2010 by swain

[Ulysses G.]

I will freely admit that raving about publishers replacing paper books with machines is my own little personal crusade and if I were not involved in selling books, I probably would not bother to keep posting about it. However, I am sincere in that I find very little about ebooks appealing and I have been a prolific reader all of my life. I am not saying that there is nothing good about them at all, but I am convinced that in general paper books are a lot better product and will be for far into the future.

The only real selling point as far as I'm concerned is that they save paper, but, as I have said before, getting rid of books is not going to save any trees - that is more hype. They will just use the wood for something else - and probably something else much less worthwhile.

I have seen how the public has been manipulated into buying "new technology" by empty promises and downright lies in the past. They manipulated us into getting rid of our records and buying CDs when LPs sounded better and all in all were a better product - CDs are slightly more convenient and that is about it. They told us that CDs would last forever, would never skip and would go down in price as soon as we got rid of our phonograph records. None of that was true.

Right now, Amazon is spending tons of money to hype kindle and practically giving the "books" away for free, but the cheap prices are not going to last. There is already pressure from the publishers to raise them considerably.

Newspapers, want to sell newspapers and right now ebooks are something new to talk about and since almost no one has one, the stories are mostly positive, but that won't last either. Once they have convinced everyone to buy one, they will get honest about the other side, so they can sell more newspapers.

Someone said that I am " grasping at straws, looking for the problems", but the truth is that like all new products, once people start buying the things in large numbers, there will be plenty of problems and negative experiences that we just don't know about yet. The sad thing is that by then it is usually too late.

Edited February 1, 2010 by Ulysses G.

[anonymouse]

From Yesterdays Bangkok post , 21,000baht

Size Matters

Amazon goes global with bigger, new and improved Kindle reader

Published: 31/01/2010 at 12:00 AM

Newspaper section: Brunch

Earlier this month, Amazon.com announced the official release of an international version of its popular Kindle electronic reader - the Kindle DX, now available in over 100 countries, including Thailand.

Here and elsewhere, the burgeoning popularity of electronic readers sees benefits for manufacturers and users alike.

And Amazon and other vendors, with their environmental, social and moral concerns, are also hoping to capitalise on the huge profit potential of the new technology.

Although sales are increasing for electronic readers, they haven't quite taken off as many had hoped.

Let's take a closer look at the new Kindle DX to see if it will crack the market for Amazon and also what it can bring to the readers of Thailand.

Out of the box, the unit appears like the big brother of the Kindle 2, which is basically what it is.

The monochrome screen is now 9.7-inches, (2.5 times the display area of the 6-inch Kindle 2 screen), and is roughly the same size as a paperback book, giving a noticeably more natural reading experience. The thickness (or thinness) has been kept at a wafery 1cm, about the same as the Kindle 2.

The bigger screen comes at the cost of weight, and the unit is a little heavier at about 540g (up from 290g), but can be easily managed with two hands, similar to a book or magazine.

Inside, the storage capacity of the DX has been increased to 3.3GB, or about 3,500 books, a big jump from the 1,500 storage capacity of the Kindle 2.

In terms of functionality, the navigation buttons that appear on both sides of the Kindle 2 are now only the right side of the DX, which can be a little frustrating when it comes to turning pages, especially since the unit can now be rotated 360 degrees.

Also, the tilt sensitivity has been noted for being too sensitive as it rocks the text before the unit orientates even 45 degrees from the vertical - very annoying when using the device in irregular positions, such as in bed. Luckily, this feature can be disabled in the options settings.

A central flaw of the DX is the keyboard, which is much harder to use than the impressive input options available on other portable devices such as smartphones.

The DX has been flagged as having huge potential as a textbook reader, with students being able to annotate their notes via the keyboard, but the physicality of the DX keyboard hinders this potential somewhat.

On a more positive note, the DX features PDF file compatibility, allowing users to browse business or official documents and the many books now available in this format. However, problems arise because there is no zoom function, hence some files are displayed too small to read, even when in landscape mode.

Battery life of the DX is similar to that of the Kindle 2, at an impressive three or four days use with the wireless function turned on, and over a week with it turned off, ensuring high portability.

So far, there has been no mention of any electronic text books being made available yet from Amazon, so students will have to wait.

For the home user, the Kindle DX is the best e-reader available with its impressively large viewing screen and PDF compatibility.

But it's not yet worth the 21,900 baht asking price, and although it has many benefits for the user and the environment alike, people will probably still hold onto their paper-printed novels and magazines for now.

[mcgriffith]

In a year or two, when this all gets sorted out...whether Kindle, Sony, Samsung, iPad, whatever- I'm buying one.

It has to read all formats- no proprietary Apple BS. It has to have a loooong battery life- think trek in the Himalayas.

It has to receive signal pretty much everywhere. OK, maybe not the Plain of Jars. But dang well better work in Luang Prabang.

Could care less about color, or movies/video, or director notes, or outtakes, or MMS, or social networking, or all that other booshwah.

$199 seems like the perfect price point to me.

$9.99 for current best sellers, $4.99 for the middle tier. Orphans free.

