Every now and again in our long and storied history of being cable subscribers, Hubby and I have subscribed to HBO and other cable network packages. Every time we did, it was ridiculously expensive given how much time we actually watch tv, let alone HBO, and even more preposterous was HOW MANY HBO CHANNELS we received. Honestly, I think at one time we had 12!
Once we had a TiVO digital recorder, we didn’t want HBO so much any more, because by then there were some series out on DVD that we could rent, and we had the ability to watch our tv shows whenever we wanted. Back in the day, I surfed to see what was on and made my selection from there. Now, I and my children sit down to watch a particular program whenever we want from the selection of recorded programming I maintain. We choose the entertainment; it does not come to us when programming dictates that it can.
I used to kvetch every time we canceled HBO or streamlined our cable package options that I didn’t WANT 12 HBOs. I wanted ONE program. And I had to subscribe to a Rockette line of channels I didn’t watch to gain access to the one program I would watch. Why couldn’t I subscribe to ONE show? Why couldn’t I reserve a program and have it recorded for me, and watch it live or the following night, and not wait for the DVD release? Why couldn’t I create my own network channel.
And hello… now technology is moving into alignment so that… I can. I can pretty much create my own television and movie network whenever I want.
I can hook up Netflix to the Wii in my house and watch Netflix movies instantly through my Wii. Good LORD that’s amazing. Plus, I can watch Hulu shows on the Wii, too.
I can watch those same movies and shows on the iPad, or on my laptop, and I can do that anywhere, pretty much, that I have a connection.
I can watch just about anything, anytime, anywhere. We choose our entertainment from the entire library of programming. It is our choice. OH, my stars and happy garters beneath my happy pants, I finally have my own network.
This consumer’s choice of media timing and selection is not a new concept. Mr. Rogers testified in 1979 in the case of Sony Corp. of America vs. Universal supporting the use of Betamax VCRs for home entertainment, stating that choice is important, and selecting when to partake of a piece of entertainment is not a violation of copyright:
Some public stations, as well as commercial stations, program the ‘Neighborhood’ at hours when some children cannot use it. . . . I have always felt that with the advent of all of this new technology that allows people to tape the ‘Neighborhood’ off-the-air, and I’m speaking for the ‘Neighborhood’ because that’s what I produce, that they then become much more active in the programming of their family’s television life. Very frankly, I am opposed to people being programmed by others.
My whole approach in broadcasting has always been ‘You are an important person just the way you are. You can make healthy decisions.’ Maybe I’m going on too long, but I just feel that anything that allows a person to be more active in the control of his or her life, in a healthy way, is important.
So why doesn’t publishing GET THIS?! I remain absolutely baffled by how many times people like Jane and others have pointed out the entertainment-on-demand* is not a trend that is dying. It is a trend that is growing, and more disparate forms of entertainment are converging so that I move as little as possible in acquiring entertainment. I suspect some will point to a sedentary life and an overdeveloped sense of entitlement as reasons these technologies converge for my convenience, but I think it has to do as much with the workaholic American mentality where we simply don’t have that much time for relaxation and consumption of entertainment media.
Remember when “On Demand” meant rented porn movies in your home? I do. I get a little thrill every time I fire up an “On Demand” title for Hubby and me, even if it’s an old episode of “Coupling” – the BBC version not the US version, Spiderman.
Now, some folks in publishing get this “on Demand” mentality.
Harlequin gets it: books on demand. You want digital book? At 3 am? Here’s our entire library. You can has book. Our prices are pretty spiffy, too.
The NYPL and other libraries that pay for Overdrive access to the available books released to library digital lending by publishers get this: you want book? At 3am? You can has book.
In New York City, some Barnes & Noble stores will deliver same-day using messengers. So your book that you ordered from your office that morning will be at your apartment that evening.
Amazon gets it – among their alleged goals: Every book, ever printed, in any language, all available in less than 60 seconds.
And if you don’t want digital books**? They’ll send books overnight for free if you’re a Prime member, or 1-day shipping for $4.00. You can get books as fast as they can possibly send them – shipped to your door.
