Shari.com: How The Flames Were Fed

I'm getting a Kindle!

After weeks of flu and post-flu and now proximity-flu (Mike finally caught the crud), I totally deserve an e-ink gadget, right?

Well, according to my records I "deserve" a lot of things I don't and won't have, what with not being equipped to stimulate the economy to such a degree at this time. And the Kindle is $359 before cover or shipping, so how did I swing that?

Part of it was Amazon gift certificates from using (and always completely paying off) my Amazon Visa. Part of it was being told that I'd be paid by the hour to attend a conference this past weekend. And the big part of it was getting to the conference and finding out it lasted eight hours, not four.

SALE!

The conference was great, too. Neverminding that it took place at Fitzgerald's downtown, home of the Scariest Parking Garage in Sindom (tight corners + other people's SUVs = 20 minutes to descend from 11th level), each speaker was on the ball and interesting. In fact, it was genuinely difficult to pick four sessions out of the sixteen offered.

Topic? Gangs. I'd love to share everything I learned, or even just a few "whoa" moments, but a) what if I piss off a gang and they tag up my blog?, and b) a lot of the content was confidential, since information changes too quickly when too much of it is shared.

But back to the Kindle.

It's due to arrive this weekend, so hopefully I won't be suppressing flashes of disappointment five days from now. I realize how perilous it is to get all excited beforehand, but, OMG, a Kindle!

I also realize that nobody else in the entire world wants a Kindle, so this is one lone streamer-and-wazoo-noise in the saved-tree forest.

Okay, so that's not really true - Kindles are so popular that online you can find claims that people just want them to look cool and be trendy. (Um, call me back with that one when we see Paris curled up in an ultralounge, reading Updike.) But I have been dealing with a lot of polite "ohs" at work.

"What is it, again?"

"Holds over 1500 books! No glaring backlight! Free wireless internet! The first chapters of over 240,000 books - free! Annotate all you want! Play audio books and MP3s! Paperback-sized! The New Yorker at $3/month!"

I know this isn't of interest to everyone. It's like when people show me a new handbag and I feel bad for them, that they don't have sturdy pockets. We all enjoy different stuff, kum ba ya.

Still, some of the snark I've endured since starting my Kindle crush has been irritating, and the same thoughts are amplified in online commentaries. Too many people see ebook readers as going head-to-head against physical books. But why does it have to be either-or?

I love physical books. But, until such a time as I have a "forever home" with ample bookshelves, as well as an income of greater size (which I guess I'm counting on just magically happening at some point), most of my books come from the library. Any books I buy are either specialized investments (my friend Allen's book is out now!) or used mass-market paperbacks to be recycled into the classroom. So, it's not like I usually get to savor a growing collection.

Meanwhile, I read online content all of the time. Blogs, news, Wikipedia. And even though my computer is a laptop, there is only one place to comfortably use it in this apartment. (Western end of the sofa, next to the router and the bag of cough drops.) Eventually my legs and eyes ache alike in this arrangement.

The big deal about the Kindle (or the Sony), what makes it different from smart phones and other readers, is the new e-ink technology. There is no glare, no backlight. You can't read a Kindle in the dark. It's like reading a regular book or newspaper. (This isn't just me fangirling before the fact. I went to Borders and played with their Sonys - the e-ink is genuinely magnificent.)

If you're still stuck on "why not just read a book?", you won't be impressed. Me, though, I am so excited. I'll be able to easily read anywhere in the apartment. I can stretch out on the sofa. I can hop up and down without the tiniest amount of production. Space-saving and comfort? Yummers.

There is still the problem of the library books. I found a site that describes how to crack protected e-books (the only way our library distributes them) so they can be read on the Kindle, but doing so would mean voiding the license. At this time, I don't want to take that risk. It's not really stealing (the library is still lending you the book; you're just using an unauthorized method of reading it), but Amazon doesn't allow it at this stage, so there you go. They are the overlords in this scenario.

Vision: Amazon and the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District team up. The library buys books from Amazon, just like the way they already buy e-books. I enter my LVCCLD card number into Amazon, just as I do when I check out e-books on the library's website. Amazon delivers the book to my Kindle through its Whispernet network. After three weeks, Amazon deletes it, again using Whispernet.

