The reason I ask is that I just published my second novel on Kindle with Amazon here in the U.S. I'm curious to see if anyone actually buys and reads books online. I feel like a pioneer, but there's not a lot of choice. The physical publishing world has crumbled much as the physical music recording industry has already done so.

It is predicted that Barnes and Noble, the last brick and mortar bookstore chain in the States, will go belly up before long. There's no use anymore trying to find an agent, etc., if there's fewer and fewer physical books being printed. Personally I don't read books online, articles, blogs, yes, but not actual novels. Still, I see the future and it's online whether I/we like it or not. I imagine it will be older folks who might not convert in big numbers to Kindle or other computer related reading devices.

It breaks my heart that I've dreamed since I was a kid to have my own published hardback in my hand, and that may not happen now. I can't believe I'm living in a time when the printing press is being pushed aside. It boggles my mind to imagine how people will find new books to read if they're not milling around a bookstore, checking out what's on the shelves. I guess the ghosts of Virgin Records, Tower and others should make me want a stiff shot of something.

Anyway, I would appreciate your feedback on this matter.

I held out for a long time, finally got a Nook a couple years ago, now it's second nature. Actually was reading the True Adventures of the Rolling Stones last night on it. More and more I use it for the internet, but it is nice for books and magazines. A lot cheaper to read English music mags than buying one in the store.

I have a NOOK, just got it last year and I like it. One of the nice things is that you can download a sample of a book, look it over, and then decide whether or not you want to read it. Sorta like leafing through a book in the bookstore.

I agree that it's not the same as a hardback, especially so I imagine for a writer, but it is the wave of the future, as you said 24FPS. One of the difficulties with the tranistion to e-readers is in education. We are seeing increasing numbers of kids at the school where I teach who don't want to buy a hard copy of a required book, because they have a Kindle. In the past, they had to highlight and take notes with pages numbers included, so now we have to figure out a different way to monitor whether or not they are doing the assignment. Textbooks are moving that way too.

Like you, I do miss browsing through bookstores, they just closed the Barnes and Noble nearest to me last month. There is still one huge Borders, Barnes and Noble not far, and it's always crowded, so hopefully that one will be around for a while.

Good luck with the book, let us know what it is so we can check it out!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2013-07-07 16:20 by latebloomer.

Still love 'proper' books but I've read quite a few on my Kindle Fire too. It's probably the future, which would mean the end of bookshops, which is sad.

I do have reservations. If I read a book I can't lend it to a friend. Not sure about other readers but with the Kindle Amazon can take stuff back. So if I buy a book which is, for example, withdrawn after a court case Amazon can recall all the eBooks they've sold.

I have a Kindle, but I lost interest very quickly. I still prefer the physical thing. It's odd, as it's the opposite with music, now. I download and don't buy CD's.

.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2015-03-28 17:31 by camper88.

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latebloomer
I have a NOOK, just got it last year and I like it. One of the nice things is that you can download a sample of a book, look it over, and then decide whether or not you want to read it. Sorta like leafing through a book in the bookstore.

I agree that it's not the same as a hardback, especially so I imagine for a writer, but it is the wave of the future, as you said 24FPS. One of the difficulties with the tranistion to e-readers is in education. We are seeing increasing numbers of kids at the school where I teach who don't want to buy a hard copy of a required book, because they have a Kindle. In the past, they had to highlight and take notes with pages numbers included, so now we have to figure out a different way to monitor whether or not they are doing the assignment. Textbooks are moving that way too.

Like you, I do miss browsing through bookstores, they just closed the Barnes and Noble nearest to me last month. There is still one huge Borders not far, and it's always crowded, so hopefully that one will be around for a while.

Good luck with the book, let us know what it is so we can check it out!

It's called 'Vortex Hollywood' by Robert Nicolas. (That's a pen name so I'm not really giving away my identity). I'm trying desperately to remain open minded. Promotion is the key to get some eyeballs on it.

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camper88
E-book or hardcopy, one still has to write in a way that engages one's audience. That doesn't change just because the technology does.
[en.wikipedia.org])

This is absolutely true. At some point you have to put your cards on the table. Although there is no promotional push from a big publishing house, the trade off is that you own your work and get a larger royalty cut per book sold. It immediately goes on sale around the world and you more or less know your cut from each territory. The quandary is building interest. It's a Brave New World (also available on Kindle).

I read ebooks on a Kobo reader but for most of them they are 19th century classics (as I find new ebooks way too expensive when compared to the paper version).

Most of the time though I go to a bookshop to buy "actual" books. And you can get plenty of advices from the sellers too.

I don't think electronic books are the end of "paper" books. In Paris there's still a lot of bookshops...

Another advantage of "paper" books is you can lend them to your friends.

