Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Of Books and Nooks



I had hoped to post yesterday, but couldn't for a wonderful reason. Eric took the day off and progressed significantly on the Magical Makeover. As I write this I am sitting at the new black desk perched on the fabulous purple chair like the Queen of Everything -- which is not to say that the transformation is complete. The good news is he fairly easily removed the built-in desk, patched the wall, painted the wall, and assembled the desk. He even disconnected AND reconnected (that's the important part) the jumble of scary electronics which consists of  computer, monitor, speakers, printer, external hard drive, cable box, and some sort of back-up thing that sits on the floor and gathers dust. All that remains is to paint the built-in wall cabinets, lay the rug, buy two black frames for the cool art I bought on ebay and two pleated shades. Happy, happy! And I'm even happier yet because I successfully e-filed my Ohio sales tax forms this morning with a minimum of swearing.

But good as all that is, it's not what I want to talk about today. My mind has been on e-readers ever since Sunday when I dropped by the antiques mall with a box of books and encountered a  nice  forty-something  woman browsing in my booth. She asked if I had Eleanor Roosevelt's etiquette book which I did not -- either there, here, or at the store, though I should have it somwhere considering the tremendous number of books we bought at auction last winter owned by a university librarian who was a HUGE Roosevelt fan. Anyway, I told her I didn't have it and we moved on to a variety of other book-related topics.

"I probably shouldn't admit this," she said. "But I bought an e-reader."

My gaze fell to the old cookbook she was holding, picked up at another booth.

"Oh, it doesn't mean I won't buy books anymore. I just don't want to buy fiction and stuff that clutters up the house after you run out of shelves. Old books are totally different. I'll always buy them."

Immediately I remembered two other people saying the exact same thing to me -- one is my friend Cheryl and the other an Ohio customer who buys from my website. Both of them have the Kindle, but both still buy collectible books. The woman in my booth, however, bought a color Nook and her husband bought the Kobo which of course is affiliated with the late, great Border's, but will still be viable even when Border's reaches it's last chapter (probably by the end of the week),  as Kobe does maintain its own website from which ebooks can be purchased. But here's the interesting thing -- this woman  has no intention of buying ANY e-books. Her sole motivation was to save on library fines by downloading ebooks from the library. In six months she hasn't spent the first dime on new books. I called the Medina library to get the local skinny on the topic and learned that Medina patrons are among the biggest users of e-readers in the Cleve-net system.  The Medina library is part of a larger Cleveland consortium which pooled its money to buy more e-book licenses than it could have otherwise. At first thought it would seem that they would only need a single copy of each title and from that could zap it out to however many people wanted it. But such is not the case. E-books are bought just like any other book -- copy by copy. If they have five copies and six people want it the last one goes on the waiting list. Patrons get three weeks to read the book and then -- poof!-- all gone!

Interestingly enough, almost all e-reader brands are compatible with the books at the library -- except for Amazon's Kindle. Why am I not surprised? Coming from the company that's so greedy it considers itself above paying sales tax in areas where it maintains a warehouse (physical presence), it's to be expected. In fact, amazon is dumping all its affiliates in other states, also to avoid sales tax. You gotta love the fact that Barnes & Noble is not only welcoming these former affiliates, but assuring them they THEY will collect and pay the tax and all the affiliates have to do is jump on board.

Amazon has, however, announced this week that a new Kindle will be debuting shortly which will allow college students to rent downloadable textbooks, a phenomenon likely to take a big bite out of online sales for used textbook dealers. Last fall Auctionbytes conducted a survey of used book sellers which indicated that only 22 per cent thought e-readers had cut into their bottom line. I'd bet the fabulous  purple chair that number has risen greatly because  since then amazon posted earnings which showed that e-books outsold both hard and soft cover books combined on their site. The only saving grace is the fact that older titles are not as readily available in the e-book format and the cost of  new books in e-book format rivals that of paperbacks minus the shipping cost. Not long ago I noticed that a favorite author's new book had gotten uncharacteristically bad reviews on Barnes and Noble. Turns out, it wasn't her book that had readers' bookmarks in a knot, but the cost of the downloadable book at $12. Somehow they had gotten the idea that it was supposed to be $8.95 when they pre-ordered only to be charged at a higher price when it arrived.

The bottom line is, like it or not, this technology is not only here to stay, but is bounding forward like a cheetah on speed. What it means for booksellers remains to be seen, but, once again, I don't find myself in a state of panic even at the height of a sluggish summer. As you might recall, I had grave misgivings about e-readers, but right now am actually flirting with  the notion of buying a Kobo for library downloads to reduce my constant fines. At this point I'm only batting my eyelashes at it, but I do think the day might come when I cozy up to the idea.

As much as I can't believe I'm saying it --  I do believe that the Nook can lie down peacefully with the book.

4 comments:

Cheryl said...

I don't have fines on my library books anymore since i reached senior citizen status! Oh, and I bought an ipad last week.

tess said...

Cool! Maybe I'll have Eric check out the books from here on in. Me being so young and all! :-)

Anonymous said...

I am thinking it may be time to at least look more closley at them. If not, we may be left in the dust looking for books. I have discovered I hate the Borders Books across the highway and am going back to Barnes and Noble and the library as my main source of book fix...sometimes I just need to smell the new books, and maybe sip a cup of Starbuck's. The costs of the books on the electronics has me intrigued and also the slowness with which I find myself reading these days. Shall we double dare each??

tess said...

Oakey, let's see who caves first! I love, love, LOVE a brand new book. Oh, there's nothing like it -- except for maybe an old one!