Who still reads Ebooks these days?

[Nemonymous]

Just that.
For reference; MY VIEWS: https://nullimmortalis.wordpress.com...ks-these-days/

[Robert Adam Gilmour]

Forgive me if I'm trotting out common observations on this topic. I haven't read an extensive level of debate on this.

- I use my kindle constantly, for internet browsing convenience it's incredible (a bit too easy to pick up and turn on, it's addictive). I've barely read anything on actually e-books because I've got towers of real books to read.
But if I could use my laptop all the time for internet browsing, I would probably never touch the kindle unless it was an e-book exclusive I really wanted.

- I still have difficulty getting past the screen aspect. We have far too many screens in our life (computers are invading all sorts of jobs too), we need breaks from it, reading seems like an ideal time to break from it.
I've heard the newest kindles don't feel like you're looking at a screen, but people said that about earlier models and it isn't true.
The customizable text size is great though.

- Scheduling the battery life is a pain in the neck.

- Being connected to the internet is too tempting. Depends where you use it though, if you have a connection where you read.

- On the positive side, I think text files, image files and music files "devaluing" everything has really taught me more about the true value of things.
Sometimes objects create an illusion of worth. When I saw lots of art online that I might have wanted in book form, with no real pages to make the content seem important, I could see how worthwhile the content truly was.
I still want physical books and music and film discs but now I know better which ones deserve an object to be recorded on.

[Robert Adam Gilmour]

Which is probably to say I don't like the idea that all books have souls. Some objects just have no life breathed into them.

[ramonoski]

I prefer books over ebooks, but sometimes the latter are more convenient for me in terms of costs and reliability... (the last book I ordered got lost in the mail and I just don't have the money or even the energy to re-purchase it.) I'll buy books when I can but I'm afraid ebooks are my most trusted companions at the moment.

[Corman]

A couple years ago I had an extra bit of disposable income and lots of space for books. Now, due to monetary and space concerns, most of the new books I buy are ebooks. I will say, however, that sometimes I will open up the Kindle app to check out a book in my Cloudbrary and completely forget I was halfway through it. Also, the lack of pages to mark the length of the book has never stopped being a little disorienting.

[Nemonymous]

I appreciate the views there and in many ways any one talking against Ebooks etc is like King Canute expecting the tide to turn back...

Something I wrote on my blog here in 2011:

With many publishers and budding publishers increasingly publishing or re-publishing books as Ebooks for Kindles etc., one can visualise the time when everything will be available. With everything available, nothing is available. Well, nothing special, any more.
Furthermore, there is an accreting ‘culture’ being (inadvertently) encouraged by these publishers of Ebooks – a culture that arguably enables and encourages plagiarism, piracy etc. Also, it is my opinion that real paper books have empirically been the only vehicles able to carry fiction works future-nostalgically and memorably as well as effectively in their hard core emotion and tangibility and handleability.

[Robert Adam Gilmour]

Quote Originally Posted by Nemonymous

With many publishers and budding publishers increasingly publishing or re-publishing books as Ebooks for Kindles etc., one can visualise the time when everything will be available. With everything available, nothing is available. Well, nothing special, any more.

Could you explain this further?

The content should make a book special. Even if every single version of every book possible was available, our lives are still finite and finding good content will still be exciting.
I understand how scarcity can make something more precious, but again, in the case of books I think that seems like false value being added. I'm really not a fan of collectors being catered to ahead of readers, I think that is a distortion of the worth of books. I wouldn't be sad to see limited editions go away forever. I understand when the publisher can only afford to make small print runs but collector's editions for their own sake can be very damaging to an industry.

[Nemonymous]

It is hard to read my own 2011 mind when I wrote that, but I think I was predicting the arrival of everyone with their own published book whatever its worth and nobody being able to see the wood for the trees or to find a valuable needle in a haystack.
I do think that, since 2011, things have indeed headed in that direction to some degree and the actual value of the author and of all books themselves has diminished, with some books selling for a few pence and an expectation that authors should work for nothing. Whether that is to do with the arrival of ebooks and the Internet is still a moot point.

[DoktorH]

i read ebooks exclusively these days. i can access whichever book i am enjoying from whichever device is closest at hand, Not having to lug around a brick of processed wood pulp is also quite helpful, especially when dealing with lengthier works that would be cumbersome to read in bed or tote to the office.

I don't expect them to be free or cheap. I expect them to cost about as much as a paper copy, since the same amount of work goes into creating the story and getting it out to the customers.

[Nicole Cushing]

I gravitate toward ebooks because of their affordability, the swiftness of delivery, and how little space they consume. I also enjoy that there's a built-in dictionary. All I have to do is place the cursor in front of a difficult word and the definition appears at the bottom of the screen (helpful, sometimes, when reading Poe, HPL, or other authors).

But, I do understand the appeal of "realbooks". I purchased my Ligotti books before they were available as ebooks, and I tend to treasure those "realbooks". They'd be some of the first things I'd fetch in the event of a fire. Also, I've tried to make at least an ocassional realbook purchase at my local indie bookstore (especially since Amazon started to start acting a little erratically with the whole Hachette thing).

I think the market is recoiling (a little) from ebooks. I don't think they're recoiling from the technology, itself. I think it's more a function of market forces. The supply of ebooks is exceeding demand. There's a glut. From what I hear, a glut of crap. The growing perception is that ebooks lack value, and aren't even worth the same price as a McDonald's Happy Meal.

As an author, I feel ebooks are a decent place for readers to initially discover my work. They can make a small investment, see if they like my work, and then -- if they do really like it -- buy the hard copy. I've seen that happen once or twice, actually. I've seen readers use the ebook as a sample. I wonder if other authors see that, too (or if other readers here have done that).