I read your story and it's very similar to mine. I have a 1st novel written, couldn't get it published on print, and for years I dreamt about having my own physical books on the bookshelf, and being able to touch them, scroll through the pages, etc.

My wife has a kindle, and I have read 2 or 3 books with my cellphone, mostly during vacations, doctor's waiting room, etc. We simply don't buy digital books. We're from a generation (and a country ) that hardly pays for anything digital. I prefer to go to Gutenberg.org and get a classic for free than to pay whatever to download a new book. From an author's perspective, I know this is terrible, but I also know I'm not alone on this as a reader.

Also, if english is your native language, then you have a huge advantage in digital publishing. I started a new work just recently, and to go the digital way I probably will need to have it translated before trying Amazon. That's a high added cost, and a big risk. Every books we download here are in English.

My wife and daughter both constantly are buying and reading books on a kindle.

I read mostly magazines from the Zinio App. iPad.

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ChefGuevara
My wife and daughter both constantly are buying and reading books on a kindle.

This is what I'm finding surprising. I just talked with my Aunt & Uncle, both around 70, and they use Kindle all the time. I had no idea it's getting as common as it is for even older folks to use it. I guess people like me who love hardback books, dustcovers and all, will become like the nerds who will only listen to vinyl records.

I only read technical books on Kindle. For novels I prefer the real thing.

..........highly dangerous ...I wouldn't attempt it



ROCKMAN

I am surprised to learn from latebloomer's post that there are still Borders bookstore locations that are open. There used to be three huge Borders stores in the Boston area, all within a half-hour walk from one another, but all three closed at about the same time 2 years ago. Now there is just a large Barnes & Noble in downtown Boston, and some others scattered about.

It's ironic that we should be mourning the passing of these mega-chain booksellers, because in their heyday of the 1990s and 2000s these very same big chains were being denounced and condemned for the demise of the many smaller independent booksellers that once thrived and prospered.

I still haven't switched to reading books online or taken to purchasing books via NOOK or Kindle, but then I only purchased my first CD player in 2004. I'm always trailing well behind the latest technological trends.

There is something about the online environment that makes us lazy in some ways when it comes to consulting old-fashioned hard copy. On a table literally just 4 steps from my computer there sits a copy of Webster's dictionary. Yet, when working at the computer or when I want to look up a word I find myself "flipping the pages" of Google instead. It is simply too much work to travel the great distance of 4 steps and hoist up the dead weight of that published volume of words on paper.

The trouble with the old hard copy books is that they don't have lights in them to illuminate the pages. There is something oddly comforting about staring into the warm glow of a computer screen, it provides the same passive escapism that television does. We are consumed by light. Like moths we are drawn to the flame.

Perhaps one day we will be mourning the passing of the NOOK and Kindle formats as well.

Not a big fan of e-books. I prefer a nice hardcover book I can hold in my hand.

I read books online all the time.

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stonehearted
Perhaps one day we will be mourning the passing of the NOOK and Kindle formats as well.

We've become so jaded that we anticipate the current tech will most certainly be outdated very soon by something we can't even fathom yet. Maybe not. Maybe Kindle and the like are the beginning of something, like television, that is the base technology and for some time there will just be refinements. If a new generation grows up without physical books they will easily accept it and not miss something they never had. I have a couple comic books from the 1940s, nothing valuable except for the pickle smell and the pulpy paper. I can still see Get Off of My Cloud rotating on my 45RPM player, the London label spinning round and round as Charlie's dynamite sticks reverberated out of the tiny speakers.

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24FPS

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stonehearted
Perhaps one day we will be mourning the passing of the NOOK and Kindle formats as well.

We've become so jaded that we anticipate the current tech will most certainly be outdated very soon by something we can't even fathom yet. Maybe not. Maybe Kindle and the like are the beginning of something, like television, that is the base technology and for some time there will just be refinements. If a new generation grows up without physical books they will easily accept it and not miss something they never had. I have a couple comic books from the 1940s, nothing valuable except for the pickle smell and the pulpy paper. I can still see Get Off of My Cloud rotating on my 45RPM player, the London label spinning round and round as Charlie's dynamite sticks reverberated out of the tiny speakers.

I started school in the early 70s, and I remember the ditto machines still in use in the mid-70s. Occasionally, as a treat, students would be sent down to the front room of the school where the ditto machines would crank out quiz and test papers. You would get to overlook the purple ink that went into the machine to print out the results--a mix of methanol and isopropanol. You could could always tell, when they passed back papers to each student's desk, you would hold them up to your nose and you just knew it was fresh from the ditto machine. It's impossible to describe, but you never forget it, that strange, pleasingly chemical smell that said, ah, we've got papers to do now! Are kids today missing anything because they don't know what ditto papers fresh from the (copier) machine smell like? I would think not.

