USA Today: Real Books can defeat Amazon and ebooks

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

Don Quixote is a book.
I read Don Quixote on my Kindle.
Therefore, I read a book.

I didn't read a codex, but I did read a book.

And a pretty good one, too.



Aristotle wasn't wrong about everything.
(But Plato would love ebooks.)

[crich70]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

And a pretty good one, too.



Aristotle wasn't wrong about everything.
(But Plato would love ebooks.)

I think one reason we think of Don Quixote as being a good book is that it's a classic underdog tale in some ways. We like to see the little guy come out on top even when it seems likely that there is no way it can happen. That's also why non fiction books and articles about person x going up against group/corp. y are so popular I think. And it is part of the dispute of ebooks vs paper books too. It's the little guy who writes the ebook not the big corporations. And we applaud the little guy for self-publishing his/her work as well.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by crich70

I think one reason we think of Don Quixote as being a good book is that it's a classic underdog tale in some ways.

Plus it spoofs the litfic that came before.
It blazed the trail for the Princess Bride.

[Ninjalawyer]

Publishers, if they are to prevail and, in fact, if they are to save books, have to start using the physical book, the true book, to undercut e-books, these unreal books, a form and business in which publishers will in the end have no place.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Plus it spoofs the litfic that came before.
It blazed the trail for the Princess Bride.

And Monty Python as well.

[Gudy]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

Don Quixote is a story.
I read Don Quixote on my Kindle.
Therefore, I read a story on my Kindle.

Fixed that for you. :-P

But seriously, "book" is a rather imprecise word for the discussion at hand. Narrowly defined, a book is a physical thing - a bound collection of things that contain writing. Used to be sheets of beech wood/bark (hence the germanic word), now it's paper held together with twine and/or glue. More broadly, we also call all manner of stuff that comes in book-form a book.

You are now arguing that something that is definitely not in book-form, and is not even a physical thing, is also a book, simply because it contains an electronic representation of the same things that can also be delivered to us in physical book form. This may be a more or less valid view if the only people you are talking about are writers and readers. And sometimes, that's all there is. As soon as you add publishers, vendors and a economic and legal system into the mix, things can and do get a whole lot murkier.

Mind you, I'm all against DRM and for consumers having the same rights with e-books as with physical books. That doesn't change the fact that as far as many legislations (as well as the author's/rights holder's viewpoint) are concerned, they are not, in fact, the same thing. And given that one is a physical object and the other isn't, I'm unsure just how much you can bend those legal systems to actually treat them the same.

[fjtorres]

Here's a "real book", fairly priced:
http://www.amazon.com/White-Hardcove.../dp/B001SV2ISC

Oh, and idiot politicians will say what they're paid to say.
Especially if it lets them add a tax.
Hardly as quotable an authority as Plato.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by Gudy

But seriously, "book" is a rather imprecise word for the discussion at hand. Narrowly defined, a book is a physical thing - a bound collection of things that contain writing. Used to be sheets of beech wood/bark (hence the germanic word), now it's paper held together with twine and/or glue.

I think that's narrow to the point of being inaccurate. If a person said to you, "I've written a book", that doesn't mean "I've created this paper object here." The paper-pages definition is only one definition of the word "book", and it's no more or less real than the "a work of literature" meaning.

[QuantumIguana]

When someone asks you if you read a book, they aren't asking you if you gazed at sheets of paper. If someone holds up a paper book and says "Did you read this book?" They probably don't mean to ask if you read this particular paper book, or even that you read it in paper format. What they mean is whether you read the content. Answering "no", because you read an e-book version would lead to confusion. Denying that Don Quixote is a book leads to absurdities.

The word book can and does often refer both to the media and the content. Before e-books, the distinction didn't matter much. Imagine an author sells 1,000 copies of their story in paper format and 1,000 copies in e-book format. If you asked that author how many books they sold, would they say 1,000 or 2,000? If they said 1,000, because only paper books are books, that would lead to confusion. Paper books are one definition of book, but they are only one definition. Most of the time, the format is simply irrelevant.

