British bookworms deem Amazon 'evil' “My only real prediction is that it’s all changing.” Well, ask a stupid question - in this case, about the future of book publishing. The lobotomy-inducingly obvious answer was provided by author Neil Gaiman. If I’d written this prediction here on El Reg, I would have been derided as a time-waster specialising in stating the …
I use the Aldiko reader on my Galaxy Note. I cannot get the screen dim enough to be comfortable. I have inverted the colours (black background, white text), but it is still too bright, especially when reading in the car down a dark lane* and don't want my night-vision ruined. My experience with other backlit screens is the same - there is a market for an app that will allow the screen to dim waaaay down.
* Not what you are all thinking! Marshalling on road rallies means waiting a long time in the dark sometimes.
The Kindle app on W8 is about the same in quality as the one on Android. Tested it, went back to the full application. The "Apps" can not use folders/groups, all books are "one big cabinet". Both W8 and Android apps (as of February) also occasionally had problems when going from page to page. Again not present in the application.
But reading on a tablet in portrait mode is simply great. Even on the 1280x800 "low res" unit I use for it. Format is natural, graphics are there in the app Just went through Ospreys "The fall of Eben Emael" and they really did a "Kindle" version not simply a "export the electronic manuscript to the format". At 1/3 the price and instant delivery.
The fact that e-readers don't have "all the other computery stuff that tablets have" is precisely why I prefer the dedicated e-reader. That and the fact that I can read in sunlight and not have to recharge every couple of days.
Depends how much time you spend reading of course, but I've read about a dozen books already this year, so I don't mind paying for it as a dedicated device.
I'd rather deal with a 17-year-old fuckwit who can’t spell or use a mouse than some MA in English Literature who sneers at your book purchases because "they're sooooo mainstream" and "have you tried Süleyman the Magnificent by Bâkî? It's sooooo insightful.". No I haven't actually but then I have a proper job and so don't spend my days poncing around in a bloody bookshop pretending that I'm some sort of bloody literary genius because I've read the sodding back cover of some obscure 500 year old text that holds about as much interest to the majority of the population as the contents of Alan Sugar's undergarments.
Right, I'm all better now, beer anyone?
Device lock in ?? Somebody is confused.. I've been reading kindle ebooks both on my netbook (windows XP) and my Android tablet for quite some time. Kindle apps are available for almost any platform and have been for some time. One of the good things I'm finding about Amazon is the availability of some really good authors at low prices that never make it into print media. That, and the fact that on this side of the pond, e-books seem noticeably less expensive than the same book in print. Early on availability of ebook versions of best selling authors were few and far between, that situation has improved greatly.
"low prices achieved through legal but immoral financial shenanigans – could become a public-relations burden"
Financial "shenanigans" are NEVER immoral.
The only immoral things are taxes, i.e. confiscation of goods under imaginary contracts that no-one can state or find, arbitrarily decided, and always on the way up to pay for what? We don't know.
I bought some e-books for my Kobo Touch, but because of the frankly insulting tax on e-books, which can mean that they cost /more/ than paperbacks, the bulkiness of paper books (I have plenty), and the Kobo software being inadequate, most of the books I have are now on an Android tablet and are most copyright infringed (I refute any use of the word pirate, because that is a perverse abuse of the true meaning of the word). This is the fault of greed by government and other corporations, because I tried and tried, then got so fed up at the rip-offs that I rarely buy much now, same as before with music and film. Price sensibly and I will buy, otherwise anarchy rules; in fact lack of government is looking more and more attractive! Rothbard was very persuasive!
Cheers to the rogue BT uploaders for providing relief for our declining value of earnings and declining employment security, and comeuppance for the increasing destructive greed of governments and other outsourcing corporations!
I really are getting bored stacking and waiting for this fraud of a financial system and government to collapse, to hopefully be replaced by something more honest, unlike the previous frauds!
I don't care which reader is used (I can read all formats on my Android tablet), it comes down purely to the price. Most of the paperbacks I've bought recently could have been e-books but would have cost more. Now as e-books don't need paper, printing, binding, packaging, delivering, stocking, displaying or carrying home, you'd think they would be dramatically cheaper. Someone somewhere is taking an excessive rake-off so I continue to buy paperbacks. At least I can hand them on to a friend when I've finished with them.
