Kindle Confessions

My name is Jane and I'm a Kindle addict. I spent over forty years as an editor, and I love the feel of books, the look of books, and even the smell of books. I'm a speed-reader with a taste for mysteries, and I used to gobble up the freebies from my publishing friends. After I quit my last job, I struggled to find enough good junk for my habit, and I know what it feels like to need a mystery fix and to go without. Still I couldn't see myself reading a book in not-a-book form.

Then two things happened. Charles McGrath, former editor of the New York Times Sunday Book Review wrote a column about his Kindle use, and he didn't seem at all guilty. Then I got sick (reading is the only thing that makes me feel better), too sick to get to the bookstore. The medication made me impatient, so on-line bookstores were too slow. I wanted what I wanted right away.

And so I bought a Kindle. I read every day, for as many hours as I liked, and without restraint. I couldn't work; I couldn't go out much, and I didn't need to: there was always another book waiting in line (and on line) for my reading pleasure. I read like a madwoman. I would get drowsy, and on those long reading afternoons when the Kindle slipped from my hand, it fell silently on the pillow and I slept. I found myself talking to it, wishing it a good morning, explaining my time away from it. My Kindle was my constant, quiet, light, and refillable companion. Bliss.

But as I recuperated, my conscience began to nag me. I believed that Amazon was paying the publisher the same price for Kindle edition as for the purchase of a book, so I wasn't hurting the author and the publisher -- yet. (That will happen when Amazon raises the price or lowers the money it pays publishers.) I was, however, hurting my beloved bookstores. If they don't have people paying full price for books made of paper, they will perish. I could not give up my Kindle, so I made a bargain with myself.

For every book I download on Kindle, I now go to my local independent bookseller and buy a book in hardcover. I choose books that don't have a mass audience, the ones that benefit from every retail sale. These first novels or works of scholarship benefit when real people to go into a bookstore, ask for them, find them, and enthusiastically pay money for them to a live person behind a counter. I love doing this. I get to read the books I used to wait for in paperback in their beautiful, tangible hardcover versions, and my guilt pushes me to try all kinds of books I wouldn't have bothered with before my Kindle.

If I limit my Kindle use to bestsellers and heavy books when I travel (now I'm Kindling David McCullough's The Great Bridge on the subway from Manhattan to Brooklyn) and I purchase one-for-one nm hardcover, I'm reading more and spending more, but having a lot more fun. But enough of this. I have to head to the bookstore, and I bet you know why.

 

Comments

[drmikej]

07:47 AM on 10/11/2009

I love paper copies of books as much as anyone but I'm completely won over by the arguments in

http://www­.i-program­mer.info/t­he-stone-t­apes/394-w­hy-kindle-­is-the-ans­wer.html

that the Kindle is inevitable as the dominant force in future publishing­.
It also seems to be the potential saviour of the niche periodical which is good news for me as a life long reader of a number of niche publicatio­ns which seem to be having trouble staying afloat and the ex editor of one that has given up publishing on paper because its too difficult to make a profit.

[StoutHouse]

02:15 PM on 10/11/2009

Sorry, but the Kindle is not, in fact, "inevitabl­e as the dominant force in future publishing­." In fact, its days as top dog are numbered.

Why? Because the Kindle is a proprietar­y dedicated device and a closed system. You can only download Kindle books from Amazon -- no DRM-free downloads. No choice. You're stuck with Jeff Bezos for life. Plus, unlike the Sony Reader, for example, you can't physically handle the Kindle before you buy it.

This is hugely significan­t, as Best Buy is gearing up to stock a variety of e-readers (again, no Kindles). Customers who think independen­tly, who are not suffering from Amazon-ind­uced Stockholm Syndrome, still, I think, want to choose who benefits from their e-book purchases. IndieBound­.com is making a big push to get independen­t bookseller­s set up to advertise their own e-book download capabiliti­es, and Kindle owners can't make that choice while handcuffed to Jeff Bezos. People with a conscience who want choice, not digital enslavemen­t, will go with other options -- Sony Reader, iPhone, iRex, etc.

Besides, as the New York Times recently pointed out, Amazon is fast becoming the Walmart of the internet:

http://www­.nytimes.c­om/2009/09­/20/busine­ss/20amazo­n.html?_r=­1&adxnnl=1­&adxnnlx=1­255284114-­QuFwKexbup­FNX3f8phV7­4Q

Why is it that certain progressiv­es who refuse to support Walmart have no problem supporting Amazon? Cognitive dissonance­, anyone? Amazon does great harm, and not just to independen­t bookseller­s. Investigat­e the company's ongoing war against e-fairness legislatio­n and see for yourself.

[drmikej]

05:30 AM on 10/12/2009

You make the point that Kindle has DRM which is true but publishers want DRM. In a sense Kindle's DRM isn't oppressive as the Kindle device acts like a place holder for a paper copy and the fact that you can download a book to the same device as many times as you like gives a Kindle purchase a similar permanence as a paper book. In short from the readers point of view the DRM implemente­d by Kindle is much like the DRM implemente­d by owning a single paper copy.

As to the issue that Amazon has a monopoly – I agree and I also agree that its bad – but being bad doesn’t mean that consumers will reject it.

You offer evidence that Kindle and Amazon are bad in some ways but not that these facts will effect its success. Neither DRM nor the worrying fact that Amazon will have a monopoly have any clear cut connection with the Kindle’s future success – you might want it to be so but that isn’t proof.

[Jmartens]

02:22 PM on 10/05/2009

I began to petition Amazon back in Febuary, asking them to provide a free Kindle version of any hardcover purchased.­...or at least add the e-version for another $2-$5.

Here it is if you want to sign it: http://spr­eadsheets.­google.com­/viewform?­key=p8mHGo­jrK_KP7Zm0­eEFS6Gw