**I am so very aware that not all of you read digital books. I do, and I prefer them for a slew of reasons. But I will never refer to your books as “dead tree” and absolutely without limit do NOT see a divide between paper and digital. You want paper? Go on with your bad self. You’re not a dinosaur nor a tree killer. You read? More power to you. Me, too. My point remains though: when you want a book, in whatever format, you want it NOW, right? RIGHT? Yeah, me too.
This is the trend of entertainment, and it’s not new. You can call it selfish or spoiled or demanding, but really, it’s not about over-indulgence. I think it’s a predictable and expected alignment of choice, because choice means power over our lives and what we consume when we consume it. Autonomy of schedule and entertainment selection does not always mean an over-developed sense of entitlement.
This weekend I want to set up our Wii so that it can browse my Netflix account, enabling us to watch movies whenever we want, or set up DVD rentals from our tv. My Verizon service already has some sort of Facebook and Twitter capabilities that I haven’t explored yet because I’m almost always within reach of a laptop or the iPad when I’m watching tv, so I have Twitter and Facebook already at hand. Hulu can also be streamed to my tv via the Wii, so I can set that up, too.
But instant delivery of books? Not even bringing up the WTF Fiesta that is pricing right now, some books aren’t available at the same time as print, others are harder to find and only in certain formats. And hell, let’s include the price problem as well: some of these books are ridiculously priced given the limitations of DRM and the dubious quality.
These are not new complaints. These are issues that have been discussed for awhile now. And I’m not one to run around screaming at publishing, “The sky is falling! The sky! Is falling!” It’s not, I don’t think.
But look at the progress elsewhere in entertainment media, and look at the puzzle that is publishing. If you’re in publishing, do you know about the alignment and collaboration of different technologies to make it easier for me to do something else: from my couch, I can watch tv, watch a Netflix movie, watch something from Hulu, play a game, or listen to music.
From my couch, it takes me about as long as a half hour comedy to find a digital book, price shop, make sure I’m getting the right format, purchase the book, download (and then strip the DRM and move it to my digital reader, the online database I access for reading on the iPad, and any other storage place I use, which admittedly are optional steps for most people but are not optional for me).
From my couch, I want to tell you again, please, get out of my way. Please stop putting up more obstacles between me and the books I want to read. Most other entertainment forms are making it easier and even working together to give me options that are instant. For me to access a digital book, I have to work harder.
Get out of my way. If you want to stand between me and the tv, I’ll tell you that you make a better door than a window. Only you, publishing industry, make a shitty door because you refuse to open, and you aren’t interested in being a window either. So move already.
Get out of the way, or give me the clicker.
oh, my, yes!!!
Do you want a bit of gasoline for that fire, as well?
Personally, I have an additional bone to pick when it comes to e-books – one the size of a dinosaur thighbone: the geographical restrictions idiocy. The next time you visit Fictionwise, just have a look at how many of the DRMed books are restricted to the US, or US and Canada. And Fictionwise is at least up front about it, and show the restrictions for every book that has them. Others simply disappear books from your cart during checkout – if they accept customers outside the US at all, that is. 🙁
The message _I_ get from that sort of thing is: go find a pirate edition.
And things are even worse now with the Eyjafjallajökull. If I want to order paper books from Amazon, they are likely to take just about forever to get here.
I came here to make the same comment ghn just did – geographical restriction is one of the most frustrating things I’ve encountered when it come to buying books. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve liked the sound of a book only to be informed ‘that title is not available in your region’.
Please note: at least 12% of the reason I’m replying is so that I can use the word “Eyjafjallajökull.”
I’m limited by Book Depository, as well, who has suspended North American operations because of Eyjafjallajökull mucking up the shipments.
Geographic restrictions bite. There are more English-reading book buyers in countries in which English is not the primary language, and to have them forced to purchase pirated editions makes me sad. I understand the fear that digital editions for sale in international markets that haven’t yet purchased print rights makes those in the publishing business twitchy- it’s understandable.
But the digital reading community has no borders, not of country nor of language, even. Preserving sales by losing other sales doesn’t make a whole lot of sense in the long run.
Amen to the whole thing.
