The Contemporary Nomad is where five authors talk with you, dear reader, about the important subjects of the day. Whatever we decide they might be. Read more 
S T E I N H A U E R
Back in October, as a gift-to-myself for getting the Dagger nomination, I bought a spankin’ new Amazon Kindle. Being a sucker for slick gadgets, I’d had a hankering for one for a while, but living in Europe made it useless until the international version came out. So I pulled out my credit card, choked my way through the exorbitant import fees, and waited for it.
And then my world changed…
No, not really. But I do have to admit that I’m liking it quite a lot. Right now, I’ve got over 200 books on the slender thing, and not just Gutenberg titles. I’m able to toss my own manuscripts on there, as well as friends’, and by using Calibre I’ve set up an automatic newspaper subscription that updates five major papers daily–for free.
Even with the hefty European import fees the economics of the thing work out, because, since I live in Europe (where the few local English-language bookstores can’t seem to track down all the books I want), my main source of books has always been Amazon. The titles I get there always cost more than the average $10 ebook price, and shipping costs more. The basic math is that if I buy 40 or so Kindle books, the Kindle will have paid for itself.
The real question, of course, is whether or not one likes reading on the Kindle. That first week I was unsure, but as the ads say, the Kindle really does quickly disappear in your hands, and you soon forget you’re using a machine. Right now I’m rereading Deighton’s Berlin Game on it for class, and it’s going wonderfully. The note-taking aspect (the chicklet keyboard) works well enough, but I’m not quite a convert to that yet, though the search function is terrific. And of course there’s the central problem of all ebooks: I can’t flip through a book to find something I want to cite. Overall, though, the thing really does its job and does it well.
Do I miss “the book” when I’m reading on this? In some ways, yes, but there’s an interesting effect that occurs, something that I think writers might notice more than others–one loses the fetish of the printed page. What I mean to say is that, while reading an ebook, content is absolute king. Not typography, not binding, not cover design–only the abstract words themselves. In this way, one could argue that it’s reading in its purest sense. I’ll admit that there’s certainly an electronica fetish with these things, but when each book looks exactly the same–since you’re reading them all on one machine–there’s no individuality to separate War and Peace from, say, Bridget Jones. It’s like reading all your novels in Word–without the characteristics of typography and design, text and story are all that matter.
Now, before buying it I heard a lot of opinions about the Kindle from friends, usually those who hadn’t ever touched one. The opinions ranged from skeptical to downright hostile. E-books, some believe, will ruin publishing. I don’t see how that could be true–if the public’s willing to pay $10 for a book that costs pretty much nothing to produce (I could turn a manuscript into an ebook on my laptop in five minutes), then all that publishers, authors and ebook-sellers have to do is figure out how to divide up all that green.
No, the tragedy isn’t for publishing; it’s for bookstores. If I don’t have to leave my house to buy a book, then what’s to happen to your local bookstore? It’s a tough question to answer, but it’s the same question that was posed when Amazon itself rose to prominence with their home-delivered bound books. It’s the same question that was asked when Barnes & Noble started taking over the country with their brick & mortars. In each case independents were hurt. Will ebooks be the thing that finally break the back of the independents completely?
I hope not, but I really don’t know. I do know that, at this point in my life, this is the most convenient, cost-effective, and easy way for me to access a lot of books. Not all books–I often run into the brick wall of a title I want not being available in electronic format–but enough of them so that I’ll be reading for years. For those not available for my machine, I do still have an overflowing bookshelf that could probably take on more titles, and I’ll certainly use it.
Perhaps I can mitigate the damage I’m causing by boycotting Amazon when it comes to those those physical books, and only buy them from my nearest independent. It might not save anybody, but it just might make me feel better…
December 22nd, 2009 at 9:20 pm
Olen, I certainly hear you on this, especially since you live outside the states these days, an e-reader definitely sounds more convenient than a massive pile of books – and I appreciate that you acknowledge the fact that the kindle is slowly sucking the life out of the indie bookstore, but it doesn’t make me feel any better about it. And I know that you’ve heard it all before, but to me, the fact is, we independent booksellers are the ones recommending your books to their customers & friends, not amazon. If the soulless, computerized bookseller is what we’re looking for, then I suppose that’s what we’re gonna get. I guess that reality just bums me out.
