When my mother asked me and my brother our opinions on getting our dad a Kindle for his birthday, our responses were hilariously opposing. My brother (the computer scientist) was excited about the idea, while I (the English major) was appalled. My dad loves his Kindle, but still reads print books as well (thanks, Dad).
Back in about 2008, when I first heard of the e-reader, a piece of my soul died. But now, the idea has warmed up to me a bit, though I still do not own, or wish to own, an e-reader. I understand that they are extremely convenient, especially for travel, have tons of titles that are free or cheap, and cater to our generation’s love for staring at screens. However, when I handle an e-reader, something seems…wrong. For me, it’s an actual physical unnaturalness of not being able to turn a page, or feel and see how much of the book I’ve read (the stupid little percent bar doesn’t count); it’s disorienting. Now maybe this is because I’m just not used to reading on an e-reader. But still – for me, nothing will ever be as satisfying as opening a new book, or closing it when I’m done. Oh yeah, and books don’t need batteries.
However, I am glad that the e-readers are presenting new, innovative ways to read. As a future English teacher, digital copies of books present several cool advantages for teaching literature (like uniformity of editions, open access to a whole library of cannon texts, interactive sharing of quotes, etc). If the spread of literature on a digital medium aids in literary education, then by all means, ebooks are great.
But what is it doing to the publishing industry? Sadly, the fail of Borders has closed about 650 “brick-and-mortar” bookstores nation-wide. Amazon.com is now a top dog in bookselling, and publishers are scared. Barnes & Noble is a last-hope of sorts for the selling of print books, which publishers still want to keep as their primary out-put. One of the reasons behind this is the browsing factor that brick-and-mortar bookstores have. People who walk around bookstores are way more likely to pick up something obscure that looks interesting, whereas websites tend to show just best-sellers on their front pages. This limits the amount of literary diversity because online shoppers tend to just buy what they are looking for, instead of stumbling across something new. This also inevitably means that little-known or aspiring authors are in trouble as well.
The cheapness of Amazon’s ebooks is also misleading to customers - in fact, it is a tool Amazon tried to use to essentially create a monopoly on booksales. Publishers don’t sell books to readers themselves, they sell to the booksellers. What Amazon wants to do is set low prices for ebooks (so low, in fact, that they lose money on them in the short term) in order to secure customer loyalty to gain money in the long term and potentially monopolize bookselling. This is bad for publishers, who want to set their own prices on Amazon.com, but can’t, because Amazon has the power to refuse to sell the publisher’s books at all (but the publishers have to sell to Amazon, because that’s where most people will be buying their books). This ALSO makes customers think that these low prices are what ebooks should cost, when that price is actually not representative of their worth to the publishers. Phew. (If you want a more detailed and accurate account of this, look to the articles below). The point is: you should go to Barnes & Noble or to your local independent bookstore, even though you have to pay full price.
Honestly, the way ebooks have been effecting the industry has me a bit scared, but at the same time, I do not doubt that there will always be people wanting to read in print; I don’t fear for the collapse of Barnes & Noble. But I do urge everyone to stay away from Amazon when it comes to book-buying (minus textbooks – even I’m guilty of that, but come on, textbooks are crazy). What’s more fun than walking into a bookstore with unlimited possibilities? Bookstores have community - activities, author visits, book clubs, coffee shops, etc, where you can meet people and share a love of literature (yeah, yeah, you can do that online, too, but it’s not nearly as nice). Even if it means paying a little extra for what you want – a good piece of literature is a piece of art (albeit mass-produced), and should be worth it’s full price, regardless of its form, ebook or print.
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http://blog.authorsguild.org/2012/01/31/publishings-ecosystem-on-the-brink-the-backstory/
