The Printed Page

Warning: this post has photos so it may be slow to load and I’m a bit long winded here.

Reading and books are all about personal preference. Some readers prefer hard backs, others mass market paperbacks, yet still others prefer trade sized soft covers. And some of us prefer eBooks. I know a lot of readers have reservations about eBook readers but I’m super excited that my new Amazon Kindle DX arrived Tuesday. I’m not going to try a sell you on an Amazon Kindle or any other eBook reader but I will tell why I love mine and why it makes sense for me.

First some background:
A little over a year ago I ordered my first generation Kindle (from here on referred to as K1; pictured next to the DX in this post). I waited months to order after Amazon first released the Kindle because I was very hesitant wondering if I’d like reading on one. And of course there was no way to test drive one before buying unless someone in your city would let you take a peek as Amazon doesn’t have brick and mortar stores (you can now do this as part of their ‘See a Kindle in Your City’) . Eventually I bit the bullet and ordered deciding if I didn’t like it I’d return it. When it arrived last May I couldn’t wait to open the box and see what the fuss was about. Well it was love from the git go and I’ve never looked back. Within minutes of having the K1 out of it’s box I had bought, downloaded and was reading my first eBook. Let me say reading on an eBook reader is vastly differently from reading on a computer. Like most everyone I dislike spending any great amount of time reading on my computer for a variety of reasons. Not so with my K1. Just like I can spend hours immersed in a paper book I can spend the same hours immersed in reading on my Kindle. It’s such a different experience from reading on a computer that I have trouble describing it.

Many readers are attached to their paper books. They love the smell, the texture, the feel of a book. They love to turn the pages. They love to see them sitting on the shelves, surrounding them, scattered over table tops and piled on chairs. This is where I differ from a majority of readers. What’s important to me isn’t the delivery method but the story. As many of you know I don’t keep my books preferring to pass them along, again for a variety of reasons. I’m not sentimental about my books but I’m sentimental about the lives of the characters and the worlds I travel to. Rarely do I find myself re-reading a book I’ve previously read but if I feel the tug to do so I simply reload it on the Kindle and I’m off and reading. No longer do I need to find another copy as my Kindle library is stored at Amazon and I have access 24/7/365.

First some pictures and then I’ll tell you more about my eBook experience.

K1 (left) and KDX (right) side by side. There is a noticable size difference.

My K1 fits inside the reading screen on my KDX.

My KDX and a regular size hard back book.

A width comparison of my KDX and a hard back book. Notice how thin the KDX is and it holds 3,500 books!

A partial page from a Kindle book. The fuzziness is on my part, not the KDX. Reading on a Kindle (eInk) is like watching a HD TV.

A book cover on my KDX. The graphics are so clear on the KDX that you can see the fine details such as the silhouette of the woman standing on the rocks. Actually if you get really, really close to your computer screen you can see her.

A Kindle screen saver. There are several preloaded on the Kindle.

Why I love my Kindle and why it makes sense for me:

1) First off you notice a size different between my K1 and KDX. I was just about the hit the ‘buy’ key at Amazon for a K2 (second generation Kindle) when they announced a new Kindle would be coming soon. Not knowing what the ‘new’ was I waited. I choose to go ‘bigger’ for several reasons. One – the graphics are so much better on the KDX. We’re traveling in late fall to Australia and New Zealand and the KDX is perfect for all sorts of really graphic heavy books such as travel, cook, computer, text, etc. I actually took a piece of paper measured out what the size of the KDX would be before buying so that I’d know what I was getting into. Two – it’s actually easier to hold, for me, then my K1 was. With my wrist problems I do better with larger than smaller books. So I figured it’d be the same with the Kindle. Though the KDX is a bit heavier than the K1 that is to be expected but the difference is negligible. Three – all Kindles have adjustable font sizes which is nice for us baby boomers. So bigger screen, bigger fonts – score for me. I’m a person who wears glasses with progressive lenses and last winter I had to go to wearing glasses specifically for computer work and reading. Why make things any harder than they are already.

2) Price point/availability of bestsellers: Most best sellers are $9.99 and all bestsellers come in a Kindle edition. Costco can’t beat that price. Even if a best seller comes out a higher price point they usually drop in price after the first week. When Kindles first came out you couldn’t pre-order a bestseller and now you can. Better yet with pre-ordering it’s delivered directly to your Kindle the next time you fire up the Whispernet service. At first you had to wait until the actual publication date and now you don’t for several top authors. If you absolutely can’t wait for the price to drop with Amazon’s 30-day price guarantee you can still get the difference back and put it toward more books. Instant gratification can be hard to beat.

