Amazon Kindle
eBook Readers
I’ve spent the past couple of years trying my hardest to defend eBook Readers (the gadgets, not the people. I don’t actually know any eBook readers). “Oh they’ll work it out soon!” I’ve been saying. “Have you seen the new flexible screens? There’s NO WAY they’re not implementing that into the next-gen Readers!” I was POSITIVE they’d finally nail down that one thing that has made eBooks such an utter failure, and finally books would enter the 21st century.
Sony
The Sony Reader was the first one to excite me. Sony makes sexy products that usually work pretty well. They’re big enough to get rid of all the proprietary bullshit from the last round of eBook Readers. They HAD to think of a good design.
They did end up with a nice design, but it really looked like a PDA. They also let it read pretty much everything. But, it still didn’t work; probably due to price of both eBooks and the Reader.
Kindle
I heard about Amazon’s Kindle just a few days ago. If ANYONE understands how books work in the digital age, it HAS to be Amazon. No one else survived the dot com boom that well, and they really have zero competition online. I got excited again. I saw the “leaked pictures” and thought “there is NO WAY that’s the final product! Man, I can’t wait until it’s launched!”, and then this:
I’d say that I’m underwhelmed, but I’m actually very overwhelmingly disappointed. I watched their product page video, and there is nothing that convinces me that $400 is a worthwhile expense. The iPhone was so successful because there was nothing to compare it to. People trying to compare it to a phone sounded like idiots, as did those comparing it to an iPod. The Kindle though? I want to say “Good Luck”, but don’t believe in lost causes.
eBooks
There IS exciting news with all of this, though. Amazon has nearly 90, 000 eBooks, with Best Sellers priced at $9.99 or less. That was a HUGE issue with the first run of eBooks. There were a good 3-4 companies creating proprietary formats, and making the booksellers choose. So if you dropped $500 on Joe McShmo’s Reader, you had to buy Joe McShmo-formatted eBooks which might not be available for the book you want. Then there was the price issue: it was rare to see an eBook significantly cheaper than its print counter-point. A lot of people, me included, gave a very big “what’s the point?” and didn’t think twice.
Granted, Kindle is proprietary (why?!) so you can’t use the other formats, or even PDF without first converting it through software on a computer (even though a “selling point” of the Kindle is that “no computer is required”–you can buy books directly from the Reader). I think that’s stupid, but, with 90, 000 eBooks priced better than anywhere else, it might just work. Maybe eBooks just need a monopoly for competition to start barking.
Try It First
Another thing that Apple did with the iPhone was let people touch it. Apple and AT&T has them all over the place. People knew what they looked like, so they asked strangers to look at the them. They were (are) sexy as hell. But the Kindle? Where am I going to see it? Outside tech blogs, I haven’t seen any promotion for it. I’d love to give the Kindle a chance, but at $400? When I can buy those same bestsellers for not a whole lot more than $10? Very unlikely.
Post Script
I REALLY want a good eBook Reader. I want to buy books as easily as I buy mp3s. Things are changing RAPIDLY, and I’m not looking forward to what is going to happen to the book industry. 10 years ago, Coach House Books starting digitizing books and eventually created an Online Books Archive which still exists today. [Check out a small love poem and try telling me that literature doesn't belong in a digital form.]
Why did their project stop in 2002? It didn’t make enough money to sustain itself–probably due to a lack of distribution and interest in eBooks. That was due to a lack of eBook Readers that people wanted to buy and use. So, grant funding ran out and they were unable to support perpetual creation. It’s hugely disappointing and I hope they get the chance to try it again–they’re one of the best forward-thinking publishers in Canada.
The folks creating digital products for readers and lit people should try talking to readers and lit people before releasing new products.
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