UK Daily Telegraph "Ebooks will make authors soulless, just like their product"

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Bilbo1967

Surely he means 'liseuse'?

That is not even funny. It's just old by now.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Superlucky

I like that he refers to physical books as "warm". It reminds me of people I've met who hate CD's and talk about the "warmth" of vinyl.

Actually, it doesn't really take that much to get vinyl to sound better then CDs. Take a decent mid-range turn table with a good cartridge and a good phono pre-amp against a cheaply made CD player and yes, the LPs will be better sounding then the CDs.

But in terms of eBooks vs. pBooks, an eBook is just another way to read the same content. And yes, my 505 can feel colder then a paperback. But, a hardcover can also feel cold too due to the paper used for the sleeve.

[zerospinboson]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Actually, it doesn't really take that much to get vinyl to sound better then CDs. Take a decent mid-range turn table with a good cartridge and a good phono pre-amp against a cheaply made CD player and yes, the LPs will be better sounding then the CDs.

But in terms of eBooks vs. pBooks, an eBook is just another way to read the same content. And yes, my 505 can feel colder then a paperback. But, a hardcover can also feel cold too due to the paper used for the sleeve.

The only difference worth noting being that your paper books supports different fonts.

[Superlucky]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Actually, it doesn't really take that much to get vinyl to sound better then CDs. Take a decent mid-range turn table with a good cartridge and a good phono pre-amp against a cheaply made CD player and yes, the LPs will be better sounding then the CDs.

But in terms of eBooks vs. pBooks, an eBook is just another way to read the same content. And yes, my 505 can feel colder then a paperback. But, a hardcover can also feel cold too due to the paper used for the sleeve.

You missed my point. Vinyl might sound better and p-books might feel better, but these advantages are dwarfed by the convenience of digital music and ebooks. Also, I think the author meant "warm" metaphorically. I doubt he was referring to the actual temperature of the medium.

[fugazied]

I am a little speechless about this to be honest. Text is text, and the ebook devices offer more ways to invest yourself in the text by marking your favourite passages with notes, flipping to a particular favourite section in seconds.

Writing notes in your traditional books is possible but the power with which you can revisit and flag text in ebooks is far superior. He's also ignoring the power of being able to carry 200 books in your pocket

[Ea]

Originally Posted by K-Thom

....

Writing notes in your traditional books is possible but the power with which you can revisit and flag text in ebooks is far superior. He's also ignoring the power of being able to carry 200 books in your pocket

He might have a very big pocket. Well.... you never know!

[Superlucky]

Originally Posted by fugazied

He's also ignoring the power of being able to carry 200 books in your pocket

200? Sealbeater has 4,057 in his pocket. Check out the pic.

[Laine]

I attended The Australian Romance Readers Convention in February. I printed out a page for each of the authors I'd read showing the covers of their books that I owned in eversions. Not one author refused to sign and several asked to see my Hanlin and even called other authors to look at it.

Perhaps this 'want to be' should talk to some actual authors and get their opinions. Most authors are only too pleased to make a sale and know that someone enjoys their work.

[Lemurion]

I think it's a false dichotomy: I have bought several books in both electronic and paper editions, and I've found no real difference between them.

[delphidb96]

Originally Posted by Bilbo1967

Having now read the article I am now both outraged and encouraged.

Outraged, because its just a really poor piece of journalism. It knocks e-readers without ever making a cogent argument against them. Take for example this sentence from the article:

“Without books” Lillian told me, “I would die."

So what will happen to young women like Lillian when the e-reader replaces the book as the dominant vehicle for the distribution and sale of written texts?

Well, clearly, the answer is, if that ever happens, that she will still be reading books, but just on an e-reader! The author of this piece is either too lazy or too stupid to realise that the word 'books' as used by 'Lillian' actually means 'reading'.

Oh, and I'm encouraged because I always fancied being a journalist and now I know that it doesn't take any real skill or discernable intelligence I might just be able to do it

No. Lillian said she would die, so she - and all the other luddites who cannot imagine change - will die. Either we'll notice one or two unexplained corpses, or we'll see the world swamped by a massive extinction event that will strain the public safety sector (who else would deal with mass graves?) beyond it's capacity.

Derek

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Superlucky

You missed my point. Vinyl might sound better and p-books might feel better, but these advantages are dwarfed by the convenience of digital music and ebooks. Also, I think the author meant "warm" metaphorically. I doubt he was referring to the actual temperature of the medium.

He was meaning warm in reference to the sound. Some people say digital music sounds cold.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by delphidb96

No. Lillian said she would die, so she - and all the other luddites who cannot imagine change - will die. Either we'll notice one or two unexplained corpses, or we'll see the world swamped by a massive extinction event that will strain the public safety sector (who else would deal with mass graves?) beyond it's capacity.

Derek

Well, since the pBook only crowd will all be dead, eBooks will flourish. Works for me.

[Kali Yuga]

Someone needs to read a little Heidegger. A paper book is just as much a work of technology as an ebook reader. And paper is no more "natural" than plastic, it just has an older pedigree.

Separately, I really fail to see how book conventions will change all that much with ebooks. Publishers will still want to hawk their wares, schmooze with their colleagues, and show off their stars.

[LDBoblo]

It's really a shame to see yet another article defending paper books only using emotional rhetoric and almost completely abandoning a logical, clean discussion.

I personally dislike most ebooks and prefer paper books 9 times out of 10, but it's not because I find paper to be sensual or any such poppycock. It's because the devices suck for many types of reading navigation, the screen quality is inferior to all but the absolute worst paper/printing in contrast and acuity, and most ebooks look as if they were formatted by a 10-year-old (I'm amazed the readers don't use Comic Sans as the default typeface.). They are storage devices with primitive viewing capacity that shows in a very crippled way some of the content, stripped of any professional bookmaking work. The storage is the real benefit, and it's a real benefit indeed in many ways.

I even think ebooks will one day, if they live up to any of their thus-far wasted potential, be a great medium for reading. There's no soul to speak of that they could lose. Tangibility sure. There's aways the amusing hypothetical post-apocalyptic situation where the batteries eventually die out and the optical discs degrade (<20 years), and education for the last remaining generations of mankind will rely on the few remaining paper libraries that survived in the bomb shelters of paranoid militants. If I decided to get up and go to the mountains to become a hermit, I'd probably want some tangible media. I don't really expect either of these to happen, but they're more believable than anything to do with "soul" or "warmth" (put a better processor in and they'll generate warmth too...but then it will be called "sterile" instead of "cold"). I'll always want SOME paper books, but moving a library is a pain in the ass, and carrying a bookcase on a commute or a trip...not so fun.

Sure, ebooks suck right now, but with luck the devices and content will improve. It'd be nice if some of the anti-ebook crowd would stop with the BS emotional end of it, and start being critical about the shortcomings of current ebook technology and implementation. Perhaps then these articles wouldn't be casually disregarded as irrational ebibliophobia.

[brecklundin]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolog...r-product.html

The usual litany of reservations from a pbook fetishist - what will authors autograph for fans?

At least he calls them e-readers!.

now there is an idea...get authors to sign your reader and see how many authors one reader can accumulate over the years.