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Old 12-10-2009, 01:12 AM   #65
NormHart
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Posts: 537
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Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: Napa Valley, California
Device: Kindle2 & Kindle3
I have to be honest and say that I'm of two minds about this. I've been pondering the usefulness of ebooks vs pbooks recently, brought on by a desire to reread Andre Norton's Witch World series in it's entirety. Costing purchasing the collection in ebook format was prohibitively expensive and many were unavailable, purchasing used pbooks was somewhat more affordable but still outside of my budget, short term. I mentioned this to my sister and she said, "Wait a minute... ". She had 16 of the paperbacks on her shelves and loaned them to me. This gave me pause to think;

What are the odds that I will retain all the Honor Harringtion series now on my Kindle for 3 or 4 decades?
What is the probability that I would be able to loan those ebooks to my sister in 3 or 4 decades?
The internet and technology is ephemeral. Paper books are, within a lifetime, permanent other than the question of storage space.

So what does this have to do with delaying ebooks you ask. Well firstly I want publishers and authors to make money. No really, I want them to make good money so I will get good books. Secondly I had not realized it but I've always waited for the mass market paperbacks to come out. For some 50 years. So I am used to it, just because the hardbound came out a year earlier has never bothered me and there has rarely been an instance where I had to rush out to buy the hardbound book as soon as it hit the shelves. There is always plenty to read, no hurry really. Finally I want the publishing industry to keep making paper books because I don't trust technology. It isn't global now, if bad times come along it might not be available here in the future. A paper book requires nothing more than daylight.

If delaying the release of ebooks helps the authors and publishers stay in business I'm good with that. Pricing, copyright, and DRM we still need to talk about.

Last edited by NormHart; 12-10-2009 at 01:18 AM. Reason: Arrrrg, brownies!!!
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