When I went shopping for a publisher, I ruled out companies who didn’t sell e-books and companies who put one version ahead of the other (delay in e or delay in print). It left me with a very narrow field, but in the end it was the best decision I made. Not only am I very happy with my publisher (Dreamspinner Press) from the standpoint of how they treat my work, but I’m daily impressed with how they treat customers. Just over the weekend a reader from Singapore tried to buy one of my books from an onilne e-aggregator, but it didn’t work correctly. Some sort of glitch with the file that made it too small. My publisher, though the customer didn’t buy from them directly, put the book in her library account there and encouraged her to buy from them in the future, because she’d have access to all the file versions of each story she bought as many times as she’d need them on her permanent bookshelf. She enthusiastically declared she’d buy all titles from our house directly from the house from now on. She also got to have the book she wanted to take along with her on her vacation. Hell, now she has it even if she forgets to put it on or buys a different reader between Singapore and Mexico. And as another commenter mentioned, if you’re not in the US or Canada or UK (and sometimes even in the latter two) your options are limited. THIS is the kind of service/availability I want for me and for my readers.
I’ve had an e-reader (iPad) for a few weeks now, and I’m already reading more. I’m also ready to branch into different genres or try new things, especially if something shiny or interesting catches my eye. Or I’m interested in putting old beloved titles on my iPad. But when they’re priced higher than my paperbacks or more than a music album, I just sigh and wander back to the places that are actually giving me what I want. It’s amazing the money traditional publishing houses aren’t getting from me right now. And I can’t think I’m the only one doing this.
Ugh, geographical restrictions. They’ve gotten worse since the agency pricing. I have a wishlist at the Sony bookstore, mostly things I wanted to remind myself to pick up when the price came down a bit or if there was a sale. A couple of months ago, every single book on my wishlist was available for me to buy. I logged in last weekend and now half of them are restricted to US only. I am befuddled, because let’s face it, changing the pricing model does not change the regions you have the rights to sell in, but I guess the publishers really want me to jump through the flaming hoops of death.
Not gonna happen, guys.
A slightly different take, any form of communication has it’s flaws, and there will be a shaking out period. Readers of Classical Latin were no doubt frustrated by Gutenberg’s decision to print his new fangled books in German(and would have had the logical argument that it was less likely to change over time).
Take heart that change is inevitable, personally I think digital books in some form are here to stay and these geographical and other frustrations are temporary.
My day job is in another wing of the entertainment industry (vdeo games).
Interestingly, publishers in video games love the idea of digital streaming. No costs for boxes, manuals, burning disks (with all the accompanying potential for duds or errors), shipping, etc. Prices the same. It’s a no brainer.
And yet consumers struggle with DRM and geographical limitations. It’s been five years and no one is yet willing to give up the idea that a French customer is somehow totally different from an American customer, and must only get his product from someone granted the French rights.
I’m trying to move to fiction to get away from video game drama. Maybe I’m the idiot 😉
Yes.
I had the same problem with the Sony bookstore turning everything into US only. Much cursing, much surfing for illegal copies – and it only seemed to get worse with every day – books that I had already purchased now only seemed to be available for american customers. Finally I discoverd that Sony now has two copies of each title – one is the US edition, one is the Canadian edition. Sadly there is no link between the two, and it is only the US editions that show up in their top ten lists, and lists of new editions. Why they can’t have one entry per title and then figure out which edition to sell you once you check out??? Anyhow – I am now the happy owner of the Canadian edition (complete with Canadian cover art) of Yann Martel’s new book.
And we are deep within the contortionary evolution of the book industry. It’s not going to be pretty and there’s going to be lots of collateral damage (mostly mid-list authors). I try to be patient with it, but when I see shit like Victoria Alexander’s new book priced at double the MM cover price for E, snakes start popping out of my head.
I’ve stopped purchasing ebooks for this reason. My poor Sony Reader sits gathering dust in a drawer.
Say it sister! Go Sarah, go Sarah, go Sarah!
I’ve stopped purchasing Harper Collins/Avon books for this reason . . . I’m willing to pay the SAME amount for an eBook, but there’s simply no fucking way I’m paying more for one. I’ll likely buy this in paper from my favorite local bookstore (gives me something to still shop for there, which is good).
You made this point beautifully, SB Sarah, and Jane makes it all the time, but I think it bears repeating yet again again again.
The competition for books is not other books. It’s not that you’re fighting over whether to read a book from Avon or one from Samhain. The competition for books is…everything else, all the other media we’re bombarded with every day. And it’s so much EASIER to consume that other media, even in their original form. Much easier to turn on TV than have to GO to the bookstore or the library.
