Novelists On the E-Book Experience

An anonymous reader writes "How is reading different on a Kindle, a Nook, or an iPhone? The NY Times asked two writers what they thought. Joseph Finder, the author of thrillers, misses the indices compiled by humans and finds it annoying the way that all of the fonts are the same. Lee Child, author of the Jack Reacher novels, actually likes the simplicity because he can concentrate on the words themselves. And then there's the issue of monopoly, which must give the authors the willies."

Comments

No problem

[Dyinobal]

I love the -idea- of Ebook readers, nothing is more awesome than being able -in theory- to carry around all my college text books and all my favorite novels on a thin little device that has a huge battery life. But in general all the systems that I've thought about buying I've turned down for being to locked down, or to expensive. DRM and Price is really a deal breaker, and the idea of rebuying books I already own so I can read them on my ebook reader is a little obnoxious. I love the Idea just hate the execution thus far, but I'm still hopeful for the tech to catch on.

Re:No problem

[FrankSchwab]

I agree; why the hell would I pay $300 for a device just so I have the right to pay $10 for each book I want to read?

A device with an unprotected screen that I don't expect to last a year?
A device that, should Amazon or Sony decide to get out of the market, will become a paperweight that I can't read my purchased content on anymore, and can't transfer my purchased content anywhere (see Yahoo Music Store, MSN Music, Walmart online music, etc ).
A device that can, at any time, decide that some of my content is no longer "acceptable", and delete it (see Amazon and "1984"/"Animal Farm")?

The concept is great; the current implementations just suck. /frank

Re:No problem

[NotBornYesterday]

When the only viable solution to a legitimate problem is to become a criminal, there is something wrong with both the law and the original problem.

Re:No problem

[supermank17]

Just to chime in here, you have a few facts wrong about the Kindle (which I do own).
You can mount it as a USB mass storage device, and archive your books or add books that you acquired separately from the Amazon store. Only the encrypted books you purchased from Amazon will be unreadable on any other device you may have (although theoretically you can crack the encryption on the DRM'd books). I believe you can even reload books that Amazon may have "revoked" from your backup and still be able to read them.
You can also load any book onto the Kindle that is in the .mobi format (the kindle format is just a drm'd mobi file with a different file extension). Mobi is about as common as ePub, and most major ebook publishers offer books in this format. In fact, most of the books on my Kindle were purchased / downloaded from baen.com.
I'm not exactly thrilled with the power that Amazon has over books you buy through them, but the device is not as tied to the Amazon service as many people think, and you can use it to read other books (even if Amazon were to die).

I foresee...

[srussia]

a revival of "Choose Your Own Adventure" books.

Wait for interoperability

[Animats]

There are now four or five e-book readers, each with their own incompatible "ecosystem". Until that settles down, don't get one. Most of them are going to fail, and you'll lose your content. Just like the people who signed up for WalMart Music or Microsoft PlaysForSure.

Comfort and Freedom are their Best Aspects

[ideonexus]

The greatest benefit of these e-readers is the fact that I can download tons of free books like Lawrence Lessig’s, Richard Stallman’s, the entire collection of Project Gutenberg, and the works of Creative Commons authors everywhere, and read them in the comfort of reflected light in bed rather than emitted light through a hot laptop or tiny cell phone. So long as Amazon doesn't try to erase the library of texts I got from independent sources, I'll continue to be very happy with my Kindle.

Index?

[rjstanford]

An index? In a thriller? How does that normally work?

killer, identity of - page 274
tension, sexual, relief of - page 102
gun, finding of - page 79

Re:Index?

[somersault]

Actually, the summary makes him sound like an ass, while his statements in TFA are pretty reasonable:

Joseph Finder, the author of high-tech thrillers like “Vanished” and “High Crimes,” praises the ability to pack an entire bookshelf into his carry-on luggage. “I read a lot of nonfiction, particularly for research,” he said, “and since I read a lot when I travel, I like the convenience of being able to lug a huge pile of books in one slim device.”

But e-readers don’t always make research easy. Mr. Finder said that many books he has read on the Kindle lacked a real index compiled by a human, adding that the ability to search for keywords was hardly an adequate replacement.

Monopoly

[Aladrin]

" And then there's the issue of monopoly, which must give the authors the willies."

WHAT monopoly? They already sign to a single publisher for a book as it is. That publisher has always gotten to make all the publishing decisions. It's business as usual!

And if the answer is 'DRM', then they are doubly fools.

Consider the source

[Alerius]

Why ask an author about reading? A successful author may be a good source of information about writing, but that doesn't necessarily make him a good reader. [Obligatory car analogy] A mechanic may be able to drive, but I'd probably get better answers about driving from...well...a driver!

Now an author's complaint about limited control of fonts may have merit if he is saying that as part of the presentation of his art, he would prefer to set the font type and size. Judging from the novels I've read, font selection rarely enters into the equation.

I travel for work so the ability to carry half a dozen novels and a bunch of reference books in my pocket is rather handy. To me the limitations of electronic reading technology are things like battery life, availability and selection, and DRM (which I've had no personal experience with yet because I don't have a Kindle). What's kept me from jumping on the Kindle bandwagon now that they're apparently available in Canada are some of the horror stories I've read of people losing books they've legitimately paid for. I don't want to pay full retail cost of a book to license it and be at the mercy of a nameless faceless entity that can revoke my license at any time.

Re:stupid

[Lord Ender]

If you take time to read the stories on slashdot, by the time you post you will be so far down the page nobody will ever read, reply to, or moderate your comment. Reacting to the summary is all we can reasonably expect!