Print versus ebooks: it's still a debate

You might think that more than eight years after the Kindle launched*, the debate over print books versus ebooks would be settled, but it looks like it's not. CBS News recently weighed in with a post titled Books vs. e-books: The science behind the best way to read.

It gets some things right: it mentions that studies of e-reading interrupting sleep are about LCD screens, and that dedicated ereaders have non-light-emitting screens (although it never calls them e-ink screens). It talks about the advantages that controlling the appearance of the text can give to people with reading disabilities.  There's even link to a website where readers can try out that kind of feature to see if it helps.

Things the post gets wrong: The title implies one best way to read, and there isn't one! It also calls print books just "books." That's like saying "Cars vs. Electric Cars: Which Is Better?" They're all books! Way back when the codex replaced the scroll, it was just a new format for the same thing.

This post also sites a specific Australian study of students to make the claim that "avid readers also tend to prefer reading on paper." I find this bogus! I think if you made a point to include people who own dedicated e-ink ereaders, you would find they are some of the most voracious readers out there.  Furthermore, Australia doesn't have as mature an ereader market as the US.


* I know the Kindle was not the first ereader--not even the first e-ink ereader--but it was what launched the digital transition. The pre-Kindle market for ebooks was minuscule.

The bits and bytes of books

Today while I was waiting in my doctor's office for an appointment, I was reading a book on my Kindle. You'll notice I didn't say I was reading my Kindle. You read on a Kindle because there are books and other works on it. The receptionist mentioned that she had been thinking of asking for one for Christmas.

When I first got a 1st gen Kindle back in 2008, people would constantly ask me what it was. Now, even if someone doesn't own an ereader, they recognize one when they see it.

Mike Shatzkin is a publishing industry consultant who literally grew up in the book business, as his father was a book seller. His blog is called The Shatzkin Files, and today's post looks at the global ebook picture. He makes a lot of good points and one thing he points out is that the poorest countries may be quicker to go totally digital because they can't afford the costs of print books. He also thinks e-ink readers like the Kindle and the Nook might have a very limited lifespan if tablets can ever reduce glare and eyestrain enough.

Coincidentally, today I saw a post about Levar Burton on the MediaBistro blog. Burton was the host of the Reading Rainbow series on PBS, and in passing during an interview he mentioned that he doesn't see cutting down trees to make books as being sustainable.

I think it's going to be a long time before print goes away or even becomes rare. I do think bookstores and online booksellers will start to rely on print-on-demand (PoD) technology, especially because it will get better and cheaper and the number of titles will grow.

Once the digital revolution starts, it's really hard to stop it. Just ask the music industry.

My Amazon wish list

This isn't a list of things I want to buy from Amazon, it's things I wish Amazon would do for their Kindle platform and/or bookstore.

1. Allow the user to select which Kindle or Kindle app is the default. I constantly send things to the wrong Kindle when I buy a book or download a free book because it won't let me change the default "Send to" button from my husband's Kindle 3 to my Kindle Touch. 
2. Provide a button to pre-order a free sample. When a book is available for pre-order, you can either buy it or not, but you can't see a sample online and you have no way to say "Send me a sample of this as soon as it comes out." I see a lot of books in Amazon marketing emails that sound interesting but if I don't know for sure I want the book, I am not pre-odering it without a sample. If I forget to check my wish list, I might never check out that book any further.
3. Restore the header line! I really miss seeing the author/title of the book at the top of the screen when I am reading. I know it takes a line of text from the screen, but why can't they at least make it a display option for those of use who want it?
4. Make the page shorter when in read-aloud mode. On the Kindle Touch, the menu stays on the bottom of the screen when it is reading aloud. I like that because it is faster for pausing, turning it on and off, but it covers up the text beneath it. I like to proof on my Kindle, so I want to hear and see the text at the same time! The same is true for folks with dyslexia, who use ereaders to help with comprehension. 
5.  Provide an epub email conversion. They must be able to do this; converting from epub has got to be easier and more reliable than converting from MS Word. Amazon lets publishers submit epub books and converts them to Kindle format, so let Kindle owners use that conversion, too!    

There you go, five things! Is that too much to ask? Come on, Amazon, get with it!

To Touch or to Keyboard, that is the question!

