I am putting my Kindle e-reader in the drawer and going back to buying books.
This has nothing to do with a Luddite lust for a passing way of life, a perverse desire to hold something larger in my hand, or an irrational resistance to new technologies. I was a rampant and enthusiastic activist in the e-reading, e-publishing, e-promoting revolution when it flowed over the world a few years ago. Among the first of my mature demographic to buy a Kindle e-reader, I was, for a long time, one of the most annoying advocates of the e-reader’s mystical features.
But now - for very practical and sound reasons, I am returning to books of the bound paper kind.
1) Price
When I first bought my e-reader, it seemed that the 3G telecommunications universe was exploding with galaxies of 99 cent books. Some with full sentences and three syllable words. Actual intelligible, readable books could be bought for the cost of a small latte, and copyright-clean classics were available with a button push for $0.
Then, one day I turned on the Wireless and entered the Storefront to see what appeared to be a technical glitch - $9.99. When it could not be clicked away, I presumed that we had reached the ceiling of e-reader pricing reasonableness; but it was just the beginning of Kindle creep.
Then, one day I turned on the Wireless and entered the Storefront to see what appeared to be a technical glitch - $9.99. When it could not be clicked away, I presumed that we had reached the ceiling of e-reader pricing reasonableness; but it was just the beginning of Kindle creep.
Today, the $10 barrier has been obliterated, and it is hard to tell when, whether or if the e-book reader benefits financially from the purchase of a new release.
Publishers like to launch the paper version of a book first, sell as many as they can in that format, and follow up with a slightly discounted ebook. Around this point, the price for the leftover paper books drops in many venues down below the cost of the newly released e-book, making the economic advantage a matter of timing and a mug’s game. E-readers and publishers magnify this money-out-of-my-pocket pull by facilitating the purchase of the even pricier audio book format.
Meanwhile, all those spurned-by-the-e-reader-consumer classics and less classical old paper books are heading to bargain bins and dumpsters where the progressive new generation of printed book readers like me can pick them up for the price of a 2009 e-book.
Publishers like to launch the paper version of a book first, sell as many as they can in that format, and follow up with a slightly discounted ebook. Around this point, the price for the leftover paper books drops in many venues down below the cost of the newly released e-book, making the economic advantage a matter of timing and a mug’s game. E-readers and publishers magnify this money-out-of-my-pocket pull by facilitating the purchase of the even pricier audio book format.
Meanwhile, all those spurned-by-the-e-reader-consumer classics and less classical old paper books are heading to bargain bins and dumpsters where the progressive new generation of printed book readers like me can pick them up for the price of a 2009 e-book.
2) Choice
E-books give you too much of it. It is simply too damn easy to buy lots of different books when you have a Kindle in your hand. Even long after the e-book bargains e-vaporated, I spent as much time clicking and buying as reading. I built a virtual library that would have made the ancient shelf stackers in Alexandria wail with envy. I am better off with less options. The process of getting into the car, driving to the book store, getting lost in the Self Help section, forgetting what you went to the bookstore to get, telling the clerk you don’t need any help, going for a coffee, coming back to the magazine stand, walking around the parking lot to find your car, and stopping for more gas on the way home slows down the book buying process and makes your purchase decisions more thoughtful, careful and rare.
3) Concern for the Environment
While admirers of the e-book phenomenon like to point to the trees that are pulped up, the oil that is burned, and the small animals that are run over by paper-book buyers, they blithely ignore the environmental impact of the e-book publishing and sales movement. Not only has it induced a massive increase in electron consumption worldwide, it has also disrupted our cultural ecosystem and given new shape to environmental pollution by opening the sewer pipes to release a tsunami of toxic writing, climate-killing clichés and smoggy self indulgence.
4) Combating Mental Illness
As I have noted before, the Kindle e-reader not only makes it too easy to buy books, it makes shifting between books distressingly simple and fast. Bouncing from book to book on the same device threatens the stability of the soundest mind. For a borderline attentionless personality like mine, it is a brimming font of lethal anxiety and mental stress.
As I have noted before, the Kindle e-reader not only makes it too easy to buy books, it makes shifting between books distressingly simple and fast. Bouncing from book to book on the same device threatens the stability of the soundest mind. For a borderline attentionless personality like mine, it is a brimming font of lethal anxiety and mental stress.
5) The End of Civilization
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| Canadian Not E-Book Books |
Despite persistent counsel and advice to do otherwise, I have always bought Canadian wine because I like to visit Canadian wineries, vineyards, and wine festivals and know that they will not exist without the sale of Canadian wine. Walmart, Canadian Tire, the As-Is section in Ikea, the Food Court in the Mall, and mindless Blogs on the Internet. This is all that I will have left for distraction and work avoidance when libraries, bookstores, and bound paper books in my den disappear. I am going out now to find someplace where I can still buy a book.
But this does not mean that you need to do that. You have not made the decision to shun e-books and so you are free to just click here.
Buy E-Book
