Amazon’s Kindle doing well… but why?
Dutch (occasionally) funnyman Youp van ‘t Hek once referred to a book as a ‘pile of faxes’, back when faxes were the latest thing. I guess that joke needs to be updated to a pile of printed emails, but it does show the generation gap between printed and digital media.
Covering some of the middle ground by trying to combine the best features of printed books and new technology, 2007 saw the release of Kindle, the first serious e-book reader. I read today that it’s still doing very well in terms of sales, even outpacing the iPod. I find myself unable to figure out why.
I don’t read many books, but when I do I like the format they come in. I love how I can quickly flip through them, I love the smell of paper and I love not seeing pixels for a change. I love putting an actual bookmark between pages to mark where I’m at and being able to scribble little notes on the side. You can get them from the library, lend yours to friends and sell them off when you’re bored of them. Books as a medium have remained unchanged for ages, and I’m not sure Kindle is a step forward.
Kindle has a relatively small monochrome screen, so picture books are out of the question. It uses DRM to protect the content you download, and is tied into Amazon’s digital book store. This means you have to buy, not rent or borrow, everything you read. It also needs a charged battery, and the hardware is quite expensive. And it doesn’t smell like paper at all. In fact it’s made out of a rather cheap looking plastic that totally lacks any character.
What e-book readers do offer is the ability to store tons of books and magazines on a relatively small device. A single Kindle might replace a few bookshelves. And if you read a great deal of books the environmental benefits of not buying them on paper might just balance out the battery’s heavy metals and the electric power needed to run Kindle. Still, I wonder if it’s really worth it.
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roytanck (744):
I purchased the Kindle when it first came out and I love it! I never thought I would prefer it to books but lately, I find myself pretty much purchasing only Kindle books. As I spend a lot of time “waiting” and on the road, the Kindle is handy in that I can store hundreds of books on it – no more deciding which books to take along with me and no extra weight in my suitcases. The biggest plus for me is the font size – as I have gotten older, I have found it more and more difficult to view the small print in many books. With my Kindle, I increase the font size to a level that is easy to see for me.
I thought I would never get into the entire “ebook thinggie” but I was wrong. I love it!
Comment by Roger Hyttinen — February 4, 2009 @ 4:00 pm
“It uses DRM to protect the content you download, and is tied into Amazon’s digital book store. This means you have to buy, not rent or borrow, everything you read.”
That is just silly talk. Its like saying you bought an iPod and can never listen to a CD or record again. There is nothing stopping you from enjoying a Kindle’s benefits when appropriate and enjoying a physical book from your friend or in other situations. I own a word processor but nothing stops me from writing in a notebook.
As for the smell, I guess I can’t relate. And as for the character, I think internet discourse tends to romanticize the process of doing things, instead of actually doing something (c.f. digital photography, computer reviews, GTD, etc). I tend to care very little about the character of a book, aside from perhaps the very occasional interesting cover, and care very much about the story and how it is written. But then again, I *do* read a lot of books.
And I wouldn’t describe it as being “tied” to Amazon bookstore. Its the largest bookstore in the world. Its main drawbacks from physical book stores are delivery time and an inability to browse through books before purchasing, both of which are remedied (instant downloads & trial chapters) with the Kindle.
I can see someone not liking the Kindle. Quite eay to imagine in fact. And I can see someone liking it, but still thinking it is too expensive–that is the boat I am in. But I don’t understand any of your rationale.
Comment by Thomas — February 4, 2009 @ 4:13 pm
Hi Thomas. I meant to say that everything you read on the Kindle needs to be from the Amazon store. As you pointed out, nothing is keeping you from reading paper books. Except maybe for the price. Even if read more, I’d have a hard time convincing myself to get one if I wasn’t going to use it for pretty much everything I read. And not being able to get materials from other sources is bad for competition no matter how convenient Amazon may be.