[CMX]

One thing that has struck me is that we've taken an either-or approach, doubtless looking into the future. For myself, the question involves present-day availability and prices of titles. I'm an undisciplined eclectic reader, so finding some titles is a tough go when I decide upon one - and a significant loss to me in quality of life here when compared to my options in the U.S. (public library with state-wide associations, in particular).

I adore holding a book. But Kindle and its cousins fetch some titles unavailable to us here, and its weight and shape allow me to go anywhere with hundreds of books inside, virtually weightless, in a small valise. I have the newer (small) series and find it seamless when reading, just as handy and useful as can be. One of my projects in retirement (re-visiting, enriching and building upon u-grad school) is coming along pretty successfully, thanks to Kindle's free and cheap collections, however temporary the scheme; that is, I think the device is paid-for as it contains tons of old books. And yes, that's because I loaded the device with Jane Austen, Dickens, Tolstoy and so forth. The great majority of titles which I seek are NOT available, however, any more than they are here.

Still, I continue the enjoyment of cruising the aisles of local bookstores. AUA has an interesting collection (400/baht year), including as a simple example those Peter Mayle comics about living in France that I liked to re-read. I'm not closing my mind to any option, Web included, so long as it's around. Prefer books, natch.

Basically, I find myself pretty well off because of our options - with more to come.

[CMX]

One thing that has struck me is that we've taken an either-or approach, doubtless looking into the future. For myself, the question involves present-day availability and prices of titles. I'm an undisciplined eclectic reader, so finding some titles is a tough go when I decide upon one - and a significant loss to me in quality of life here when compared to my options in the U.S. (public library with state-wide associations, in particular).

I adore holding a book. But Kindle and its cousins fetch some titles unavailable to us here, and its weight and shape allow me to go anywhere with hundreds of books inside, virtually weightless, in a small valise. I have the newer (small) series and find it seamless when reading, just as handy and useful as can be. One of my projects in retirement (re-visiting, enriching and building upon u-grad school) is coming along pretty successfully, thanks to Kindle's free and cheap collections, however temporary the scheme; that is, I think the device is paid-for as it contains tons of old books. And yes, that's because I loaded the device with Jane Austen, Dickens, Tolstoy and so forth. The great majority of titles which I seek are NOT available, however, any more than they are here.

Still, I continue the enjoyment of cruising the aisles of local bookstores. AUA has an interesting collection (400/baht year), including as a simple example those Peter Mayle comics about living in France that I liked to re-read. I'm not closing my mind to any option, Web included, so long as it's around. Prefer books, natch.

Basically, I find myself pretty well off because of our options - with more to come.

[Ulysses G.]

CMX has good point. Frankly, I could care less if ebooks compete with paper books on a level playing ground. I would buy one myself if I was going to spend months in China in or years on a desert island with limited storage space (and with electricity of course).

My concern is that the publishers who hope to profit from saving money on paper will conspire to stop paper books from being printed in the same way that the music companies just stopped producing phonograph records (although they seem to be returning to specialty shop shelves slowly but surely).

The problem is that as long as paper books are available for a reasonable price, ebooks will not be able to dominate sales in the way that the big publishers have planned. I'm not sure that they are willing to share the market.

Edited February 2, 2010 by Ulysses G.

[anonymouse]

CMX has good point. Frankly, I could care less if ebooks compete with paper books on a level playing ground. I would buy one myself if I was going to spend months in China in or years on a desert island with limited storage space (and with electricity of course).

My concern is that the publishers who hope to profit from saving money on paper will conspire to stop paper books from being printed in the same way that the music companies just stopped producing phonograph records (although they seem to be returning to specialty shop shelves slowly but surely).

The problem is that as long as paper books are available for a reasonable price, ebooks will not be able to dominate sales in the way that the big publishers have planned. I'm not sure that they are willing to share the market.

It's not just the publishers that stand to profit, think of the savings Amazon will save in warehouse space, postage charges, warehouse and packing staff, packing materials as well as what they make from the actual Kindle machine if these ebooks take over.

I've seen the movie I Robot and know where all this is heading

[swain]

There is no market ... except as in a collection, like stamps, or coins. Its the last gasp of the buggy whip makers when cars started being the preferred mode of transport. They still make whips ... just a few here and there... which meet the demand. R.I.P.

[Gonzo the Face]

You know what George? I have decided to hold off on the Kindle in solidarity with and support of your business! (It would be great though if I could checkout your booklist online one of these days, make life much easier! - hint hint) Happy New Year all. Pim

Unless I am mistaken, (and I could be) our entire stock has been on-line for a few months. People come in and say they found books on the web-site.

Also, we are going to start selling on-line very soon - like in a few days - and have something like 150,000 books to choose from, including about 10,000 "100 baht titles".

Hey UG.....

U gunna start a delivery service, something like "Tomes to Homes" sorta like Meals on Wheels ???

[Ulysses G.]

There is no market ... except as in a collection, like stamps, or coins. Its the last gasp of the buggy whip makers when cars started being the preferred mode of transport. They still make whips ... just a few here and there... which meet the demand. R.I.P.

And what are your predictions for the Superbowl?

Edited February 2, 2010 by Ulysses G.