EBOOKS AS CHRISTMAS OR BIRTHDAY GIFTS--Your thoughts?

Hi folks,

Just making some observations about ebooks and wondering how others think about this.

First, I’m a believer in ebooks. Big-time. I was old-school until about a year ago when I bought a Kindle. Now, I get nearly all my books on Kindle and even pass up buying books that don’t offer an ebook version. It’s changed my reading life. And, I buy way more books now that I don’t have to run to the bookstore or wait for them in the mail. I used to buy an average of four books a week and now I’m buying closer to seven books a week. Truth.

I even bought my wife Mary a Kindle and her reading habits have mirrored mine. We both love our Kindles! And, we’re both buying a lot more books than we ever have and we’ve always bought lots and lots of books. In fact, for over twenty years, as a family we visited a local bookstore every single weekend and we always bought lots of books.

Since we both got our Kindles, we’ve only gone to the bookstore a couple of times. One was solely because the local Borders closed their doors and we went to get in on the close-out sales. But, our tradition of going every single week is over.

And, I’ve got my next five novels coming out as ebooks. So, I’m solidly in the ebooks corner.

However, I was thinking about a weakness in the ebook market and wondered what others thought about this.

The weak spot in the ebook market I see is the Christmas and birthday or other gift market. It’s much more attractive to send a physical book to the person you’re gifting, plain and simple. It just feels like you’re giving a  bona fide gift when you can wrap it up and put a bow on it. Giving an ebook just doesn’t give me that kind of satisfaction. Plus, it’s really hard to send an ebook to a child in particular, because most of the kids in my family just don’t have Kindles or Nooks.

I’m sure that will change somewhat over the coming years, but I don’t think there’s going to be a mass exodus for parents to buy their kids their own Kindles. At least not in my family. I suspect that will be the case in the majority of other families as well. I’m aware that there are people with more disposable income than I enjoy and that there are those who were buying their kids cell phones years before the parents in my circle did, and those folks will perhaps purchase Kindles for their kids, but I suspect that’s not going to be a sizable market, at least for awhile. At least not on my block. As one kid answered his father the other day when he asked the little guy if he thought money grew on trees, retorting, "Not in our back yard."

I have no way of knowing this and am basing my assessment solely on my own experience, but I also think I’m probably typical. I suspect that last Christmas season, physical books sold far more than ebooks and I also suspect that will remain the case this year and for at least the foreseeable future. When I send my grandson Logan a book as a gift (which is my usual choice of gifts for him), I can’t even consider an ebook. It has to be a physical book. One, I want him to have the experience of opening up a present. That still trumps—experience-wise—clicking on an on-switch, even if he had a Kindle, which he doesn’t. That’s just an aesthetic that I don’t see Kindle overcoming, at least for now. In the future, perhaps.

What about you folks? Do you buy books for gifts and if you do, do you buy ebooks or physical books? Myself, even though I could send a gift certificate for an ebook, I probably won’t. At least for the kids I send presents to. I want to at least visualize them ripping open a brightly-colored package and getting their little sweaty mitts on a real object. Not a piece of paper that has the emotional value of getting a Burger Doodle Gift Certificate. I just can’t see them waving a slip of paper in the air, jumping up and down, and screaming, “Look what Grandpa sent me!” I can see that with a book…

Also, in years past, whenever I did a booksigning, there were lots of folks who bought more than one copy of the book I was signing and asked me to sign the extra copies for their friends or relatives. Not going to happen with ebooks. The vast majority of ebook buyers buy one copy. Which really makes the sales pitch  I've always made at those signings to "Buy 10 copies! Christmas is just around the corner!" pretty much invalid. I'd often say that in signings held in January. And, it worked. No mas... Actually, not as many signings either... I'll miss that!

I’m all for ebooks, but I see this as a market I think they’ll find difficult to make a lot of headway in, at least for now.

Thoughts?

Blue skies,

Les

EBOOKS OR NO?

Hi folks,

Thought I’d change it up a bit and see what people’s opinions are on ebooks. I recently visited Helen Ginger’s blog where she talked about libraries making available for loan books on e-readers. You can see her post at:

http://straightfromhel.blogspot.com/2011/03/libraries-and-ebooks.html

Helen wanted to know what people thought about libraries making ebooks available for loans to patrons. Here’s my reply:

Helen, I agree (partially) with the bookstore owner who said: “There's always going to be a certain percentage of people that want their hands on a paper page… They want to be able to lay in bed and read their book--they want to be able to feel that page and turn that page."

I agree that there are always going to be a certain percentage of people who want their hands on a paper page... although, as the population shifts in age, that demographic will shrink... but I disagree in part with the portion of his/her statement where he said folks will want to be able to lay in bed and read their book. The truth is, it's just as easy, if not even easier, to read a Kindle in bed, especially if you furnish it with a light. Even without a light, it's just as easy and perhaps even more so to read a Kindle in bed than an actual book. You don't have to worry about the pages flipping over and losing your place, etc.

I fought the ebook revolution for a long time--thinking nothing could replace books--but since using my Kindle, have found I not only buy even more books (from an average of 2 books a week, I'm up to almost an average of 4--but it's infinitely easier to carry around and read in all kinds of places than an actual book. Like it or not, I think it's here to stay and increasingly, more and more people will gravitate toward ebook readers. Print won't disappear, and I think a time will come when the percentages of each will "settle into place," but it will take over more and more of the market. Print will always be here in one form or another, as there are many advantages of print that electronic versions can't satisfy and won't be able to in the foreseeable future--for instance, I mark books up for learning purposes (writing techniques) and while it's possible to skip around on a Kindle, it's also a lot of trouble to do so at the present time. When they come up with a way to turn down corners to mark places to go to quickly, that will be a big plus. There are other areas ebooks don't currently work as well as print, but I imagine they'll figure out ways to make them even more convenient in the future.

What do y’all think?

I’d love to see comments/opinions on any of the following areas:

1. Do you think ebooks will ever take over the lion’s share of the reading experience…

            A. For fiction?

            B. For nonfiction?

2. Do ebooks benefit writers or harm them?

3. Will ebooks eventually result in more readers or less?

4. What are the advantages of…

            A. Print over ebooks?

            B. Ebooks over print?

5. What, if anything, would convince you to buy ebooks over printed novels/books if you don’t currently?

6. Any other thoughts on ebooks vs print?

I think it will be interesting to see what people think about this.

Blue skies,

Les

P.S. I'm well aware that I'm kind of late to this party. Kazillions and even dozens of blogs have talked about this stuff. But, just curious what you folks think, especially if you've changed your mind about ebooks. Next time, I'll talk about the effect the recent comet had on our dinosaur friends... Is this the end of Tyrannosaurus Rex as we know that lil' guy? Is that new thing they're calling "the wheel" going to last or is it just a fad? Other up-to-date, late-breaking news like that...