but it's not tangible
there's no pleasure in touching it, smelling it, seeing it stacked on your shelf and remembering you haven't read it in a while, or stumbling across it in a bookshop when it's something you would never normally look twice at but getting hooked on the first page, or spending an hour or more just wandering around choosing books... kindles can never ever replace that.

and if they kill off the bookshops because people would rather get stuff cheaper (we're talking a few quid for a book here, it's not like they're saving hundreds of pounds a pop) or for free, that entire massive pleasure will disappear.

sad times.
( rachelswipe with a fork, Thu 13 Oct 2011, 10:57, 3 replies, latest was 13 years ago)

There is great pleasure in reading it
and I can carry the complete works of a number of great writers in one very small leatherbound device.

What I object to is the ludicrous price we are currently expected to pay for digital media. It's like the publishing industry has learnt absolutely nothing from the way the bottom fell out of the recorded music industry due to bad pricing.

The sad thing is though, musicians can go on tour and make money selling merchandise, and author can never do anything like that.

But equally, I suppose, Charles Dickens made his money serialising his books in newspapers, it's only recently that authors have been able to sell millions of books and then never work again, and the same applies to musicians.
(Bazongaloid, Thu 13 Oct 2011, 11:00, Reply)

very very few authors can do that
j k rowling was the first person to make a million just from books alone, not film rights etc. one of the publishers who came to lecture on my oxford course told us that the average author in the uk earns £4,000 per annum.

kindles are just not as tactile as books. if you spend all day looking at a computer screen, why would you want to get out another computer screen on the way home/out to the pub. and you simply can't browse the same way.

then you look at all the knock-on effects of bookshops closing - all the staff; the landlords who won't get paid rent; the high streets losing yet another good shop; the kids who simply won't get the same love of books as we did..... urgh. BURN THE KINDLES.

this being said, ebay/amazon was probably the beginning of the end, when people started flogging them. and i buy them from there. which is kind of hypocritical. but still. BURN THE KINDLES.
( rachelswipe with a fork, Thu 13 Oct 2011, 11:03, Reply)

I imagine that peple writing pulp fiction such as James Patterson and Dean Koontz
make quite a lot of money, because they keep churning out lots of novels and people buy them. Which is reasonable, you keep producing something people want and you are rewarded.

But I don't see why any author should expect to be able to live on the proceeds of just a few books. And the same goes for musicians. If you can keep producing good quality stuff that people want to buy then brilliant, you can make your money, but if you expect to live off the proceeds of two albums then I'm actually pleased the business model has changed to prevent that.
(Bazongaloid, Thu 13 Oct 2011, 11:11, Reply)

but that was always the case
digital books haven't changed that, they've just made it much harder to get a deal in the first place because the publishers are much more under the cosh. and the author gets paid a lot less.

anyone who loves literature would have been nearly weeping after the lectures we sat through. eg: the future of publishing lies mainly in chick-lit and vampire fiction, with pet biographies coming up unexpectedly on the rear. the best way to make money is... to be picked up by tesco, who take on about 10 books a month. since when did tesco dictate great literature? and if your first book sells brilliantly but the second doesn't, you most likely won't get a shot at a third. it's a very harsh business.

the whole thing sucks.
( rachelswipe with a fork, Thu 13 Oct 2011, 11:13, Reply)

I think you're wrong in believing that there was once some great "golden age of literature"
When you look back at "Classics" such as Dickens, Bronte, Tolstoy etc. They were all writing over a period of a century, or more, and there will have been loads of other books published during that time that nobody remembers, probably because they were shit.

And it's the same now, there are still some fantastic books being published, but there is also a lot of shit. But nobody in 150 years is going to remember the shit.

In twenty years time I bet Harry Potter isn't all that popular at all, because with the benefit of hindsight people will notice that after the 4th book the quality declined massively as no editor appeared to have the balls to stand up to JK Rowling.
(Bazongaloid, Thu 13 Oct 2011, 11:21, Reply)

Oh shit I'm actually agreeing with Al. I need to go offline.

(Reverend Fister "a disciplined fuckwit", Thu 13 Oct 2011, 11:15, Reply)

Also, Kindles and Readers aren't computer screens, they use an "e-ink" system
which is totally different, doesn't tire your eyes, looks just like a printed page.

Reading stuff on backlit stuff like an ipad or a phone, that's just a bit daft I reckon
(Bazongaloid, Thu 13 Oct 2011, 11:12, Reply)

my dad's got one, i hate it
i read so quickly that i am constantly flicking the page and it makes my eyes tired. i don't care if it's psychosomatic, i hate the kindle!
( rachelswipe with a fork, Thu 13 Oct 2011, 11:14, Reply)

This chap talks about how ebooks
will put literacy out of the reach of a lot of people who are poor

seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com/390067.html
( Amberl was stripey and dominated Europe, Thu 13 Oct 2011, 11:02, Reply)

interesting read.

( rachelswipe with a fork, Thu 13 Oct 2011, 11:05, Reply)

Definitely makes a point worth considering
people tend to forget that there are a lot of people out there who ebooks are useless for if they don't have anything to read them on
( Amberl was stripey and dominated Europe, Thu 13 Oct 2011, 11:08, Reply)

also it turns them from being something even the kids whose families can afford it can collect
and enjoy opening and reading to just another computer thing.

plus parents are never going to buy one each. so kids will end up sharing, or more likely one of them never getting a look-in/not becoming interested.
( rachelswipe with a fork, Thu 13 Oct 2011, 11:10, Reply)

Yeah I read that
I kind of agree, to an extent, but the main way to combat that, is through Libraries.

But because less people use libraries they are viewed as a pointless waste of money and their funding gets slashed. Which puts free books out of the hands of people who can't afford any other way of obtaining them.

That's the real crime, it's not the rise of Kindles that's to blame.
(Bazongaloid, Thu 13 Oct 2011, 11:08, Reply)

Yeah I linked to it on facebook
a few weeks back.

I'm not saying Kindles are to blame, I am saying though that books are still an important part of our society and far more easily obtainable than a free ebook reader is
( Amberl was stripey and dominated Europe, Thu 13 Oct 2011, 11:10, Reply)

Why is that any different to the medium of music, telivsion or films, yet people still get them via digital distribution.
In my mind, they're not replacing printed media, but suplimenting it. I still buy magazines and books, and I still buy digital versions. Sometimes I want to be able to open up my ipad and have something there-and-then, and sometimes I want to pick up something printed. Depends on my mood.

If it does kill off bookshops, and ignoring the fact that online stores are doing more damage, then it'll be because the public find the digital copy more favorable to buy. But for the reasons you said, that's why they'll always still have book shops.
( G/PP 💩💩💩💩💩&#128, Thu 13 Oct 2011, 11:08, Reply)

And there are other advantages to digital too.
I could produce work that people will read and possibly buy, anyone can with digital, because the investment is so much less and the buisness model doesn't require shelf space. It's giving an opertunity in that respect that wouldn't happen without it.
( G/PP 💩💩💩💩💩&#128, Thu 13 Oct 2011, 11:10, Reply)

but will they?
waterstones is the only main high street retailer left, and compare that to 10 years ago. and waterstones' value has just been slashed by about £150M!
( rachelswipe with a fork, Thu 13 Oct 2011, 11:10, Reply)

The kindle is only, what, 2 years old? You can't blame the demise of the highstreet book shop on Kindle when the decline has been going on for a lot longer.
I think it's more to look to society, look at the riots and how waterstones was the only retail that wasn't touched.

Look at WH Smiths, they've adapted to the market, and without adapting, that's where we get failure.
( G/PP 💩💩💩💩💩&#128, Thu 13 Oct 2011, 11:16, Reply)

WH Smiths don't really sell books anymore
they sell them as a small overpriced mainstream collection.
( Amberl was stripey and dominated Europe, Thu 13 Oct 2011, 11:17, Reply)

Huh? I don't think I've been to one where at _least_ 30-50% of their space wasn't dedicated to books.

( G/PP 💩💩💩💩💩&#128, Thu 13 Oct 2011, 11:41, Reply)