And publishing needs to get out of its own way, because they are not losing marketshare to their direct competitors, but to their indirect. And they will continue to do so unless they make things easier.
Bingo. I’ve started watching TV again because of Hulu—7 to 9 p.m. on weeknights is perhaps the worst time of the week for me to partake of any recreation. And it’s a one-to-one tradeoff: what am I not doing now that I have access to these three shows?
I see effects on the writing side as well. More and more conferences and workshops are offering classes in screenwriting. People with stories to tell are looking for a venue besides old-school publishing. There are more being invented all the time, and they’re all looking for content.
You know how pushy salespeople always want you to buy right then, no, no coming back later? And how, when you’re buying furniture, they never mention the piece isn’t stocked locally and it’ll be three weeks to arrive, until you’re really far along in the process, about to hand over your credit card? It’s because waiting and not purchasing go hand in hand. The actual waiting means you later decide you didn’t need that Thingy so badly. Even a situation where a customer knows they have to wait three weeks and can’t walk out with their purchase results in a lower percentage of customers actually going ahead with the purchase.
This is true in every industry I’ve seen figures and anecdotes on: cars, furniture, credit cards, loans, online services, floral, craft supplies. Sometimes the customer buys at another store, and sometimes they just don’t buy it at all.
Publishing is one of the few industries that could ever get their delivery down to instant or near-instant with some relatively minor changes and new technology (if not e-book, then print-on-demand books). I find it completely boggling they aren’t pulling out every trick to do so.
Renae: You are right on with this point. I can get an e-book anytime just as long as someone is willing to sell it to me. Having lived a full hour from any bookstore and being a raging insomniac, I can tell you that more than one book has gone unpurchased in favor of another title I could get digitally right that very minute. And if I couldn’t find anything to read, hey! Hulu had the first two seasons of Remington Steele for a free trip down memory lane.
When it is actually much, much easier to steal something pirated (which I have never nor will ever do) than pay for it- even if you want to– something is very wrong with your delivery system.
I think if I have one thing to say to publishers it is this: Let the people buy your books.
I wouldn’t have thought that needed to be said but it seems like it really, really does. And you’re totally right about Harlequin. I may have made several of those 3am ebook purchases for instant gratification…
I’m commenting anonymously because, well, I think some people might be a bit upset with me for saying this. 🙂
I was at B&N the other day looking at the Nook (want!) and talking to the salesgirl about it. I mentioned the geographical restrictions as an issue, though, because I spend a lot of time in the UK and of course there are no B&Ns; there which means no buying for the Nook there.
She said, no, you can’t buy Nook content from B&N online from the UK. But what you CAN do, apparently, is have someone in the US set up a Nook account for you and buy the book, and then download it (or upload, or whatever; sorry I don’t really know how it works) into your Nook from anywhere in the world.
I’m not clear on how exactly this works. But I’m throwing it out there. If you have a friend with a US account on whatever ebook site you like to purchase from, they can purchase the book, and you can then access the account from anywhere (at least that was/is my understanding).
I’m an author, and I hate piracy. And as an author I also want to earn money from the sale of rights to my books in other countries. But I have absolutely no problem with someone buying a copy of one of my ebooks and emailing it to a friend who would otherwise not be able to buy it, especially if they then delete it from their own computer (sure, they can read it first; I always read books I give as gifts, don’t you?) It’s still a sale, and as far as I’m concerned that’s nowhere near piracy.
I don’t know if that helps, and I don’t know quite how it would work. I don’t read ebooks, really. I can’t afford an ereader and I’m a fan of paper books in general anyway. But I wanted to throw that out there. It may not be a perfect solution but maybe some of you will find it useful.
Ros:
I think if I have one thing to say to publishers it is this: Let the people buy your books. I wouldn’t have thought that needed to be said but it seems like it really, really does.
This ties in with the history of publishers’ direct customers being the wholesalers and retailers rather than the readers. Ten or fifteen years ago, if the reader couldn’t buy a book, it was generally because their bookstore wouldn’t carry or order it, not because the publisher’s policies put obstacles in their way. Ebooks have shrunk the supply chain between the publisher and the reader, and some publishers (especially some big NY publishers) are still figuring this out.