[Ninjalawyer]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

When someone asks you if you read a book, they aren't asking you if you gazed at sheets of paper. If someone holds up a paper book and says "Did you read this book?" They probably don't mean to ask if you read this particular paper book, or even that you read it in paper format. What they mean is whether you read the content. Answering "no", because you read an e-book version would lead to confusion. Denying that Don Quixote is a book leads to absurdities.

The word book can and does often refer both to the media and the content. Before e-books, the distinction didn't matter much. Imagine an author sells 1,000 copies of their story in paper format and 1,000 copies in e-book format. If you asked that author how many books they sold, would they say 1,000 or 2,000? If they said 1,000, because only paper books are books, that would lead to confusion. Paper books are one definition of book, but they are only one definition. Most of the time, the format is simply irrelevant.

It's that lack of precision that always makes me ask someone, "what real book are you reading, as opposed to any pseudo-ebook travesty you may have perverted your eyes with?"

It also annoys me to no end when someone says they watched a movie, but then it turns out that they just watched some fake "movie" on Netflix rather than hauled out a projector and reels.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

What an e-book is not is a codex. That's the proper word for what people commonly think of when they say "book". The distinguishing feature between a paper book and an e-book is not that one is a book and the other is not, but that one is a codex and the other is not.

I thought a "codex" was, by definition, hand written, not machine printed.
Is there another word?
If not, then if techie slang like ebook and pbook don't satisfy, then perhaps we need to coin a new retronym.

But I bet there's already another word.

ApK

[DiapDealer]

Nevermind that a word's definition changes all the time based on how society chooses to use the word. I've seen the culture of "book" change myself in just a few short years here at MobileRead. When I first joined, the use of ebook and pbook (or "real" book) abounded. Even among those who had embraced the unholy new thingamajigs, care was taken to distinguish between the two different media, even in the most casual of conversations. But that quickly changed. "Book" became interchangeable with "ebook," pbook was only really used when the media itself was being discussed. The only people left who feel the need to make the distinction are people who want there to be a distinction: namely lawmakers, publishers, pedants and fearmongers.

[QuantumIguana]

Originally Posted by ApK

I thought a "codex" was, by definition, hand written, not machine printed.
Is there another word?
If not, then if techie slang like ebook and pbook don't satisfy, then perhaps we need to coin a new retronym.

But I bet there's already another word.

ApK

That's a tricky area, because the word "codex" usually refers to a handwritten text, bound like a modern paper book. But if you just look at the medium itself, our modern paper books still use the same format: individual pages, sewed or glued together to make a single volume.

But when we say "book", it's usually clear from context what we mean.

[ucfgrad93]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/...ness/17376253/



Yup. Real books.
That's the key to besting ol' Devil Bezos.

Have at it, folks.

In response to this article, I'm going to buy an ebook from Amazon today.

[gweeks]

Originally Posted by ApK

I thought a "codex" was, by definition, hand written, not machine printed.
Is there another word?
If not, then if techie slang like ebook and pbook don't satisfy, then perhaps we need to coin a new retronym.

But I bet there's already another word.

Codex means it's in pages in a bound format rather than a scroll, or at least that's it's original meaning. At that time all "books" were hand written as there were no printing presses.

From Concise Encyclopedia:

Manuscript book, especially of Scripture, early literature, or ancient mythological or historical annals. The earliest type of manuscript in the form of a modern book (i.e., a collection of pages stitched together along one side), the codex replaced earlier rolls of papyrus and wax tablets. Among its advantages, it could be opened at once to any point in the text, it permitted writing on both sides of the leaf, and it could contain long texts. The oldest extant Greek codex is the Codex Sinaiticus (4th century AD), a biblical manuscript. Codices were developed separately by pre-Columbian Mesoamericans after c. AD 1000.




Modern usage is mostly to refer to these very old books. I've seen it used to refer to an official compilations or lists such as a "drug codex" and also to refer to bound books in general.

Greg