3) Taking a unlimited supply of books on vacation/travel and no more heavy luggage. When we took our annual two week vacation to Mexico last December I loaded up the my K1 with about 25-30 books. I plow through books when setting pool or beach side. I was set for hours of reading enjoyment without the worry about running out of books to read. Hunting down English language paperbacks in a foreign country and paying a king’s ransom for them isn’t my idea of a good time and I should know as I’ve been there, done that. And having a variety of reading material at my fingertips was nice. If something didn’t strike my fancy I could simply move on to reading something else. My KDX has the capacity to hold 3,500 books and that’s on the Kindle itself. Just think what my Amazon library will be some day.

4) Easier to hold/read than a mass market paperback. I have tendinitis and carpel tunnel in my wrists. Holding a mass market paperback can become painful. I dislike breaking spines or otherwise causing injury to a book. No problem with my KDX. I can prop it up on something (my legs) or hold it in my hands without any problems. Plus I prop it against my computer at work and no one has any idea that I’m reading between answering the email inbox. Also having a selection of font sizes is a god send as I get older. Mass market paperbacks can become hard on the eyes after a while. On the Kindle I simply change to a font size to accommodate my reading and I’m good to go. I know others that change to a larger font at night as their eyes tire and change in back during the day.

5) Readers with disabilities. I touched on this briefly with my tendinitis and carpel tunnel but think about others who have physical challenges much more severe than mine. Due to features incorporated in the K2 and the KDX such a font size and text-to-speech it opens up a world of reading to those who had limited options.

6) Saves me money. Right about now you’re all asking how so? How many times have you purchased a book and it turned out you didn’t like it, didn’t finish it, thought it was a waste of money. Come on raise your hands. We’ve all been there a time or two or three. So with the Kindle sample chapters feature, at no cost, you can download and read usually the first 3-4 chapters of a book. If you like the book, great you can purchase right where you left off. Didn’t it like then you didn’t waste any money did you? Pretty good math if you ask me. I’ve saved myself more than once from buying a book I wouldn’t have finished. Another great thing about sample chapters is they free me up to try new authors or genres. My reading horizons have expanded with my Kindle.

7) Libraries. I love libraries. As a child I remember fondly visiting our log cabin, two room, library. But libraries have begun to frustrate me. I lived many, many years in a large metropolitan area that had a wonderful library system. But several years ago due to employment circumstances we moved to a much smaller area with a then adequate library system. In the last 13 years the area I live in has experienced unprecedented growth but sadly our library system is underfunded and not able to meet the demands of it’s users. Hold lists are long and sometimes the book is out in paperback before your number comes up. Our system doesn’t have the funds to buy all the popular books so they must make choices. I’ve gone to get a book from the library and they don’t own copies – sad. The book loan system is a bit funky. Some of the books I want are at libraries across the state and not part of the loan system so consequently I can’t get them.

7) Finally a laundry list of reasons why (some of these I’ve touched on already):
I don’t keep my books, preferring to pass along the ones I have to fellow readers. So no more cluttered shelves.
I never buy hardbacks but now I get bestsellers within 30 seconds.
I can’t stand the beat up copies from the used bookstore or the abused, broken books from the library. No more sticky, icky books.
I’m not attached to reading a paper book. I don’t need to hold a book to enjoy the story within.
I never lose my place, like a CD, you pick up right where you left off, without using a bookmark.
I can shop for books right from my Kindle. I did so that the airport one time. A book came out right before leaving the US for Mexico so sitting in the Phoenix airport I logged on, shopped and had a great book all within a minute. Can’t beat that.
Amazon backups my library so once I’ve purchase a book it’s mine.
Saves trees.
Light weight, convenient.

I could go on and on but I’ll stop now as I’ve gone on long enough. Suffice it to say I’m a fan.

There are several great discussions about eBook readers all over the Internet. I came across this one at Historical Boys a blog by C.W. Gortner. He posted his thoughts about eBooks personal and in general. My advice to authors after reading his post – whether or not you personally embrace eBooks please allow your publishing house to include an eBook version along with all the other book releases. Your sales and exposure to a reading audience will increase.