I’m still going to handsell The Tourist though. :)
December 22nd, 2009 at 10:00 pm
Seth, don’t give up yet. I’m not going to explain why I think the e-book will be a short-lived development and why it has a built-in obsolescence because I’ve done that before in a post on this site.
I’m also not going to dispute that there will be blood spilled by the brief flowering of the e-book – unlike Olen, I think publishers will suffer as much as booksellers.
But real books work for most people. They work for the people who read one book a year on vacation (Lee Child has argued convincingly that most bestsellers are sold to people like this). They also work for people who like the tactile reality of books.
Indie bookshops might have to change, and publishers will certainly have to change. And to me the obvious direction is in the quality of the volumes they produce. As I once pointed out to someone in the industry, if you read a great but cheaply produced book you’ll give it to your friend, but if you read a great and beautifully produced book, you’ll put it on your shelf and recommend it to your friend, even if you know you’ll never read it again. This is how publishers have to respond to e-books, by making books better, making them collectable. A book is a beautiful object that does a simple yet amazing job, and it will continue to do it long after e-books have morphed into countless hybird forms of entertainment.
December 23rd, 2009 at 12:56 am
Seth, it’s folks like you I’m thinking about when I want to mitigate damage. But I brought up those earlier fears about indies getting wiped out by B&N and Amazon because while I know I’m probably guilty of living with too much hope, I really don’t think something like the Kindle will ruin the independent bookstore–or at least most of them. Two reasons:
1) Ebooks aren’t for everyone. That feeling of reading a novel on Word certainly isn’t for most people, and I don’t think it ever will be. I mention the fetish of the physical book, but I don’t mean it in any condescending way; it’s a major part of the reading experience, one that most people won’t relinquish easily.
And most importantly, 2) an independent bookstore offers community, which any form of wireless purchasing can’t offer. Part of that’s the booksellers helping guide customers through the labyrinth of titles, the other part is the customers themselves interacting and discovering new reading pleasures.
To me, #2 is something that’s crucially important to cultural life in the States, and it’s a lovely and unexpected surprise if you find it living overseas (or, like me, you live overseas and then find yourself moving for 5 months to yet another country without an English-language bookstore).
Am I being too naively optimistic? I speak of these things entirely from the outside, as I don’t visit the States nearly often enough to really know. You tell me.
One thing that does annoy me (and I should have mentioned it above) is that Amazon produces books in their own format. It doesn’t force, but it does manipulate Kindle owners into buying their ebooks from Amazon. However, since I’m techy enough to know how to reformat these things, from the 250+ ebooks I now have, only a tiny fraction were actually purchased from Amazon.
But if physical books want to survive in the long run (and we really are talking about a long run here), I think Kevin makes an excellent point about them needing to be produced as beautiful objects.
There was an interesting editorial in the Guardian a year or more ago about how one reader’s UK paperbacks were falling apart after a few years, while his US paperbacks were still flexible and sound–it led to a realization that, as a general rule, UK paperbacks were being produced more cheaply (something I’ve noticed myself). With an attitude like that, UK publishers may reap larger profits in the short run, but will lose out in the long run. Not to attack UK publishers with this, just to point out that publishers in general may be shooting themselves in the foot sometimes with shortsighted thinking.
And who’s stuck in the middle? The independents, of course.
Which reminds me of a lovely French law I learned about during my last tour there–the government regulates the prices of books, so that big booksellers cannot undercut prices. Thus, independents flourish. It will be interesting to see what they do once ebooks start making waves there, and to take notes.
Oh, and thanks for keeping up the handselling despite my obnoxious gadget purchases!
December 23rd, 2009 at 1:44 pm
Olen, we too had the Net Book Agreement which was abolished some ten years ago. It does mean some books are cheaper now, but where one “uncompetitive practice” has been abolished, another has been allowed to flourish, in that Amazon and some supermarkets are able to sell at a lower price than is offered to the indies by the publishers or wholesalers. Okay, it’s normal economics to offer lower prices to bulk buyers (though there’s a question about how much of a bulk buyer Amazon really is, and also suggestions that many of its books are dispatched by wholesalers or even directly by the publishers, but STILL at the massively discounted rate) but I don’t think it would be uncompetitive to legislate on the size of discount margin allowed. For example, most people will pay an extra pound/dollar or two for the chance to buy in an indie, but even I balk at paying £18.99 for a book that can be bought on Amazon for £8.