What’s wrong with wanting something a certain way? Why is it “entitled”? I’m the customer, with money that you (the business) want me ti give to you. Why can’t I have a say in how I want thinfs? Why can’t I have a digital book for a lesser price than a physical book (any excuse is a lie), and on the same release date as the physical version?
working23 – not quite 23, but I am working!
Ken Auletta wrote a lengthy article for The New Yorker that touches on just about every aspect of the publishing/agency 5 cluster fuck including this one. It’s definitely worth the time to read it if you’re at all interested in what’s been going on. Highly recommended.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/04/26/100426fa_fact_auletta?currentPage=4
I’m fianlly seriously contemplating an iPad because I found out that Amazon is releasing a Kindle app, so that gives me a good reader on top of the rest of it. But some books I’ve really been looking forward to, including Charlaine Harris’ new Sookie novel, won’t be released for Kindle at the same time it’s released in the store. Annoying.
I’m also noticing a new trend. Amazon is really cutting the prices of hardbacks. I got Jim Butcher’s Changes for 12.95 + shipping. Usually hardback base prices are over 20. I wonder if this is due to the ebooks.
If someone called me Eyjafjallajökull I’d be spitting a lot more then fire and ice.
Bookdepository has (recently?) added ebooks to it’s catalog.
I can only assume that geographical limitations do not apply, or at least not to the U.K.
Of course, I would also assume that a sale that is made in the U.S. covers any worries about the author’s or publisher’s rights- no matter where the content is then electronically streamed to. Yes, I know I would be making an inaccurate assumption but that’s because the point of sale makes sense and that never seems to apply to publishers.
Absolutely love the topic. We finally gave in and got rid of our satellite, the TiVo, and only kept our Netflix subscription because you can watch so much stuff online, whenever you want. Hulu is an awesome choice (and I’m writing a new blog about the show Justified which I’ve been watching on Hulu, go check that out) for television programming and even the major channels have most of their own shows available online.
As far as ebooks, I haven’t been bitten by the reader bug yet, or ever purchased a digital copy of a book. BUT, so many good points. How does it make sense that the price of so much other media is shifting and the price of books is just not?
Yes. This!
Publishers are so concerned about not losing a single print sale that they’re throwing away their future market—all those young people (and some of us who aren’t so young) with iPads and Kindles and whatnot who want to buy e-books but will settle for other, non-book forms of entertainment if the e-books are unavailable or overpriced.
I get so frustrated with geographical restrictions with e-books. It’s not an issue of having to physically ship anything so why the restriction?
It would not be that hard for the major publishers to get their lawyers to add a few paragraphs dealing with the international rights and yet some of them fail to do this. Most English language jurisdictions are common law based anyway, so it would not be that hard.
What publishers are ignoring is that this is an iTunes culture in that when something is released in the US, we (the rest of the world) all want it now. They are missing out on a lot of impulse buys by restricting it at the outset, especially if we then read not so positive reviews and decide against it.
At minimum, e-books need to be released in all major formats on the same day of the print release. Then they need to have reasonable prices for the e-book. It should not be any more than the price of a paperback.
I see apps and things and I wonder… is the new wave of publishing coming in the form of $1 books that can be purchased off sites like itunes? I’m a publishing student and it frustrates me to no end how the industry I want to enter wants to control the ways in which people get the products to read.
I’m fascinated by epublishing and really think it’s the way of the future.
While I basically agree with your post, Sarah, and am all in favour of books/music/entertainment being more widely and easily available, there’s a couple of comments I’d like to make.
First up, while metropolitan USA, and some other countries, have broadband systems that enable instant download of movies, this is not the experience of quite a number of other countries – including Australia. Here, our ISP services are predominantly structured with monthly download limits, such that for most of us, downloading a movie is impossible. And if you happen to live beyond the black stump, then (much slower) satellite broadband is the only choice, and movies are even more impossible, no matter what your plan.
With regard to territorial rights on e-books, can I just put my hand up to comment that this is a very complex question, with sound arguments on all sides, and I honestly can’t see any easy answers. Yes, I’m personally affected – on both sides: as a reader who can’t buy many of the e-books I’d like to buy, and as an Australian author, (published first in Australia, and still without a US publisher).
