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Novelists On the E-Book Experience

Posted by timothy on from the war-and-peace-batteries-dead-again dept.

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."

4 of 215 comments (clear)

  1. No problem by Dyinobal · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:No problem by FrankSchwab · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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

      --
      And the worms ate into his brain.
  2. Comfort and Freedom are their Best Aspects by ideonexus · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    --
    i ~ Celebrating Science, Cyberspace, Speculation
  3. Monopoly by Aladrin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    " 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.

    --
    "If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM