Ebook or Paper

[biodroid]

I like both but Kindle is more convenient

 

[Shingetsu]

I had preferred physical books up until last christmas. After Borders went out of business I started getting books from Amazon. While there is a local Barnes & Noble, it's in a very busy place that is hard to find any parking spots. So I bought a Barnes & Noble Nook Touch. I do miss my physical books, but an e-book reader is just easier to carry around. Though every time I get a new e-book I feel like I should be buying the the paperback / hardcover to add to my bookcase. I do still get quite a few hardcovers to my favorite series. It feels like everything is moving more and more towards digital though.

 

[Talysia]

Bound books for me. I've tried reading from a kindle, and didn't find the experience as enjoyable as with a regular book. I like the convenience of ebooks, though.

 

[Parson]

I'm an e book convert. Not only are the prices usually better but the savings of not having to drive (I'm not exaggerating this) 60 min. to a bookstore which carries more SF than Star Wars and Star Trek, means a considerable savings in money and environment.

I've also discovered that though there is some self published garbage, there are also a lot of fine books which don't get published the traditional way. ( I assume because SF is a small genre.) I'm a member of Amazon Prime and the added benefit of borrowing free books and watching free movies on line as well as no shipping costs, makes my Kindle a no brainer, and a constant companion.

 

[Clansman]

E-books do have an advantage with regard to space and cost. For instance, I just learned on Janny Wurts' website that the first three e-books of her big series, Wars of Light and Shadow, have a fabulous sale on:

Curse of the Mistwraith is a mere $0.99 US;
Ships of Merior is slightly more at $1.99 US;
Warhost of Vastmark is $3.99 US;

These are at Amazon, B&N, Google Play, BooksonBoard, Kobo, so you can get these in whatever format you wish..

In the UK, you can get the Curse of the Mistwraith e-book for L1.99. I don't know about the other books in the UK.

Hard to argue against a good price, though I do hear JD about the sensory experience. I love the smell of an old book.

 

[Warren_Paul]

I just looked up Curse of the Mistwraith in paperback from bookstores over here in NZ. $16.95NZ to buy new.

That ebook would cost me $1.20NZ...

Right... so I'm going to pay 14 times the price to get it in print? Sure.

 

[Rodders]

I always thought that I'd prefer paper over ebooks, but since buying Kindle for my iPad, I've been converted. It's cheaper and ecologically sound.

I'll only buy physical books now for any exceptional novels (Hardbacks for the library) that I pick up on my kindle.

 

[biodroid]

Rodders - I noticed the Kindle app for iPad is not so nice, the paging style is weird on it, on the Kindle its fine, are you experiencing any irritations with it? I have a kindle but I also have iBooks just in case. I noticed iTunes sells their ebooks for about $1 - $2 cheaper than Amazon's ebooks.

 

[Fishbowl Helmet]

There's also Calibre, a free program that easily converts between mobi and ePub.

 

[steve12553]

My decision is not to decide. I read a lot of old books. Many out of print. (I became aware that I had missed many books, as I was going through life, that fit my changing tastes. Not all books in these categories are available in all formats. My reader/tablet has both the Nook (epub) and Kindle (mobi.) applications (hate the term "app"-just too damn cute). I also order old, out of print, used books from the various on-line stores. I can become immersed in books of either the physical or cyber nature and isn't that really what it's all about? Losing yourself in an Agatha Christie or Rex Stout mystery or finding yourself on a planet in another galaxy. Paper or plastic- just put it in a bag.

 

[Gordian Knot]

The entire eDevice technology is wonderful for people who are primarily readers. But I wonder about the people who are both readers AND collectors. A first edition eBook has no value. In fact the term is rendered meaningless. There is no such thing as an author signed eBook (I know it has been tried a few times, but come on, be real!). There are no leather bound eBooks. No limited edition eBooks. And so on, and so on.

Where do book collector's fit into this new age????

 

[Timba]

Count me as an e-book fan for all the reasons mentioned above. Not done reading paper books though, still have a couple of hundren on my to be read pile.

 

[SciFrac]

Agreed with bound. I like the physical interaction, dog-eared pages, underlining, smell of paper, and watching the library grow in the corner. I think ebooks will eventually eclipse bound novels, but it will take a long time.

 

[Parson]

Ebooks may never replace paper but ebooks are reportedly outselling paper books today. I think that the day when paper books are rare may occur within the next half century.