I've had my Kindle Touch for a while now, and I have to say, I like it better, over all, than my old Kindle 3 (a.k.a. my husband's "new" Kindle Keyboard), but there are few things I think the K3 did better. For me, typing is much easier on the touch screen, which is great for searching in books and in the Kindle store, and for typing passwords (as when you log onto a new wireless network). I can still read one-handed using the tap feature to go forward a page, which is great.

But sometimes I brush the screen without meaning to and the page flips forward or backward! I'm sure I'll get better at that over time, but for now, it's very annoying.

Using collections is definitely easier with the KT, as is navigating pages and pages of home screen, which is what you get when you have hundreds of documents on your Kindle.

While making annotations is easier with the KT, reading them was actually a little easier on the K3, at least for my own manuscripts and other documents.  When you annotate a Kindle book, the annotations go into a special file, and every annotation is linked to where it occurs in the book. When you have the book open and use the menu option to view the "Notes," you get a list of these annotations (and with the KT, the highlights are intermixed). What you actually see in the list is a snippet of text that occurs right after the annotation and the annotation number, as if it were a footnote. With the K3, you could move the cursor down the page, to each annotation in turn, and the text of the note the cursor is on displays at the bottom of the page. With the KT. in order to read what your note says, you have to tap the annotation number, and that opens that note. But you can't tap it too long, it takes you to that part of the book. It has taken me a while to get the hang of that.

For Kindle books you buy from Amazon, it's actually easier to go to your Highlights page on the web (kindle.amazon.com/your_highlights) where you can not only read them more easily, you can copy and paste them if needed.  However, when I use the Kindle to proof one of my own manuscripts, the annotations and highlights don't appear on that web page, which is very annoying!  I have observed that the manuscripts and other files I send, including non-Kindle books, (Amazon calls them all "private documents") do now go into my Kindle archive, which is nice.

So overall, the KT is still better, but what I really want is a hybrid Kindle, with no keyboard but with page forward and backward buttons on the edges, and a screen you could turn on and off for touch activation. That would be cool!

Did you know Kindles can be rebooted?

I had to do a house call for some Kindle support yesterday. All my friends know I go way back with the Kindle (the Kindle Touch is my fourth Kindle; I have had every model except the DX and the new bare-bones Kindle, which some folks are calling the Kindle 4) and they often ask me for advice on what to buy and how to do things on the Kindle.

Anyway, my friend had had her Kindle 3 for almost two years and had had no problems, but she said suddenly it wasn't charging. She was about to go on a bus trip, so she had plugged it in to be sure it was fully charged, and the little yellow charging light did not come on. When I went over there, I discovered the Kindle was in sleep mode, and would not come out of sleep mode. I plugged my own charger in to be sure my friend's charger wasn't the problem, and still no yellow light.

I suggested rebooting it, and discovered she didn't know Kindles could be rebooted. eInk ereaders are very easy to use, and pretty much single purpose-built— reading— but they are basically very simple computers with operating systems. Kindles run under a Linux operating system, and truly geeky types have even hacked them to do other computing tasks not sanctioned by Amazon.

The Kindle 1 was rebooted by sticking the end of paper clip (or something similar) into a small hole on the back, but ever since the Kindle 2, this function has been accomplished via the power switch. On the K2 and the K3, you slide the power switch to one side, but on the K4 and the KT, you press it. To reboot, you simply slide or press and hold the power switch in place for about 15 seconds, and then release it. It can take a few seconds to see a response, but the screen will go blank and then you'll see the entire screen become the Kindle logo (someone reading under a tree) with a progress bar that advances as the reboot progresses.

In my friend's case, once her Kindle 3 was rebooted successively, the yellow light came on, and a minute later it turned green, which told me that the device had in fact, been recharging all along, but because it was hung, the light had not come on.

My friend was good to go and all set for her bus trip.

Kindle connectivity: 3G or not 3G, that is the question!

Wireless delivery is one of the two features that made the Kindle take off. The Sony Reader was first to the marketplace with some very nice e-ink hardware, but you had to a) download the books to the PC, b) connect the Reader to the computer with a cable, and then c) copy the books to the Reader. With a Kindle, you didn't even have to own a computer, let alone do a, b, and c. Add in Amazon's ebook selection and you have the secret of the Kindle's early success.