Territorial rights aren’t just about a geographic carve-up of a market. They do play a VERY important part in enabling countries/regions across the world to support their own publishing industry that serves and enhances their own distinct literary culture. Without territorial rights, the size and economic power of the US would mean that a few US publishers would totally dominate the world-wide English-language market, and local publishers in countries like Australia would disappear. I’ll use Australia as an example, because I’m familiar with it. Yes, we speak English, and yes, we read many US-set and UK-set books, and watch US and UK TV and movies… but we also have a strong and vibrant literary culture of our own, with many obvious and many, many more subtle differences, and it’s vitally important that we can also read books that speak with Australian voices and story-telling modes about Australian places and issues. And yes, while some US publishers do publish books by Australian authors (and many of our romance authors writing for the US market do very well), the vast majority of Australian books are never published in the US – particularly those that are distinctly Australian in voice.
Please note, I’m not criticising North American publishers or readers, so please don’t anyone take offence! US publishers naturally only publish books they believe will appeal to their particular market; that market includes a population of around 300million (potentially a lot more if they’ve bought world rights) and they have the market power to shift a lot of books. Australian publishers acquire books that will appeal to the Australian market, but that has a much, much smaller population – around 22 million (plus around 3 million with New Zealand bundled in to the geographic territory). The economics of publishing and book-selling therefore become quite different, and publishers must rely on income from Australian rights (and the increasingly important e-rights) to big-selling books (eg Dan Brown, Nora Roberts etc) to be able to also acquire and publish Australian authors.
Territorial e-book rights are, therefore, an important part of the global publishing landscape, and, while undoubtedly frustrating for many readers, they do provide some protection for the diversity of publishing worldwide, and enable minority voices to be heard, at least within their own regions/cultures.
I’ve only touched very briefly on the complexities of the issues, and as I said in the beginning, I can’t see any easy answers. I know the publishing industry is trying desperately to find some way of grappling with the conflicting demands, but they haven’t found easy answers yet, either.
I’ve lived without cable or satellite for quite sometime with the help of my Roku player, Netflix and Amazon On Demand. Now, I too have hooked up my Wii so I can do Netflix on more than one TV in my home.
I have done some e-books, but I don’t have a reader and have to use my blackberry or the computer, and that’s just not as pleasurable for me as the good old fashioned print. I also love my good old fashioned library, where I can check out books for free. I don’t see the same urgency to read a book NOW, but I do see the convenience in ebooks and I agree that publishers do need to realize that the formats compliment traditional print.
That said, Netflix doesn’t offer everything streaming. The urgency factor takes a backseat. I’m still waiting for Season 4 of Dexter. I can wait. There’s usually something that will catch my fancy. Just like there’s probably a book I can wait to read because I have many other options.
Great post. I will probably always prefer paper, but I’m not an idiot and can see which way the world is moving. We writers with more traditional tastes must at least be willing to learn the ins and outs of e-publishing.
But if e-books were available to any (English-speaking) reader anywhere, would you need a US publisher? To get your paper books out, yes, but if the e-books are in the cloud of (easily-)available ebooks, people outside of the Aus/NZ area would find them. Maybe not in the millions, but in the hundreds.
It is frustrating for smaller markets to try to compete with the juggernaut that is the US, but there has to be some way, without decreasing options for writers from small markets, to increase accessibility for readers to books, all books, anywhere. I want them all, and I want them now. Grr.
Suze, as I understand it, e-books are currently running at around 5% of sales for most fiction books where there’s an e-book as well as paper version, but that’s expected to grow fairly rapidly, and be an important part of a title’s revenue stream. So, a publisher (US or elsewhere) is unlikely to buy paper rights unless they can also buy e-rights for their territory.
It’s a tricky, tricky situation, and we’re all of us – readers and authors – caught in the middle 🙁
I bought a Kindle and I have to say, the more I use it the more I hate it. For me it doesn’t come anywhere close to the pleasure and convenience of reading a paperback. I find the user interface awkward, unintuitive and slow. I feel shut out of the story, like it’s hidden behind this screen and I can’t get to it. The worst part is trying to go back to find a part you want to read over again. I have to guess where it appeared in the book, type in a location number that I think is near that, guess wrong, type in a new location…each action involves pushing multiple buttons, waiting while the page appears, etc. The process is made even more difficult by little stupidities such as the fact that when you’ve called up the field that allows you to type in location numbers, the location numbers of the screen you’re looking at are obscured, so that you have to remember where you were in order to calibrate your next guess. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve forgotten to decide my next guess before calling up that field, then had to cancel and start the whole button-pushing process over again (pun intended).
