Richard's Online Journal

[19/11/07] Kindling

Here’s something I don’t get. Every time there’s a new e-reader tool announced, future-gazer types start talking about the Gutenberg Press. And that sounds fair. Moving to an all-digital system, with computers serving up any book in the history of mankind would be an incredible leap for society - bigger even than the wheel, or Bacon Salt.

Except there’s a catch, and it goes something like this.

Gutenberg Press: Took a locked down, incredibly expensive medium and made it affordable and accessible to all, heralding a world of democratic information and incredible social enlightenment.

E-Readers: Um… Not so much…

The latest one, Amazon Kindle, costs four hundred dollars. The books are DRM restricted, with best-sellers kicking off at around $10 a pop. It’s portable, like a book, except that you’ll be terrified of leaving it on the train or taking it onto the beach. It’s open, in the sense that there’ll be another one along next year, and there’s no chance you’ll still be using it in five years. And it ties you into one company for all your literary purchases and news, since content providers are about as good at co-operating as a sack of angry cats.

Basically, Kindle and its ilk are the books the Church would have made.

I’ve got quite a few misgivings about the whole e-book concept in general, not necessarily in the long-term, but certainly right now. The e-book market is tiny (to say nothing of seeing its biggest success in erotica, followed by geek-friendly subjects for the early adopters), and I’m not sure how much it’s going to grow if the only readers available cost as much or more than some laptops. Without fail, the systems available are horrifically over-engineered, critically restricted, and aimed firmly at the wrong market.

These systems should be just as affordable to someone who wants to read pulp as students, and at a price where you could drop one in the toilet and it would probably be okay. The market needs to be combined, so that buying a book on Amazon automatically drops the full thing onto your Kindle, or whatever other device, for no extra charge - with special deals on download only prices to gradually ween people away from standard novels. If they take off, if they’re popular, start pushing e-books as a thing in their own right. People didn’t want to do without CDs until they saw the benefits of digital files. Even if e-books are worth switching to, the resistance will be every bit as strong.

More, when you factor in cultural issues, and the average age of active readers.

As for the devices themselves, they need to be disposable. You should get one by signing up to a book-club - take out a 12 month subscription, get yourself an e-reader. They should be priced so that you can drop them in the toilet by accident and it’ll still be okay. Whatever the price, they need to be something other than a new toy for the small sliver of the population that just wants the latest gadget, especially since it’s likely to be the same crowd more likely to spend the evening with YouTube than Yates.

But that’s not the only thing. Books are an unusual form of entertainment due to the amount of attentiton they demand from the reader, and while you can certainly argue that the actual paper doesn’t matter (I disagree, but it’s a personal call...), it’s one where the torture of choice is particularly noticeable. The more media you have available, the harder it is to knuckle down and finish it.

This is good for the likes of Amazon, who’ll no doubt get plenty of cash from people switching on to continue reading, oh, the new Charlie Stross, before noticing that there’s a new Harry Potter spin-off, but bad when it comes to finishing books, for enjoying the storyline instead of racing to plug into something different, and especially for heavier going books not intended to be read in fits and starts. Everyone’s taken a book like Lord of the Rings on holiday, only to get back with half a page or so actually finished. Attention spans can be tricky enough, without oh look! A squirrel!

I do think that e-readers are a good idea in other contexts - in schools, for research, and to take on the plane or train instead of carting a big sack of books. But for general reading? Not really. Not for a long while yet. Right now, the industry’s firmly built on what the content providers and booksellers want to see, not how regular people actually read. Not to mention, with the declining reading figures in recent years, what’s really needed are ways of pulling people into reading, not defining the future of publishing as some exclusive club for those who can afford it.

For us bibliomaniacs, $400 may or may not be a lot of money. But it does buy a hell of a lot of books. And unless the e-balance e-tips considerably more in our favour than this, I don’t think I’ll be getting rid of my trusty shoulder bag any time soon.