The tricky part seems to be in managing the number of "copies" that are checked out. Even e-books have a limited number of licenses. Solution: charge Kindle-using patrons. Yes, I know paying money for library books is an "outrage," a dangerous precedent, whatever, but I think the library model needs to change. I love our public library system, love it, but some of what it offers just seems too cheap. I know it's a slippery slope when you start saying, "this should be free, but that should cost extra," but as long as some e-books (the current system) are available at no cost, in the spirit of sharing information with the masses, I don't see the problem in charging Kindle users who want a value-added service, kind of like the way one must pay for photocopying or printing.

It beats the alternative. (Waiting for Amazon and the library to drop all the DRM restrictions they currently have in place. Ha.) Plus, it could generate money. Let's say a new Stephen King book comes out. (And let's say it's not total crap, despite all recent evidence. "What the hell happened to King?" is a topic for another day.) I would totally pay 50 cents or even a buck to "rent" the book on my Kindle, library style. And let's say 100 other registered library patrons with Kindles are likewise inclined. Hasn't somebody made some extra money somewhere in this scenario?

(Unless you're a marketing beanhead who thinks of every library book checked out as a lost sale.)

I (most regrettably) don't know enough about library science to know what gets in the way of this plan (and I'm sure it's a million little things), but I think there's a skeleton of merit here.

But for now...

Physical books won't be replaced in my life after all, but what we have is a trade-off. First, and more importantly, I will never be without something to read. Sometimes (right now, perhaps) I have ten library books piled up by the bed and "nothing" to read. They've all turned out to be clunkers, or at least they don't fit my current mood and energy level.

The first-chapter-free thing is going to rock my world. It might help me avoid some duds before I go to the library, if nothing else. Plus, it's actually 10% of the book that you get, not just the first chapter.

Will it be frustrating to get into a book then have to pay $9.99 (or wait for a library trip) before I can continue? I'm sure. But, since I stopped being a "one book at a time" person a few years ago, I can probably handle switching gears and reading something else. Probably. We'll see.

But even If my Kindle ends up being just a fancy way to read The New Yorker and blogs in bed, I'll be happy. (Have you seen that statistic that claims it would be $300 million/year cheaper for the NY Times to buy each subscriber a Kindle, rather than to keep printing?)

Which brings us to reading blogs... right now, a lot of people do this through the "experimental" Web browser that's built into the Kindle. (And since the Kindle runs on Linux, does this mean that Lynx has finally had the last laugh? And all of the years I spent in my last career, arguing for compliant HTML that renders well on all browsers including text browsers, were not wasted?) This is what I'm hoping to do, either using the mobile version of Google Reader or converting to another web-based reading service.

Amazon offers subscriptions to some blogs at $1.99/month, a price I might be willing to pay for something like Metafilter, where comments are an important part of any post (and don't render well in mobile browsing). However, they don't offer MeFi, or most of the other blogs I read, most of which I wouldn't pay two bucks per month for. (It's not that, say, Dooce isn't worth it, it's that she's but one of many, and $2 a pop adds up quickly.)

Right now, though, I'm just damn excited. I've requested every free non-public domain book in the Kindle store, and yes, that means every "trashy" romance. (Apparently Harlequin is celebrating an anniversary? I don't care - free books must be loved!) You can find these by searching the Kindle store for "-domain*" (be sure you include the minus sign). Not that there's anything wrong with public domain - I also snagged some Louisa May Alcotts just for fun - but I don't want to go nuts with them until I see how well they're formatted.

(And if they aren't formatted well, I can just grab them off Project Gutenberg, save as a .doc file, and email them to my Kindle to read it that way. Hey, this reminds me that I think the electronic rights to my book - ahem, "book" - reverted back to me last year or so. I always felt bad for not getting around to posting more than a few entries from it here. I wonder how much work it would be to convert it to MobiPocket format - essentially Amazon's format - and offer it for free? Or do I really need that many people trying to plough through my tedious underwear problems at Disney World? Yeah, never mind. Time has not been kind to that bit of souvenir writing.)

I've also been going crazy with the sample chapter requests. When the Kindle arrives, I probably won't even get to use it for a day because it will be so busy downloading. (Yes, I know books arrive within a minute or so. Don't underestimate the power of the freebie on my clicking finger, though.) Ooo - I can just imagine it: I'll read the book reviews in The New Yorker, then I'll request the first chapters of these books! It will be like my own fun game of Pretend You're a Literary Agent! All without putting down the Kindle!

Mark your calendars. K-Day is coming. Will it be squeals galore or brave faces? (I think the squeals would be guaranteed with one of these; alas, even I can only justify so much.)

Comments

Post a comment