 

[steve12553]

... But I wonder about the people who are both readers AND collectors. A first edition eBook has no value. In fact the term is rendered meaningless.... There are no leather bound eBooks. No limited edition eBooks. And so on, and so on.

Where do book collector's fit into this new age????

Right next to stamp collectors and Vinyl Record collectors. The still exist but they're fading. Grab what you can and archive it. I'll not let loose of mine because unless I go blind or my mind goes completely, I'll always have a compatible reader. My technology is built in.

 

[J-Sun]

I'll always have a compatible reader. My technology is built in.

Amen.

(No prize for guessing how I voted. )

 

[Fishbowl Helmet]

That is a valid concern, re: compatible readers / devices / software. Librarians are especially aware of this. The Smithsonian has a vast collection of media players from the earliest Edison phonograph to the latest tech. I remember seeing a piece on them receiving older media and digitizing it and having to trade for or buy equipment and parts to fix all these antiques. And it's not simply an antique issue. Even floppy disc and 3.5" drives are harder to find, to say nothing of software emulators which can read defunct file formats. Hopefully this will be less of an issue going forward (it's easier to translate a recent digital format to another compared to outdated physical or digital formats), but it will continue to be a problem.

 

[Warren_Paul]

I think compatibility is only an issue with Kindle. They are the MacOS of ebook readers - creating their own standard instead of copying everyone else. Every other popular reader uses .epub format as their officially supported format, yet Amazon decided to be different and create their own propriety format, .mobi. The reason for this is simple; so that you have to buy books off their site, and only their site.

With a Sony Reader I can buy books from lots of sources, even the competitors websites - all except Amazon. If I'd gone with a Kindle instead, I'd be limited to buying books from only Amazon.

But saying that, there is Calibre, which does a decent job of converting books into other formats. So I could buy a .mobi file and turn it into an .epub format, but there is a grey area as to whether it is legal to do this or not. If for personal use on my own reader, I don't see Amazon having an issue with it, considering it makes them more money if they permit owners of competitor's readers to buy their books and convert them, since it means they won't be buying it from the competitor's shop.

 

[J-Sun]

But saying that, there is Calibre, which does a decent job of converting books into other formats. So I could buy a .mobi file and turn it into an .epub format, but there is a grey area as to whether it is legal to do this or not. If for personal use on my own reader, I don't see Amazon having an issue with it, considering it makes them more money if they permit owners of competitor's readers to buy their books and convert them, since it means they won't be buying it from the competitor's shop.

There's nothing gray about it at all as far as I know. Converting from any format to another should be fine but the trick is that most things you buy from Amazon in their mobi format have a DRM encryption layer with their formats. Calibre doesn't support breaking this in order to convert them by default (it doesn't even support opening them so you can read them by default) because it's in violation of the world-spanning IP cops whose implementation in, for instance, the US is the DMCA. It's technically not just a federal crime but a sort of planetary crime. On the other hand, my paper book has no DRM at all.

People circumvent these "laws" all the time, mostly without retribution, which allows them to persist and become "normal" and makes many people think they're gray and then they can enforced in black and white at the corporations' leisure. The right way to circumvent the laws is to change them. A good way to get them changed is to follow the money - don't support ebooks at all, especially not encrypted ones. They therefore become valueless. Therefore the draconian invasive laws passed to protect them will stop being passed and can be repealed.

But, as mentioned, it isn't just the DRM or the formats as such. Paper books have been around for 500 years and written paper-like items have been around for 2 or 3 thousand. But try viewing some of the file formats that were popular in the 80s now - if you can find the 20 year old software to convert to a ten year old format that the 10 year old software can convert to a current format and you enjoy spending your time that way, have fun. And most conversions are not error-free or otherwise lossless. Whereas I can open one of Aldus Manutius' books and (if I can convert the human file formats of the Greek or Latin or "vulgar tongues" that do indeed change over the centuries) I can read it as is.

One thing I find funny is that in this completely unscientific poll it's nevertheless true that print is beating ebook 7-3 and yet almost everyone, even the print aficionados, seem to have assumed the defeat of print. But why? Again, follow the money. Millions and billions of dollars are being spent to promulgate that message. "Ebooks are inevitable! Go buy lots and lots of them now!" Well, they're not inevitable and certainly not in this current form in which you give away your rights for a mess o' pixels.

 

[Warren_Paul]

On Amazon, ebooks are outselling paper books though, and I believe the gap between them will continue to grow over time, but we will always prefer paper books for the sentimental value of them.

The DRM was why I said there was a grey area, getting around DRM is illegal. It's possible, but not right to do.