The guy behind Calibre, who's done so much for e-reading. Give him money!
I've tried to keep away from Swindle, by not buying one, and getting a Kobo instead (which works fine, btw.)
However, Amazon beats everyone in terms of availability of titles.
Kobo's bookstore runs out if you want to read something that Richard and Judy don't recommend. (i.e. anything worth reading. They think Dan Brown is an "author"...)
So I end up buying from Amazon on my PC, then converting in Calibre to ePub. Takes maybe an extra 2 minutes.
Jenny Calendar: Honestly, what is it about them that bothers you so much?
Giles: The smell.
Jenny Calendar: Computers don't smell, Rupert.
Giles: I know. Smell is the most powerful trigger to the memory there is. A certain flower, or a-a whiff of smoke can bring up experiences long forgotten. Books smell musty and-and-and rich. The knowledge gained from a computer is a - it, uh, it has no-no texture, no-no context. It's-it's there and then it's gone. If it's to last, then-then the getting of knowledge should be, uh, tangible, it should be, um, smelly.
Been reading Kindle books on my {choose one: laptop, desktop, phone, tablet} for about three years now. Never owned a Kindle, and see no reason to. I'm certain that made Mr Bezos happy, as Amazon undoubtedly lose a few quid on every reader they sell. Nothing to see here?
One thing we are missing in this whole DRM and hardware debate is how _readers_ and _authors_ are being affected.
I read a lot, mostly scfi. A genre from which Sturgeon's law, "ninety percent of everything is crap" was coined after all. How is SF affected by the Kindle and Amazon?
First, lemme start out with a big middle finger (or two for you Brits) to 90% of bookstores. For carrying the worst crap in SF, just because it sells: Star Wars, Star Trek, WoT and Twilight. I understand the economics, doesn't mean I like their service. So having them rag on Amazon... who cares?
Second, many novels by current known authors do end up being almost as expensive on Kindle as on dead trees. Often, more expensive. Some authors seem to buck the trend and go cheap, John Scalzi for example. Oft-pretentious William Gibson, of Neuromancer fame? Mostly more expensive.
There are some occasional bargains to be had. Old SF, up to the 70s, is dirt cheap. Too bad I choke on stories of interstellar ships navigating by slide rule ;-)
Third and perhaps most significant for me as a reader and for upcoming authors: there are plenty very cheap novels on Kindle by beginning authors. Many, many, are total crap. Guess what - so were 3 out of 4 SF trade paperbacks I bought over Christmas and they were not cheap.
But some are really quite good. Just finished 'Wool' : 4.5+ stars out of _4200_ recommendations on Amazon.com. New author, Hugh Howey who self-published for cheap. Think 1984 meets Fallout, with a good deal of depth to it. Reading Koban right now, also cheap and far from dumb. Look around the recommendations, be careful in what you pick and you can get pretty good reads through a Kindle.
And I think Mr. Howey is laughing all the way to the bank - film rights sold & all. From Wiki "Unusually, Howey retains full rights to continue distributing Wool online himself."
Of course, the middle men and the bookstore industry hates Amazon. What did you expect? But I care about my reading, the authors making a living and maybe less dead trees. And it's cool to mail my Kindle free Jane Austens from Gutenberg.
So overall, thumbs up, with more than a bit of concern that authors do not end up screwed over by publishing giants.
There are people who like books and there are people who like reading. The book-lovers are a subset of readers. Book-lovers prefer the "Gutenberg format", which has been readable for centuries and can be expected to outlast any of the current proprietary formats. If all you want to do is read eminently forgettable magazine articles and popular novels, get a little machine and carry it around. If you want a book, which speaks to you of memories, even when its covers are closed, track down a bookseller, buy bookcases and welcome to the long history of literature that preceded the Internet.
"welcome to the long history of literature that preceded the Internet" and just what exactly do these elitist "book-lovers" have against the long history of literature that preceded the invention of books by millennia? Why not a collection of codices, scrolls and cuneiform (or stone) tablets? The idea that one's choice of reading MEDIUM says anything significant about the quality of one's reading MATERIAL is the sort of concept for which the word risible seems to have been specifically tailor-made.
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