Posted on 08/20/2010 7:00:14 AM PDT by Kaslin
We're going to seduce them with our square footage, and our discounts, and our deep armchairs, and our cappuccino. They're going hate us at the beginning. ... But we'll get 'em in the end because we're going to sell them cheap books and legal addictive stimulants. We'll just put up a big sign: "Coming soon: a FoxBooks superstore and the end of civilization as you know it.
Such were the sentiments of the 1998 movie comedy "You've Got Mail," spoken by Joe Fox (portrayed by Tom Hanks) articulating the strategy of a big chain bookstore. FoxBooks was a fictional representation of Barnes and Noble, the biggest of the big book chains, which at last count had 720 big stores and 637 college bookstores. The movie was made in 1998 after the super chains had been on the move for more than a decade, bulldozers scooping up every small independent bookstore in their path.
Many of us lament the loss of the neighborhood bookstore, where we enjoyed engaging the owner in conversation, but losing that was a small price (if not so small for the bookshop proprietor) to pay for the luxury of more impersonal service for less money. We still inhabited the Age of Gutenberg, where the printed word on paper was dear to both head and heart, and where we could buy the morning newspaper and a magazine. Soon we carried our laptops into their coffee cafes, too.
Now, Barnes and Noble is up for sale and Amazon.com is seducing us with the Kindle (without coffee), and we have to wait at least two weeks if we want to buy an Apple iPad, with free or cheap "apps" to deliver just about everything but the cappuccino.
I spent a few summer days at the beach reading books on a borrowed Kindle. I had to be dragged to the small screen -- but when I visited an urban bookstore a few days later to browse, I discovered that I preferred the novels as e-books, to read them at half the price of paper-and-ink books. I could easily change the size of the type, and the package was smaller and lighter than any novel I could carry in a shopping bag.
While the technology required mentoring from a 14-year-old, I imagined that I was staying in touch with the future. I waxed nostalgic over a memory of my mother telling me how as a young girl in a small town in Canada, hers was the first family to get a telephone. When her daddy called, she puzzled over how he could make himself tiny enough to fit into the phone box on the wall.
I never thought the generation gap in my lifetime would be that dramatic, but the generation after mine makes it clear that help is required for old folks challenged by electronics.
The e-book certainly represents the accelerating future. Amazon sells more e-books than books on paper. Most (but not all) of my fellow troglodyte friends are buying them for travel because "of the lighter weight only." But from small acorns great oaks grow. Luxury hotels are adding e-books as a perk along with spas and gourmet vegetarian dishes.
After Gutenberg invented moveable type, replacing illuminated manuscripts inscribed by monks, the production of cheap books followed, but hundreds of years later. These books were typically published in small quantities on corkscrew hand presses, with the pages folded, stitched and bound by hand.
The Industrial Revolution eventually begot the high-tech revolution for mass produced books, and production took off in the 19th century. Critics then fretted over the harmful changes in reading patterns and feared a decline in the quality of writing and reading, just as we worry today over short attention spans spawned in a digital age. (But before we celebrate our own era with shouts and fireworks, we should take note that the quality of contemporary reading and writing often suffers by comparison to earlier times.)
As early as 1704, Jonathan Swift satirized a "battle of the books" in the duel for prominence in the king's library between classical authors such as Homer and Aristotle, whom Swift considered the sources of light, and the popular modernists, who merely reflected light. He leaves it to the reader to decide the winner.
It's much too early to measure the full impact of e-reading on the way we "process" ideas. Denis Diderot, famous for the encyclopedia he edited in the 18th century, was skeptical of the benefits of technological progress, and wondered who would ultimately be the master of content, the reader or the writer. That question remains to be answered -- maybe on paper, and maybe on the tiny screen.
Lots of cheap ink-on-paper stuff out there now at the used book sales.
B&N couldn’t change fast enough to keep up with Amazon.
I wish we had a polling feature on FR as I think it would be interesting to find out how many have read an e-book. Would our conservative nature make the number lower than the general population or would our information-seeking nature make the number higher?
As for me, I have the Barnes & Noble e-Reader app on my iPhone and have read one novel that way. It was a good experience but I do find the tactile part of the experience to be less satisfactory than holding an actual book and turning pages.
All my e-books are free from ManyBooks.net, which get their material from folks converting Project Gutenberg material in appropriate formats.
A quibble: Jonathan Swift was a late-comer with his "Battle of the Books" in 1704. In fact, the Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns had been a hot intellectual topic in France in the last half of the 1600's.
I’m all for progress and innovation. However, the one area I despise it is messing with my books. I despise the Kindell and all of it’s cousins. Give me a page worn paperback any day of the week!!!
But I am looking forward to trying an e reader sometime soon.
I bought a BN Nook. It’s been a mixed bag at best. It can be slow and clunky, and the lack of a backlight makes it a challenge to read sometimes. But a recent software upgrade (which necessitated a trip to the store) has sped things up considerably and it’s not like you can read a paperback in the dark either.
I think ebooks are the future and, while the medium may change, that doesn’t have to adversely affect the content.
“Amazon sells more e-books than books on paper.”
Amazon sold more e-book versions of novels than the hardcover versions. They did not sell more e-books than paperback books.
I have the newest Kindle on order. I have made my living in used books. I might need a new career soon.
I am not into e-books at all. I have lots of historical books with color plates of battles and such that simply won't work on a small Kindle screen.
However, I seldom visit the big bookstores anymore. There's a Borders near me. I used to spend time there looking for books and classical CDs. They have all but discontinued CDs. Now I get 99.9% of my books and CDs from Amazon. I can easily find what I want, and can order from Amazon sellers at great prices. I even sell on Amazon occasionally.
Contrary to what the article said about big bookstores being cheaper, I have never found them so. They usually sell @ list price; and the only cheap books are the discontinued ones. I think the decline of those big stores has to do with a lot if things, and not just e-books.
Free 3g/wifi? what’s the catch?
“...cheap books and legal addictive stimulants...”
Sounds like heaven to me.
Come to think of it, it sounds like my home office and den.
I agree with you about big bookstores selling them cheaper. They don’t. Only a few that are on a serious sale, but never ones I’m interested in. If there’s only a couple dollars difference between the bookstore and online, I’ll buy it at the bookstore. I do want to support my bookstores because I love them. The only one that has really good prices are Half Price books and the dwindling number of used bookstores.
You pay more for that feature.
I have a Kindle and love it. I am filling it up with old (and FREE!) novels, and picking most newer novels on it, rather buying the Dead Tree versions. And I can get them anywhere and any time.
For books not available on a Kindle, I click the “I would like to read this book on Kindle” item.
However, there are some books that are NOT suited to an E-reader, though. Anything with illustrations (like maps!) for instance. If they are important to the story, enjoyment will be impaired if viewed on a Kindle. For instance, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are definitely not suited to a Kindle.
I’m in love with Norma Loquendi.
And that is actually one of the biggest points against e-books, in my view: yes, I can fit a ton of them on one little device I can carry everywhere, but first I have to buy them, and I have to buy them new. Currently I get most of my books used. Or from the library. My library is starting to "loan" e-books, but only in limited ways. For the most part, if you want anything other than a select few books, you gotta pay the full price.
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