I think the basic problem is that I’m a visual thinker rather than an abstract thinker. If I’m reading a paperback and I want to go back to look at an earlier passage, I have a vague tactile memory of how the book felt in my hands when I was reading that part (ie how far into it I was) and I have a vague visual memory of where on the page the passage was, and I find it pretty quickly. And with favorite books I learn my way through them as time goes on, like learning my way around a town. You might think I could do that with the Kindle (learn the right numbers to call up a passage, the keywords that will find it in a search) but my mind just doesn’t work that way. I don’t remember words or numbers, I remember places and pictures. (I owned a car for eight years and never memorized the license plate number, but never lost the car in a parking lot.) I’ve tried the bookmarks function on Kindle, but that itself is so unpleasant and clumsy to use that I never use the bookmarks I’ve created. And I hate the way that when you do call up the right passage via numbers or keyword searching (or even a bookmark), it doesn’t appear in the same place on the screen as it was when you first read it. (Yes, I know that’s a completely bizarre and trivial point, but it just feels unnatural and wrong to me on a very deep level and contributes to my feeling that there’s an unbridgeable gap between me and the story. There’s no spatial logic to how you move around the book, or how the words are presented on the screen, so there’s no way for me to develop a relationship with the book.) As a result of all this, I enjoy the books I read in paperback a lot more than the books I read on the Kindle. The paperback is just a much more intimate experience for me.
However, I keep buying romances on the Kindle because I can get them instantly whenever I want. Then if one of the ones I bought electronically turns out to be really good, I wish I had it in paperback so I could re-read it with pleasure and visit my favorite passages over and over again. I’m hoping that the iPad might solve my problem, because Apple’s interfaces generally use spatial logic (where something is on the screen tells you something about what you can do with it – not true of the Kindle) and interacting with a device using hand gestures is just a lot more meaningful than pushing buttons. I doubt that the iPad will ever feel as good as holding a book in my hands, but it might be a close enough substitute that at least I won’t feel like I can’t touch the story at all.
Sorry for the rant, I didn’t realize this post was going to be so long when I started writing it…bottom line, if you’re a visual thinker like me, don’t buy the Kindle. If you’re a computer programmer or a mathematician, you’ll probably prefer the Kindle to other ebook options.
God, I miss Fred Rogers.
But it seems to me that eventually this isn’t going to matter. The U.S. publisher wants e-book rights as well as print? Tell ‘em forget it. Let the Australian publisher release the e-book itself into the U.S. market. When e-books are 95% of sales instead of 5% (and someday they will be), getting a U.S. publisher to produce and stock the print books is going to be almost irrelevant.
You’re right – eventually it probably won’t matter. But that ‘eventually’ is still several years (at least!) away, and for now, the industry is reliant on print as the main form, and digital as an essential supplement. Unless the iPad performs miracles, I think we’re still a few years away from even a 50/50 split.
But, looking on the bright side, I can still buy more e-books than I could ever read in my lifetime (even if I can’t get all the ones I want), and with the plethora of online booksellers, readers can buy almost any book in print that they want to from any country – if they’re prepared to pay the cost.
And price of books is a whole ‘nother complex topic… but I’ll resist that one for now!
Today on Twitter YA author John Green posted a link to this interesting article about the future of publishing:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/04/26/100426fa_fact_auletta?currentPage=all
I just want to reiterate that we might be giving the tv/movie peeps a little more credit than they deserve if we’re talking ON DEMAND. They protect their products with delays, too. I know if I got Showtme I could watch Dexter season 4 on demand. Right now I can’t because I’m not willing to pay for it.
I know the publishing industry has a long way to go, but I’m just not smelling all the roses for the tv/movie industry just because suddenly Wii can stream Netflix. The offerings are limited and the wait is substantial for popular tv series. Heck, the wait on DVD is pretty substantial, much less streaming. If you can be patient, it works.
It makes me happy that you quoted Mister Rogers. He was a smart man.