Why I Love Ereaders, And Think They’ll Hit the Mainstream

I felt a very strong urge to respond to an article posted on Gizmodo titled, “Why I Hate Ereaders, And Doubt They’ll Ever Hit the Mainstream.” As with any negative article about a product it makes some valid observations with a bit of hyperbole mixed in for good measure. On the surface many may feel that ereaders don’t offer anything revolutionary and therefore are doomed to failure. However, I will point out, that something doesn’t have to be revolutionary to be successful.

As of now there are two camps of people when it comes to ereaders: those that think it is a gimmick and will never amount to anything more than a niche product and those that think it will change the face of print media forever. I think that ereaders will find a nice comfortable ground right in the middle of these two extremes. Ereaders are the next evolutionary step in print technology and they are here to stay.

Ereaders offer many advantages over hard-copy books. Price is one major point that ereaders already have an advantage in and it needs to be exploited more. Amazon’s Kindle, for example, offers many new best-selling books for $9.99. This can often be much cheaper than the hardcover prices of anywhere between $20 to $45, depending on the book. There are some inconsistencies that are very annoying, I’ll admit, like finding out that a book you bought for $12.99 is available in softcover for $5.99 at the local convenience store. With a bit more consistency though, ereaders can definitely hammer out deals with publishers and get prices normalized. This isn’t, however, a major blow: there’s often a reason that the book is found in the book aisle at the grocery store.

Ereaders allow for self-publishers to make even more money. I think this is an often overlooked feature that ebook readers offer. Providing your book as a digital download can increase your profit margins per book and open up yourself to a large audience. In fact, self-publishing authors are finding that the flexibility in pricing can open themselves up people who will download a book for $1.99 simply because they can do it easily. One author found himself riding on hundreds of sales per day when he tried this method. You simply can’t get this kind of results with the paper format, at least not as instantly.

This leads to yet another area where ereaders definitely have an advantage over hard-copies: convenience. I love to read and often times the things I read are big books with big floppy pages. Ever get that hand cramp from propping an especially large book up on the bus and you keep having to try to invent new ways of balancing it? I have no problem with my Kindle or with the Sony Reader that I had.  Sure, the ereaders are a bit bulky, but they are nowhere near some of the more technical leaning books or the newer hardcover copies.

The bulk also isn’t a point of contention at all (even if you can call it ‘bulk’). People have commented on and showed plenty of interest in my ereader when they see me with it. I get curious glances. To be blunt, nobody is laughing at all. Some have even told me they want to buy one for themselves and ask me a few questions about the device.

Another area of convenience is that you can buy a book anywhere you want. I bought a book while on the toilet one day. Why? Just because I knew I could. If that is not your forte, fine, but I also happened to get a few books after I finished one in the middle of a bus ride. I don’t have to go to the store. I don’t have to wait for shipping. I don’t have to wait in line for new releases. Hard-copy books really have nothing on ereaders in this area if the book is available.

Still further, I can get newspapers and magazines straight on my ereader when they get released. Often times the digital copy is cheaper than a hard-copy of these periodicals and I don’t have to do the folding-the-newspaper-dance you often see people do on the train.

The font-resizing feature available on ereaders would be a godsend to people who have trouble seeing. I see a man on the bus on my way to work who has to keep his face an inch from the newspaper in order to read, physically moving his head to scan each line. Ereaders offer large fonts and I think it would improve his reading habits and make him more comfortable.

There are  some gripes I have when it comes to ereaders. I don’t think they are perfect yet and there are areas that I find very annoying. Already mentioned above was the inconsistent pricing of books. I think they should definitely adopt an Apple model of pricing: everything for $9.99 (or maybe even cheaper if they can strong-arm publishers). This will definitely eliminate that weird feeling of buying an intangible copy of a book for more than a physical copy. I think they should be very mindful of hard-copy prices and always be cheaper if they can.

Another area of concern is the incredibly inane need for every single manufacturer of ereaders to try and produce their own format or to use a different format from their competition. Instead of relying on merit alone to drive sales of both the hardware and the books, they try and rely on locking you in. If you recall Apple tried a similar strategy with the iTunes store by offering downloads that only worked in your iPod. They also stopped and the world didn’t implode. I think with more maturation of the market this will eventually fall out of favor. The DRM on ereader formats will need to go if they want to engage in the digital world effectively and I think it is really only a matter of time before publishers start demanding some standardization between readers as far as protection schemes go.

Now, there are some who say that tablets and the iPhone will be better suited for ebooks and would be the devices that people prefer. I think this is mistaken. The main reason is that the screen on these devices are not suitable for long term reading for many people. The iPhone screen, as an example, is tiny. A tablet would be bright and/or glossy, not to mention probably smudged with your fingerprints from general use.

As more and more manufacturers jump on the ereader bandwagon I think we’ll see prices drop drastically. The low point has already reached $200 and soon to be $150 with cheaper ones still on the way. This, coupled with more competition feature-wise, ereaders will become more than simply a device that “displays lines of e-ink.’”

To be fair, ereaders won’t change the fact that print media is around. It won’t stop special hard-copy edition of books. It won’t stop you from buying a hard-copy of a book and passing it down generation to generation. I believe books will perhaps one day, in the distant future, be like what vinyl records are today: collector items. However, I don’t think ereaders will be causing that to happen. If anything, they’ll start the transition.

As far as Barnes & Noble and Amazon offering iPhone apps as some kind of capitulation to their inevitable demise doesn’t make sense, especially in the case of Barnes & Noble. Why would they launch into an industry that’s just going to die? Simply, they want to make more money, and hopefully entice more people to be exposed to their hardware. It’s an easy way to offer a gateway to your platform.

What about the idea that people won’t buy an ereader because they can’t share the books, or use it in the bathtub, or sell it back at a profit? I think as books become more and more digital, this becomes less and less of an issue. Sharing books is a feature that is definitely sought after and publishers will hopefully cave in to pressure to come up with a solution. I don’t think this is crucial though. Nor do I think that not being able to read in the bath will detract too many people. Sure, 25% of people read a book in the bath, but what’s to stop manufacturers from making ereaders waterproof? Problem solved quite easily. As far as selling books back for a profit, I don’t see this as an issue at all. After all, one could have used the same exact argument about music. We all know not being able to sell your CD’s after you are sick of them didn’t stop music downloads from becoming popular.

All in all, I think the concerns raised are, at worst, problems that will be solved in the next year or so. None of them are really show-stoppers and none of them really seem to amount to anything more than personal gripes.

The question isn’t if ereaders will become mainstream, the question is when. There are a few roadblocks still to mainstream status but I feel that they are temporary and will be handled well enough by the market. Ereaders already offer so many advantages over hard-copy books that I can’t see them simply disappearing. The technology is new still and like any new technology there are already detractors who think that it’ll never take hold. They said the same thing about iTunes. Netflix was a radical idea when it first launched. Ereaders take books into the digital age and that’s where the future lies. Ereaders are here to stay, get used to them.