Kindle: Revolutionizing Reading

There are some inventions, devices, and innovations that make you think, "Man I wish I had come up with that!"  Coca-Cola's Fridge Pack, for example. It's so simple and obvious, yet for millions of years soda came in those stupid blocky 12-pack cartons that barely fit in the refrigerator. Duh.

Recently (last fall) Internet retailer Amazon came out with a device that rivals the cool factor of the Fridge Pack. It's called Kindle and it's a wireless reader which allows you to download and store up to 200 books, blogs or newspapers so you can read whatever you want without a computer.

You can literally read every newspaper your little heart desires at your leisure on the train, the bus, or the plane, (not while driving please!) and Kindle weighs just over 10 ounces -- about as much as a paperback book.

Talk about a clutter reducer! True bibliophiles will likely be horrified by the prospect of not having actual pages to turn, dog-ear and highlight, but this could be a real boon for folks who love to read however,  struggle with book clutter.  When Kindle first leapt onto the scene in November, Guy Kawasaki wrote a blog post reviewing Kindle, which includes...

among other terrific benefits, the fact that there's NO monthly subscription fee! Check out Guy's review and let me know what you think. Would you buy one? Do you see reading technology changing radically due to this product? Would you pay $399 for it? My own personal jury is out as to whether I'd use it myself or not... but I think it could be big.

Comments

[Julie Bestry]

The professional organizer side of me loves the idea of reducing our carbon footprint, limiting book clutter, reducing used space and generally keeping things productively tidy. This side of me likes the idea of the Kindle for newspapers, calculus textbooks and anything that appeals solely to the mind but not the heart.

But the bookloving side of me remains distraught; books, and not just first editions, have an inherent value. A tear-stained copy of Austen's Persuasion need not be read to bring comfort; sometimes, lovingly caressing it is enough. At least once a week during wedding season, I pull down my not-quite-pristine copy of Suzanne Finnamore's wonderful Otherwise Engaged and read from page 205's passage:

"Michael has a dream that he is looking at a house for us, when he finds out that I own an elephant. He has to figure out who to get the elephant moved, where the elephant is going to sleep, et cetera. After he wakes up, he carefully explains to me how, once inside the prospective house, he climbed a ladder and poked his hand up through the ceiling to see how high the roof went, so that it could accommodate everyone.

It strikes me that this is the best kind of man to marry. The kind who will take care of not just me, but my elephant."

The page is marked with a wedding invitation; were I able to find it on Kindle with a digital "bookmark", I doubt I'd hold the experience of rereading it with such reverence.

Surely, if LP owners can renounce their love of cover art to pursue digital-quality sound, I imagine we'll all be carrying Kindle-esque Star Trek-like pads where we'll immediately be able to call up every bit of human knowledge and our bank accounts will be debited for the transactions without a thought from us. Very efficient, but not very romantic...and I'm pretty sure in this one aspect, book-clutterers, the ones who might get the most out of a Kindle, are the least likely to embrace the technology. I never thought I'd be among the Luddites, but my heart just can't catch up with my head on this product.

[Monica Ricci]

Julie, what a wonderful, beautifully written comment! Thank you! I suspect many people will see things exactly as you do. :)

~Monica

[Vicki Voisin]

Monica...I have all but stopped buying books since I discovered www.audible.com where I download books to my Ipod. I also download teleseminars and podcasts (love it when you're on the Vicky & Jen show!). Listening to a book while I'm on a walk, on an airplane, or working in the yard is such a treat. At the moment I am well into "World Without End" by Ken Follett...43 hours of listening pleasure. Do you know how long it would take me to read that book? Forever! This method reduces clutter and I am rewarded with the ability to 'read' many more books. Another question: why didn't we invent the Butler Bag? Vicki

[Jeri Dansky]

I can't imagine myself ever buying a Kindle. Well, not as a primary reading tool, at any rate. (But sometimes being able to do a digital search would be nice.)

I like to read curled up in bed or on the couch, with my feet up and a cat or two curled up with me. (And if it's non-fiction and I own it, I'll also have a highlighter or a pen.) This calls for a book, not a Kindle.

For books on the go, I'm with Vicki - I like an audio book. I don't listen to them all that often, but right now I'm listening to Neil Gaiman read his book Stardust - a book I love. It's nice to re-experience it this way.

[Suellen Germani]

I'm with Julie on this one. I love the smell of books, the feel of books, and the look of a shelf full of books. I love walking the aisles of libraries and bookstores pulling random titles off the shelves. Call me old fashioned, but I would only buy one of these if I had a long train commute to and from work.

[Monica Ricci]

Ladies, I hear you loud and clear! Thanks for your comments. This will certainly be interesting to see how it all plays out!

~Monica

[Larry P]

The idea is great. But there is a serious problem. It seems the folks at Amazon and some of the larger publishing firms aren't too particular about checking to see who holds the copyright to some books.

My company holds the copyright to a book that was being sold for the kindle. The problem was I wasn't consulted or told about it.

Of course the previous publisher promised to make sure it was removed right away. But was then shocked I wasn't eager to accept their word that none of the books had been sold.

Flash forward 3 months and guess what, yep, the book is back for sale as a download on several web sites.

This is a serious problem that will have to be addressed soon. As the Author of a terrific book yourself, I know you would be less than pleased if your book were sold as a download without your permission and without any compensation to you.

Larry P

[Monica Ricci]

Larry, no kidding, that would certainly aggravate me if my book were sold for download without compensation to me. Urgh. Thanks for your insightful comment.
~Monica

[Terry Lessig]

As a publisher myself, I'm with Larry on this. I only publish audio books, but I don't allow them to be sold as digital downloads because there really is no accounting other than the word of the retailer like audible or amazon. And the paltry amount they give sometimes would not even cover the author royalty I've agreed to. Audible is just as likely to give away a copy in their marketing scheme, where they allow a subscriber to choose several free titles for signing up. It's hard to control the "digital devil" so I keep close reins on my intellectual property.