Quote:
Originally Posted by ahi
I understand that, Lemurion. I just do not see a genuine technological or business necessity for eBooks to fail to offer most of the benefits of regular books, while still having their own unique benefits (different font sizes, no per-page mass/volume, et cetera)... whereas, some days, it seems everyone else is convinced that font-resizing in and of itself is worth every conceivable (but, I am quite certain, entirely needless) sacrifice.
- Ahi
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We own 1634: The Baltic War by David Weber and Eric Flint in both mass-market paperback and eBook formats. The paperback retails for $8, the eBook for $6. (I bought it in a Webscription's bundle of 7 books for $15 so my price was much better, but let's go with the "cover" price.)
Now let's compare the two:
Both contain the same text, and illustrations (maps), so it's the presentation that differs rather than the content. That being the case, let's look at what we gain vs. what we lose. I'm using the LRF version from Baen Webscriptions.
1) The Cover: The paperback has a larger cover, and it's in color. The Sony displays it in grayscale. This is a clear win for the paperback, which not only has a more vibrant cover, but the one on the eBook (freshly downloaded today) looks more like an early sketch than the final cover.
2) The Maps: The paperback has larger maps, and they are somewhat clearer, especially the text. The ones in the eBook are readable, but they aren't as good as the paperback.
3) The Text: The eBook lacks the chapter headings in Fraktur (or at least a facsimile of Fraktur), and uses slanted text instead of true italics. Both use a serif font of similar size. I've hacked my PRS-505 so I have a ragged right instead of full justification, so I can't compare that, but I don't find that ragged right significantly hurts my reading experience. Still, the paperback does have cleaner text and greater contrast.
So far, everything has favored the mass market paperback. However, there are other factors to consider as well. It's a very thick book: 1056 pages in paperback. As the book has a standard mass-market glued binding, I can either break the spine, or read from a curved page. It won't lay flat. That's not a problem with the electronic version. It doesn't suffer from "middle of a thick book" syndrome. That's a plus for the electronic version.
Both versions are readable, and this is essentially disposable literature. It's enjoyable, but it's meant to be something to read for pleasure rather than study in depth. For me at least, the superior layout of the paper version isn't enough of an advantage to offset the disadvantages of current paperback binding techniques.
I can't resell it (though I could theoretically "lend" it - it's Baen so no DRM), but since I saved 25% of the paperback cover price and most used bookstores only give 10-20% of cover, I'm still ahead of the game.
When it comes to reading the novel, I haven't lost any functional benefits - and I've gained several - portability, reflow, and a lower price.
Now different people are going to weigh different aspects differently, but for me the benefits of the eBook outweigh those of the paperback - at least for this novel. It's not a beautiful artifact - but if I had wanted to buy it as an example of the bookmaker's craft I wouldn't have bought the paperback. I would have spent the money on the best hardcover edition I could find.
I don't see what benefits I'm missing by choosing the eBook over the mass market paperback? I know what ones I'm gaining.