Incidentally, there was another article recently about the difference in quality between UK and US editions, something most of us authors have noted. The S&S “POD” version of “For the Dogs” is of a better quality than most UK paperbacks. I’m also a sucker for the US rough-cut pages. That’s a hint of the way to go, as would be occasional special editions of backlist titles, etc. etc..
December 24th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Was thinking further on this (it’s been on my mind ever since posting), and I’m wondering why indies can’t sell ebooks too, while keeping their community connection. Use IndieBound as a central repository of ebooks (in some cross-platform format, like mobi). Sell them directly via the IndieBound site, wherein you choose which independent in your zip code will benefit from the profits. Simultaneously, the indies who can do so set up wi-fi in the store so that people can come in, interact and discuss books with the staff, and order using their computer or wireless device (again from the IndieBound central repository). In most cases, if the book’s in stock, they’ll likely buy the physical copy, but if it’s not in stock then they can still have an e-copy in a minute. Obviously the indie community needs to make a deal with publishers to get such a thing moving, but from my experience publishers do not like the monopoly of B&N and Amazon, because of the absurd power they wield over publishers. I think publishers (at least the forward-looking ones) would jump at the chance to help keep indies alive.
It also occurs to me that bookstores don’t need wifi to make this work. If I buy an ebook from my local indie bookstore, the book can simply be emailed to me, or to whatever email address I’ve set up my reader with. Which is just a way to say that upgrade costs for individual stores doesn’t have to be much at all.
Anyway, I’m sure there’s plenty of reasons to argue against this, but I can’t think of them.
December 26th, 2009 at 3:55 am
I think the e-book thing is a genie that can’t be put back in the bottle. If you travel regularly, or have a longish commute, the Kindle (or Nook or whatever) is a lifesaver. You can carry hundreds of books in the size of a trade paperback.
Plus, if you are an avid reader you can carry around a small library with you where ever you go. If a book comes out – you can have it in sixty-seconds.
There are just too many conveniences involved to have it be a flash-in-the-pan. I can’t imagine giving my Kindle up and going without e-books.
This doesn’t mean books qua books go away. We still have radio even after TV, TIVO, etc. Heck I still listen to tapes for my kids and I have a friend who still buys LPs.
I don’t know how the technology will sort out or how the market will play out but e-books are here to stay.
December 27th, 2009 at 11:33 pm
Olen –
Indies with ABA-run sites (like http://warwicks.indiebound.com) do have the ability to sell e-books, just not Kindle-compatible ones. So far, it’s great that we have the ability to theoretically be in the market, but the reality is that no one uses readers other than the Kindle yet. We’ve yet to sell an e-book at Warwick’s since they were made available in the Fall.
My problem with e-books has never been the item itself, but rather that Amazon has managed to put a stranglehold on the market, squeezing out independents and chains alike. Granted, B&N has managed to tap in with The Nook, but it remains to be seen if they can stave off bankruptcy, let alone keep competing with the massive online retailers like Amazon. My bitterness lies with the economic impossibility of the local store being able to compete, not just with e-books, but with the massive discounting happening at all the big box stores that Kevin mentioned. When Target sells the $29 Stephen King hardback for $8.99, where does that leave the indie? It’s madness.
Maybe the big guys will price themselves out of the market eventually, I’m not sure. I’m lucky enough to work for an independent that has a solid community without big box stores and chain booksellers within shouting distance, so we’re able to not just survive, but thrive. We make a big point of promoting shopping locally – not for the deep discounts, but for the personal connections, author events, and hands-on bookselling that you can’t get from a stonecold website and an ebook retailer.
And Kevin (W), I couldn’t agree with you more about the movement to beautify the book as something special, a work of art, as a way to preserve the printed, bound book. Look at the magnificent edition of Carl Jung’s “Red Book” published by Norton this winter or Reif Larsen’s novel, “The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet” created by Putnam. These are the way to go.
Oh, and sorry Olen, neither are available as e-books. :)
December 28th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
I’m trying to imagine the Red Book as an ebook, and the vision makes me cringe…
See? I didn’t even realize bookstores on IndieBound had the option of selling ebooks. Shows how poorly informed I am. I’m glad to see they’re available, but I wonder if the interface could be streamlined a little–when I click on a book I don’t know if there’s an ebook option. To find out that I have to do a separate search, and most people won’t think to do it. However, if on the initial book page they saw an e-option was available they might pursue it. Just a thought.
