E-Books: Dead Trees vs Dead Money
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on July 30, 2010
I read recently that Amazon currently sell something like 180 e-books for every 100 dead-tree books.
I just finished reading Grumby as an e-book on my iPad via the Amazon Kindle software.
The book was a good read and it was a pleasure reading it on the iPad screen. Perhaps the best thing was that I could start reading it mere seconds after deciding to buy it. Instant gratification!
But here’s the problem. As soon as i finished it i thought, “Tim would perhaps like this, I’ll give it to him to read”. And there’s the “gotcha”. With a traditional book you can pass it on to whoever you like and they in turn can pass it on. So that over it’s lifetime a book is probably read by dozens of people.
With the e-book, I can’t do that. Once I’ve finished it it just sits there in my device doing nothing. It’s dead money.
There’s no incentive at all for Amazon and the like to make it possible to pass on an e-book once you’ve read it. They’d obviously prefer Tim went and bought it himself.
Given that most books are the same price or more expensive in the e-book format than they are in paperback, I think for now I’ll stick with dead trees over dead money on my next purchase.
2 Responses to E-Books: Dead Trees vs Dead Money
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Jim Cahill
Amazon allow you to share, in certain circumstances. your books with up to 6 users.
You can have up to 6 Kindles registered to the same account, and books may be shared amongst them. The catch is that they all must be on the same account, and all must use the same credit card for purchases.
So if you trust Tim with access to you amazon purchasing account, there is no reason why he cannot download a (free) version of the kindle reader to his pc/mac/iphone/ipad/blackberry/android phone and read away to his hearts delight.
The publishers are the ones who restrict the number of users. On some ebooks the number you can share with might be lower.
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See what all the fuss is about
Plus, once I’ve read an eBook I can’t even give it away. That’s a damn shame for the charity shops I regularly give bags full of books to (and also regularly buy from for my Dad). Someone had a vote about the concept of ownership and turned it into leasing, but I must have been on holiday at the time because I missed it.