As a long time Kindle owner, I often get asked by folks looking to buy a Kindle or a Nook, "Do I really need the 3G option or can I get by with just wifi?" I got my brand new Kindle Touch with 3G because once you have had it, there's no going back. I compare it to an ice maker; once you have one, you're not filling those little trays yourself. But wifi actually offers superior speed. "Book in 60 seconds?" With wifi, it's more like 6 seconds. Wifi use also drains the battery less than 3G.

The problem with wifi is, it's not everywhere. Or in some cases, it's there but it won't work. My Kindle can connect to the wide open network maintained by the retail establishments near where I work, but it won't connect to the secure network provided by the company I work for. I've also had problems with not being able to connect to some hotel networks, even after trying every setting on the security-type options. Fortunately, I had 3G to fall back on.

Questions for potential ereader buyers:

1. Do you have wifi at home? If not, I would go with the 3G right there. What's the use of having an ereader if you can't download the next book in the series while sitting in bed at midnight?
2. How geeky are you?  If you know enough to recognize that WEP and WPA are types of wifi security, you will probably be okay with tinkering with the Kindle's wifi settings and can get by without 3G.
3. How much do you travel?  If you're buying a Kindle to save packing books, the 3G is a safer bet.  If you don't travel often, and plan to read mostly at home with your own wifi available, you will probably be okay without 3G.

An important note: With the Kindle Keyboard, you can use 3G to browse the web. It is clunky as all get out, but you can do it.  With the Kindle Touch, using 3G to connect to the web allows only limited access; you can shop at Amazon, including downloading books you buy from them, and read Wikipedia, but you can't browse the wide-open web. That's because Amazon doesn't charge for 3G access, except when you use it to email documents (including non-Amazon ebooks) to your Kindle.  In those instances, you pay a per megabyte fee (I believe its 15¢/MB). Otherwise, the only charge for 3G is the initial increased cost for the device itself. I'm sure that since the touch screen makes browsing the web so much easier, Amazon doesn't want to rack up a huge bill for 3G use that doesn't get them anything.  If you want an ereader that's also a 3G web browser, you will have to settle for a Kindle Keyboard.

Also note that the new Kindle Fire does not come with 3G at all, so if you opt for the Fire, you forgo the 3G as well as the e-ink.

It may seem confusing, but really it's great to have options. eReaders are like pantyhose; one size does not fit all!

Kindle Touch: A Quick Review

 

So far I love the Kindle Touch! The on-screen keyboard is very easy to use, much better than the Kindle physical keyboard, especially the one on the K3, which has no number row (that's why my old one in the picture above has stickers above the letters). Typing on the KT is very like using the iPad keyboard where you have a letters-only keyboard and a numbers and punctuation keyboard, and tapping the same key toggles from one to the other. You tap the shift key before pressing a letter to upper case, and that makes the display of the letters change to upper case, which is really nice.

One-handed reading is very easy! Paging forward and back works from a single tap on the left or right side of the screen, or you can finger swipe across the page. I had to ask on the Kindle forums to find out how to jump forward and backward a chapter at time, but it's very easy; you just swipe up and down instead of horizontally.

Text-to-speech sounds exactly the same, but once you turn it on, a menu for it stays on the screen so it is dead easy to pause, change the gender of the voice or the reading speed, or exit.

The book menu has a font key, but you can also use pinch and zoom gestures while you're reading a book to make text larger or smaller. This works in the browser, too, although the browser itself only works in WiFi mode (except for reading Wikipedia).

And really, the thing is just so pretty! As you can see in the photo, the KT is not really that much smaller than the K3, but it seems so much more compact and easier to hold.  The screen savers are lovely! I did not get the ad-laden version and now I am especially glad. The screen savers are images that could be photographs or line drawings but most of them picture either writing or instruments for writing— pens, pencils, calligraphy brush strokes, and cold type.

I told my husband that he's now the proud owner of a Kindle Keyboard, because I'm keeping this one!

Amazon to the digital reading marketplace: Bring it!

I've had a few days to take in the new line of Kindles, including the Fire, and I have to say I am impressed at how well Amazon has covered the market.

First, an explanation of "special offers," Amazon-speak for ads. All e-ink Kindles can be bought for $40 or $50 cheaper if you get them with ads in place of the usual screen savers of author portraits and line drawings. If you buy a KSO (Kindle with Special Offers), you are also sent emails offering other deals at special prices.  These are most often merchandise unrelated to books, like vacuum cleaners or small appliances. On new Kindles, the home screen (i.e., the list of books on the Kindle) also has the same ad as a small banner at the bottom of the screen.

First in the new Kindle line-up is the bare-bones entry-level Kindle, which sells for $79 with special offers and $109 without. It has wifi but no 3G option, and it has no keyboard and no touch screen. To type anything, you press a "keyboard" key that displays the alphabet on the screen and then lets you move the cursor  to the letter you want. Cumbersome, to say the least!  But if you buy mostly from the web store  and not the Kindle itself, you don't need to annotate or search books, or have them read aloud, it's a great deal. You can still get library books, and the screen is exactly the same size as the other e-ink Kindles.  Plus, it's very light weight. Unlike the Touch models, this one has already shipped, and I found an in-depth review of it here.

Next up is Kindle Touch, which is available in multiple configurations: as a KSO and not, and also as wifi-only or wifi and 3G.  It starts at an incredible $99 for the KSO wifi-only model and goes up to $189 for the no-ads wifi and 3G model. the touch-screen is infrared (IR) not capacitive (like the iPad), but it is said to be very responsive. This has everything the previous Kindle 3 had (now called the Kindle Keyboard) except for the clunky keyboard and the side buttons for turning "pages." It also offers something new called X-Ray, which appears to be a way to easily search inside books for references to characters or events. I'm not entirely certain how that will work.

And last up in the new line-up is the Kindle Fire, which is really a 7" Android tablet running the Kindle app, but Amazon wants to call it a Kindle (which is the same thing Barnes & Noble did with their Nook and Nook Color). It has wifi but no 3G and sells for $199. I find it interesting that there is no KSO version, and also no 3G version. I'm sure one reason there is no 3G yet is that Amazon could not offer it for free; tablet users would use a lot more bandwidth than any e-ink Kindle user, and Amazon could not absorb that cost and make money. In fact, rumor is they're losing money with the $199 price point as it is. But I think that price was set as the one they could make money at if they sell enough of them.

So, here we are. All these models have come out in the same month Amazon announced Kindle library book borrowing. In addition, Amazon is still selling the keyboard models. In having so many model, and pricing the new Kindles so aggressively (even selling the AC adapter plug separately, so they could cut the price of the Kindles) Amazon has said, basically, that they intend to dominate the digital reading market. They're saying to Apple, and Sony, and Barnes and Noble, "Bring it on!"


It worked on me. I have ordered a Kindle Touch 3G with no ads (If I am going to sell my soul to Amazon, I want more than $60 for it).  My one worry is that it won't be as easy to read one-handed as it is with my K3, but if that proves problematic, I will give it to my husband and take back the K3 he is about to inherit.

New Kindles!

I don't usually post twice in one day, but then Amazon doesn't usually launch so many new products on one day! If you check out Amazon's main page,  you will see they now offer not only the promised Android color tablet/ereader, but a new bare-bones (no way to type easily) $79 e-ink Kindle, an e-ink Kindle Touch (touchscreen, naturally, with wfi connectivity) and aTouch 3G (wifi and 3G).  The tablet is named the Kindle Fire which doesn't strike me as a good name (competitors will try to put the Fire out) and it looks very nice but I am an e-ink fan, and I just pre-ordered the Kindle Touch 3G because once you have 3G it's hard to give it up.

It should come at the end of November.  I'll post about it when it comes. My one concern is will I be able to read one-handed as I do with my K3 (now named Kindle Keyboard!).

Baltimore Book Festival

Mother Nature sure showed Baltimore who is in charge! When she wants to rain in torrents, she does, without regard to the size or the outdoor nature of the Book Festival.