But I hear you. Those steep discounts have always been brutal, and I remember when B&N ruled the world all the hate was directed at them; now, it seems as if they’re a potential ally for the indies against Amazon and Target.
Color me stupidly optimistic (and yes, I do have a naive blind spot where technology is concerned), but I think this new format is just getting going. Amazon is certainly trying to lock up the market in its infancy, but the Kindle has limitations that will make other machines (hello, Apple?) a more attractive option. I have faith that, in a year or so, Amazon will have to open its machine up to a larger variety of formats, thus opening it to a larger variety of sellers.
And as I hope I’ve made clear, none of these developments will ever be able to supplant the local connection the indies have always had. Which is why Warwick’s and places like it may take a gut-punch but will come back kicking ass.
December 29th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
You’ve probably figured this out by now, but a lot of the “problems” with the Kindle (and with e-books in general), are problems with the publisher’s markup of the document. Once you’ve read 50 or so books bought from Amazon you’ll notice that the way that books are converted to the Kindle really varies. When the e-book becomes the primary format, a lot of the problems that now exist will be fixed.
Your problem with “flipping through books” would be helped by proper chapter markup, which puts the little black dots on the location bar at the bottom of the display. The 5-way can then be used to jump back and forth through chapters. So far only a minority of publishers are doing this.
Another trick is to pop the font to the smallest size, minimum leading, no margins, which puts a lot more content on the page, and you can page through faster. Change it back with you want to get back to reading. And of course searching can be used to track stuff down. You can even generate an impromptu table of contents by searching for “chapter.”
These guys complaining about dying “indie book stores.” I mean, seriously, do they really think that this wave can be stopped, that paper books are going to be around forever, other than as fetish articles like vinyl LPs are? The paper book is under attack from all sides. Dictionaries were done in by spellcheckers and various computer OS support of dictionary programs. Reference books by the internet. Computer programming books by the internet online language references, as well as by better programming environments with built in reference. Photography books are largely dead because you can find what you want on the internet. Are there niches and corner cases that these replacements don’t serve? Sure. Are they important enough that there will be a significant market to serve them. No. Get used to it. Books are moribund.
January 4th, 2010 at 5:04 pm
Olen, and commenters, interesting food for thought–thanks. One quick note to add, though–e-books do not cost “pretty much nothing” to produce. No, there’s no paper and ink, true, but there are a lot of other costs–author’s advance, for one thing; publisher overhead (salaries and equipment for all the people who work to edit, design, market, and sell the thing); marketing costs; and the infrastructure to make and supply the e-book itself, which is not small, given that the technology is new and publishers are big corporate machines who don’t turn on a dime. Their unpredictability will also bring costs up–we are still printing books at the same levels because it is impossible to account for the number of electronic sales. So although there is a lot of excitement and potential in this new format, there is a lot to figure out before we are all rolling in green…
January 4th, 2010 at 11:11 pm
For me, the chief benefits of music on an ipod (extreme portability, and the ability to instantly access my entire record collection) came to outweigh the negatives (mainly the loss of tangible artwork, liner notes, and a little sonic fidelity).
Along those lines, I don’t see how the benefits of the Kindle outweigh the pleasures of a physical book. I don’t need to access my book collection like I access my whole record collection.
However, as much as I like my ipod, it helped turn consumers (back) into people who bought singles, rather than albums. And the technology made it possible for the record industry to commit suicide, thanks to file sharing.
And are there already blogs where the mp3 equivalent of novels can be illegally shared?…
January 23rd, 2010 at 4:02 pm
Interesting story on Kindle:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/23/books/23kindle.html
February 1st, 2010 at 3:47 pm
Hi Olen,
This is really random. Chris and I were talking about you the other night and wondering how you are doing. We feel bad that we’ve lost touch. I googled you to see if you were still in Hungary and it seems that you are. I am sorry to post this on your blog, but I can’t seem to find contact info for you anywhere else. We would love to hear from you. Hope you are well.
Sincerely,
Marissa Racht Ryan (Chris Ryan’s wife)