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24FPS
The reason I ask is that I just published my second novel on Kindle with Amazon here in the U.S. I'm curious to see if anyone actually buys and reads books online. I feel like a pioneer, but there's not a lot of choice. The physical publishing world has crumbled much as the physical music recording industry has already done so.

It is predicted that Barnes and Noble, the last brick and mortar bookstore chain in the States, will go belly up before long.

Anyway, I would appreciate your feedback on this matter.

Imho the e-book thing is still very marginal in the rest of the world... as well as in the US!
Big players like Amazon are pushing hard to let ppl think the paper book is dead because :
they also sell Kindles
their ultimate goal is to sell ebooks for the sale price as they sell phys books. Can you imagine the profit they'll make?

But the "paper books are dead" is imo utter BS.

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24FPS

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stonehearted
Perhaps one day we will be mourning the passing of the NOOK and Kindle formats as well.

We've become so jaded that we anticipate the current tech will most certainly be outdated very soon by something we can't even fathom yet. Maybe not. Maybe Kindle and the like are the beginning of something, like television, that is the base technology and for some time there will just be refinements. If a new generation grows up without physical books they will easily accept it and not miss something they never had. I have a couple comic books from the 1940s, nothing valuable except for the pickle smell and the pulpy paper. I can still see Get Off of My Cloud rotating on my 45RPM player, the London label spinning round and round as Charlie's dynamite sticks reverberated out of the tiny speakers.

hmm but now television is over....
netflix + itunes + hulu = no need for cable or satellite tv
haven't had it for 2 years now.

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sonomastone

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24FPS

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stonehearted
Perhaps one day we will be mourning the passing of the NOOK and Kindle formats as well.

We've become so jaded that we anticipate the current tech will most certainly be outdated very soon by something we can't even fathom yet. Maybe not. Maybe Kindle and the like are the beginning of something, like television, that is the base technology and for some time there will just be refinements. If a new generation grows up without physical books they will easily accept it and not miss something they never had. I have a couple comic books from the 1940s, nothing valuable except for the pickle smell and the pulpy paper. I can still see Get Off of My Cloud rotating on my 45RPM player, the London label spinning round and round as Charlie's dynamite sticks reverberated out of the tiny speakers.

hmm but now television is over....
netflix + itunes + hulu = no need for cable or satellite tv
haven't had it for 2 years now.

I don't even own a television--and I grew up on it, born in 1966, so you know, up to the mid-80s, couldn't imagine life without it.

But now I just own a DVD player, and watch my old favorite shows on DVD--or online.

I read books on my smartphone sometime, but I love the smell and feel of a book. Have a few 2nd hand books and love to know they have been enjoyed by someone else.

.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2015-03-28 17:30 by camper88.

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stonehearted
I am surprised to learn from latebloomer's post that there are still Borders bookstore locations that are open.

Sorry, my mistake, I just typed the wrong thing...it is a Barnes and Noble, not Borders. All the Borders in our area have closed too.

My whole family and most friends read only on their Kindles. It's absolutely excellent, I have no doubt whatsoever that paper books will soon be dead. Talking about fiction here, obviously photography, scientific stuff with lots of graphs etc. will still be printed.

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sonomastone

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24FPS

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stonehearted
Perhaps one day we will be mourning the passing of the NOOK and Kindle formats as well.

We've become so jaded that we anticipate the current tech will most certainly be outdated very soon by something we can't even fathom yet. Maybe not. Maybe Kindle and the like are the beginning of something, like television, that is the base technology and for some time there will just be refinements.

hmm but now television is over....
netflix + itunes + hulu = no need for cable or satellite tv
haven't had it for 2 years now.

What I mean by base technology is that the television itself has not been pushed aside and some new invention took its place. The original technology has simply been improved upon over the last 70 years or so. It went from a passive technology to being interactive. Reading a book online is very primitive compared to what they'll be capable of in time. Just as the computer's we use now will evolve and will undoubtedly become faster.

Who knows, with 3-D printers in their infancy, in time we may be able to print our own hardback books at home if we so desire. The physical book will not die, but may become more rare, just as the vinyl record is today. As you mention with Netflix, etal, it's becoming less common for people to collect physical DVDs. I'm just trying to survive a changing world. There is anxiety and opportunity in change.

I have a Kindle Paperwhite. The "CBS National News" closed a broadcast last week with a story about a married couple with kids who were going to lose their house. So they sat down, and, from morning `til night, wrote novel after novel and self-published them on Kindle. Their combined novels ended up selling more than a million copies, and they made the NY Times E-book Fiction bestseller list. And the resulting revenue meant they got to keep their house.

Admit it you want us to buy your book