I was amazed the “Which eReader is Right for You?” panel got as good a turnout as it did; I certainly had fun, and I met some nice people.  If you are coming to this page from what I said there, looking for ereader info, be sure to click the eBooks & eReaders tab at the top of the page.  Interestingly, our panel of five writers had two Nook owners (both original Nooks), two Kindle owners (a Kindle 2 and a Kindle 3), and one Sony owner who mostly reads on her iPad/phone. From what I have read, those are not typical statistics, but then again, the sample was pretty small.


I was also surprised by how much of the book festival wasn't about books. Ikea had a booth, as did several banks and telecommunications companies. But the Maryland Romance Writers tent was centrally placed, well organized, and equipped with microphones and speakers. The tent itself had a few small holes and gaps in the roof, so the organizers had to spread tarps over the electronic stuff. We still heard some popping noises that didn't sound good at all, and one mic stopped working.  MRW members deserve some credit for sticking with it in the face of daunting weather.


The festival continues throughout the weekend. It's in a neat part of Baltimore, right around the tall column that is Baltimore's version of the Washington Monument.  There's a public parking garage nearby, but do bring an umbrella, just in case.

eReader Panel at the Baltimore Book Festival

If you are in the Baltimore area, and you have any interest in ereaders, I will be at the Baltimore Book Festival on Friday, September 23, participating in a panel, sponsored by the Maryland Romance Writers, on "Which E-Reader is Right For You?"  The panel starts at 1:00. Details are here.

I'll post a reminder when it's closer to that date.

A whole crop of new eReaders!

Barnes & Noble just announced a new touch-screen e-ink Nook ereader with a Pearl screen for only $139. In an amazing coincidence, that's the same price as a wi-fi-only Kindle, unless you get the cheaper one with ads.  Ooops! I mean the one with special offers. -)

The new Nook looks pretty cool! And now they are claiming superior battery life over the Kindle. No mention of how it competes with Sony Reader Touch, who now has the dubious distinction of being almost $100 more expensive than the new Nook for what looks like the same features.

And then there's the Kobo touch screen  which Border will sell in the US for $129. It's like ereaders are coming out of the woodwork.

Personally, I'm not that enamored of touch screens in an ereader.  One of things I like about the Kindle is the one-handed reading, which, with the cat in my lap (see his photo in the right-hand column) is all I can manage.  I can hold the Kindle in my right hand and press the Next Page button with my thumb with no problem. That works while standing on the subway, too. I have used my husband's iPad to read, and while the color screen is fabulous for short term reading, I get tired of needing two hands to read.

But the best thing about new ereaders is it shows companies like Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Kobo are invested in digital reading.  Remember it's not printing that makes a book; it's the story that counts. And ereaders mean that reading is now more convenient, which will (hopefully) mean that people do it more often. 

Some Kindle tips

If anyone out there has a Kindle (the actual device, as opposed to using the Kindle app on something like a PC or an iPad), the Dear Author blog is mostly about romance books, but because romance readers were ebook and ereader pioneers, it's also a good source of info on those topics. Today's post is a list of useful Kindle tips. There are more tips in the comments, too.

A word about ebooks

A few years ago, very few people had heard of ebooks, even though they have been around for decades. Several things kicked off the change that started book publishing on the path to digital books becoming a mainstream phenomenon. First was the invention of e-ink, as seen first on a Sony Reader, then the Kindle, then the (non-color) Nook ereader. The e-ink screen offered vastly reduced eyestrain, much better battery life, and no glare in bright light.

Second, Amazon got into the business with their Kindle ereader. The Kindle had two additional things going for it, in addition to e-ink. The first was wireless delivery of ebooks. You didn't even need to own a computer to buy and download books; you just needed a Kindle. The second was that Amazon had a much bigger, better organized ebookstore than Sony or Fictionwise, or any previous ebook vendor.

The combination of an easy to use ereader and a well-stocked store made ebooks take off. Barnes and Noble got into the act with the Nook and the Nook Color, and Apple came out with the iPad.

The Kindle and other dedicated ereaders hooked the voracious readers— people who read two or more books a month. The iPad hooked the casual reader. They already had the device, and it allowed them to download several different ereader apps, including Apple's own iBooks, and read books in color. Over the last year, ebook sales have been growing by leaps and bounds.

Which is the main reason that publishing solely in digital form is now a viable option! And that's why my first book, The Sixth Discipline is now in the Kindle, Nook, and Smashwords ebookstores.