Where Have All the Barnstormers Gone

[ahi]

Originally Posted by davidspitzer

I posted the original thread and urged everyone to read it. Far from an attack I am trying to figure out if I am alone and deluded in my support for ebooks and my premise that the only way to drive change is to adopt now and work through the issues

To me, you seem to conflate conservation issues with eBook quality/usability/functionality issues. I don't think the two have much of direct consequence to do with each other... though perhaps soon enough publishers and hardware makers will indeed start to use the former to justify their entirely avoidable ongoing failures in terms of the latter.

- Ahi

[Lemurion]

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

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.

[ahi]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

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.

There is no genuine business or technical reason why eBooks cannot be beautiful artifacts. That's mainly what you are missing... and though you can live without it, it's basically you (and all the other readers) being taken advantage of by the publisher.

That's basically the sum total (oversimplification) of my problem.

- Ahi

[Lemurion]

Originally Posted by ahi

There is no genuine business or technical reason why eBooks cannot be beautiful artifacts. That's mainly what you are missing... and though you can live without it, it's basically you (and all the other readers) being taken advantage of by the publisher.

That's basically the sum total (oversimplification) of my problem.

- Ahi

To me, a beautiful artifact is a physical object. I could see an eBook reading device as a beautiful artifact, rather than the eBook itself.

My other point - and we may be talking at cross purposes here - is that not all physical books are beautiful artifacts, so why should we hold eBooks to the beautiful artifact standard if we don't hold all paper books to it?

I consider eBooks to be a replacement for mass-market paperbacks, and hold them to similar standards. Yes, I would have much higher expectations for an eBook that I was buying as the equivalent of a hardcover first edition - and to date I haven't seen an eBook that meets those expectations. However, if I'm looking for some light reading I'm not as worried about the packaging. The perfect is the enemy of good enough and I don't need to pay for perfection in an eBook when I wouldn't be paying for perfection in a paperback.

It's the whole question of where the value lies for me. I buy Moleskine notebooks because they're worth the extra cost. When it comes to the kind of books I buy as eBooks, I'm not usually willing to pay the extra cost for a hardcover equivalent when I want a paperback replacement.

Horses for courses.

[ahi]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

To me, a beautiful artifact is a physical object. I could see an eBook reading device as a beautiful artifact, rather than the eBook itself.

My other point - and we may be talking at cross purposes here - is that not all physical books are beautiful artifacts, so why should we hold eBooks to the beautiful artifact standard if we don't hold all paper books to it?

The sort of beauty I am talking about (typographic) has "ease of reading" as its primary purpose. It's not about being "loudly" pretty... it's about facilitating the reading process without disturbing the reader.

I've had a at least one person comment that my PDF version of Casanova's Memoirs is "gorgeous"... and a couple more expressed appreciation likewise that they found it aesthetically pleasing. (There's a 14pt font size version here, if you get seduced.)

I'd say it could be a lot better... but I'm definitely yet to see a nicer edition.

- Ahi

[hal_9000]

one could easily argue that automatic adoption of edevices, regardless of quality issues, undermines long-term quality, as the usual free market reward and punishment checks and balances would be removed, thereby giving corporations no incentive to improve the devices.

hence, the argument presented in the OP is moderate at best, weak at worst.

also: the notion that we have any obligation above and beyond mere purchasers and users of these devices is nonsense. this would mean the users and purchasers essentially replace the engineers at sony and amazon. when i signed up here, it was to obtain the necessary info to decide whether to purchase the kindle or not. that's it. i'm not interested in being some grandoise self-appointed contributor to edevice technology.

[Moejoe]

I can't wait to see the back of paper, messy, cumbersome thing that it is. I no longer own a single pbook and I never will again. Same for music CD's and DVD's. Optical discs are so ridiculous when I can buy 1tb storage for £70 that can house all my stuff quite comfortably.

If there's anything more than a specialized, collectible market for books in 10 years I'd be surprised (my actual prediction is 2014 for the utter collapse of the pbook market, maybe even sooner).

[dmaul1114]

As I said in that thread, I don't like being a barnstormer.

If devices don't do what I need, for a price I think is reasonable, I'm not taking the plunge. That's just stupid IMO.

I got a used K1 as it was a decent price and it was fine for leisure reading of novels I'll only read once.

But I'm not going go to the lengths you have described to make e-readers semi-usable for my academic work. I'll take the e-plunge when there's a device with a big color screen that I can mark up academic books and journal articles as easy, or more easily, than I can paper ones. Until then I stick with paper.