Comment by Roy — February 4, 2009 @ 4:58 pm
There are a few distinct advantages to the Kindle compared to books:
1: When you buy a new book there’s no waiting for a delivery. My fiancee is a book-eater and sometimes it just takes forever for Amazon to actually ship books we order.
2: The price of a Kindle book is lower than the price of a physical book: more books for your money!
3: It’s WAY better for the environment. No trees will be harmed when a book is distributed digitally.
These are IMHO three compelling reasons to get a Kindle. If only it would be a bit cheaper and it wouldn’t have epic waiting times to get one…
Comment by Marco — February 5, 2009 @ 8:57 am
@Marco: Good points, but I’m not convinced about the environmental bit. Sure it saves trees, but it does require electricity (for which fossil fuels are burnt) and batteries, even the non-disposable kind, are pretty evil also…
Comment by Roy — February 5, 2009 @ 9:10 am
I read about the Kindle a few months ago and thought “interesting but I like physical books better”. But my daughter works for Amazon so I got one for Christmas and intstantly became a convert. I can buy a book in less than an minute, I can travel with it, and it doesn’t add to my overfilled bookshelves. There are some disadvantages–it won’t work for books that require color pictures, cookbooks, etc–but it’s very comfortable to read, unlike computer screens. and I can change the font size at a push of the button in lower light. I think it’s perfect to replace all the paperbacks that probably end up in the trash anyway.
Comment by Susan — February 6, 2009 @ 1:07 am
Roy, with regards to your comment about “I meant to say that everything you read on the Kindle needs to be from the Amazon store”, I’m not certain that’s true. Of course, what I know of the Kindle is off the Internet because you can’t get a Kindle where I am, but I believe you can easily transfer e-books on to the Kindle via a PC. As far as I know, it supports unprotected Mobipocket books and plain text files in addition to Amazon’s DRMed format e-books.
So you can easily purchase e-books in Mobipocket from some other source, or better still, download a ton of books off Project Gutenberg in text format, and then transfer it on to the Kindle and read them
Comment by Fahim Farook — February 6, 2009 @ 3:23 am
Your claim that “… everything you read on the Kindle needs to be from the Amazon store,” is incorrect, with regards to the 1st generation Kindle. I have a first-gen Kindle and I download free books in .txt format, put them on my Kindle’s SD card, and read them on the Kindle. Now why it doesn’t read PDF is curious but not the end of the world…
I’m told the nextgen Kindle won’t have an SD card slot; it seems like this would make the Kindle solely dependent on Amazon for content – unless you could still use the email feature to send free content to your Kindle.
Comment by BR — February 11, 2009 @ 4:17 am
Still, anything recent and commercial needs to come from Amazon, right? While my statement may not be technically right, there is a store tie-in.
Comment by Roy — February 11, 2009 @ 10:47 am
There is a store tie-in, yes, but that’s not what you said, which was the point I was trying to make.
Comment by BR — February 11, 2009 @ 9:28 pm
I’ve had a Kindle since they first came out and I have really only purchased 3 books from Amazon. I get most of the books that I like to read from feedbooks site for free. Both the original Kindle and the new version will appear as a mass storage device when connected to the computer via USB. I bring the Kindle with me on week-long trips all the time, and with the wireless turned off, I only have to charge it about once every 10 days. I love having the instantaneous dictionary look-up for many of the vintage books I read, and love being able to juggle several books at at time with ease.
I am one of those people who really likes to get lost in the writing, rather than the cover, or the paper or the smell. Any compelling writing becomes even more so when I don’t need to constantly reconfigure my hand position to hold a book open, or read deeply into the shadowy margin that some paper-backs seem to have. As for reading in bed at night, the keyboard of the Kindle resting on my chest puts it the perfect height to read effortlessly.
I look at it the same way I did with LP’s although sliding the paper sleeve out of the record jacket and taking out the record, and cleaning and anti-stat treating it were all integral parts to my listening to a record, they were part of the ritual, not the content.
Comment by JW — February 18, 2009 @ 9:23 pm