[ahi]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

I can't wait to see the back of paper, messy, cumbersome thing that it is. I no longer own a single pbook and I never will again. Same for music CD's and DVD's. Optical discs are so ridiculous when I can buy 1tb storage for £70 that can house all my stuff quite comfortably.

If there's anything more than a specialized, collectible market for books in 10 years I'd be surprised (my actual prediction is 2014 for the utter collapse of the pbook market, maybe even sooner).

Well, 5 more years is long enough to be as severely limited in your reading fare as you will continue to be.

Hope your dreamily optimistic prediction is accurate for the sake of your intellect. (i.e.: Otherwise you might end up with most books available to you being unremarkable fiction written by uninspired authors caught-up but soon to be dropped from the claws of the publishing industry.)

- Ahi

[ahi]

Originally Posted by hal_9000

one could easily argue that automatic adoption of edevices, regardless of quality issues, undermines long-term quality, as the usual free market reward and punishment checks and balances would be removed, thereby giving corporations no incentive to improve the devices.

hence, the argument presented in the OP is moderate at best, weak at worst.

also: the notion that we have any obligation above and beyond mere purchasers and users of these devices is nonsense. this would mean the users and purchasers essentially replace the engineers at sony and amazon. when i signed up here, it was to obtain the necessary info to decide whether to purchase the kindle or not. that's it. i'm not interested in being some grandoise self-appointed contributor to edevice technology.

I think this is the most sensible attitude! Wish more people on here thought like this.

- Ahi

[Hellmark]

Why is this split off from the original thread? All it does is create confusion.

[dmaul1114]

Originally Posted by hal_9000

one could easily argue that automatic adoption of edevices, regardless of quality issues, undermines long-term quality, as the usual free market reward and punishment checks and balances would be removed, thereby giving corporations no incentive to improve the devices.

Exactly. Why would I spend my money on something that didn't fit my needs? It's sending the message that the device does fit my needs.

I reward companies who make products that make things easier for me. Not pass over my money for something that makes it harder (as trying to use e-readers for my academic work would) and thus give them no incentive to develop a device that does what I need.

[JeremyZ]

Yes and No.

I like my eBook reader for novels, poems, and other leisure reading. Maybe even newspapers. (haven't tried it yet)

But I also agree that right now, they are the wrong tool for research. They have a long way to go. Heck, even PDFs are not as easy to flip back & forth as printed books. Not even close.

I think the bigger issue is that although there are hundreds of thousands of books available in electronic format, a lot of what is needed for complete research is only available on paper.

I would need to experiment more with the bookmark feature on my Kindle 2 to really make an informed decision.

But for novels, an eBook reader is hard to beat. Compared to a printed book, they are delicate, but also compact.

I think we're all on the same page here. The original poster took it as a wide generalization, while LDBoblo didn't seem to mean it that way.

I also admit, though I love my K2, there are some novels I just like so much I HAVE to have the hardcover version. Sentimental value and all that. Some day, I'm going to hand it to my kid, and tell him/her: "This is what books used to be like." Just like today's youth thinks of cassettes, 8-tracks, and records as old-fashioned, printed books will be old-fashioned to them. Ditto with combustion engines. I still like the romance of printed books. I'm sure that has been said a million times here, sorry.

[fugazied]

Well my feelings are that I love ebooks and I have much hope for ebook readers, but the technology isn't there yet. The publishers are hopeless in many cases, pushing hardcore DRM. Pricing put forward by publishers and companies like Amazon are usually slanted towards the print product. There are numerous problems with the market at the moment, but I think time will improve the products and market share for ebooks and overall demand will improve.

[darylbrayman]

I work offshore in a technical field. My tech manuals are in both PDF and paper form. I always go to the paper 3 ring binder form when trouble shooting a piece of equipment. Following a schematic and trying to go back and forth between pages on the computer is just not feasible. On an ereader it just couldn't be done.

Now for novels I always use an ereader, I started with a dell axiom then an itouch, bebook and now a sony pocket edition. I used to pack 6 or 7 novels and hope the ship I was going to, had a library. Now I plop (wonder if that's a real word) 30-40 books on my reader and off I go. It adds a couple of hundred grams of weight to my carry on, I'm totally happy.

I neither love nor hate my ereader, it's a tool that makes my life much easier. Some books I will always want to own in hard cover, think National Geographic coffee table books, etc... With brilliant pictures on high quality heavy stock paper. But for day to day use I will continue using an ereader in what ever form is best.