Amazon is slotted to release their new line of Kindles come mid-November, and it’s resparking the e-reader debate. With the ever-rising sales numbers of e-readers like Amazon’s Kindle and Barnes & Noble’s Nook, there are still some people adamantly against the format.
“I love the idea of them, but I like having physical copies of my books and I’m not paying for them twice,” says Southwest Minnesota State University student Kalli Olek.
The research by companies seems to agree with Olek’s stance. People like having physical copies of their books. Some people claim reading just isn’t the same without the feel of the book and paper and the sounds of a flipping page.
The Kindle Fire was the first tablet/e-reader hybrid. It boasted high sales right off the bat, and Barnes & Noble’s Nook Color soon followed. This format combines the simplicity of an e-reader with the bonus features of a tablet such as the iPad or Galaxy Nexus. Accounting student and technology buff Jon Diel thinks that the hybrid tablets are making traditional e-readers obsolete.
“I think the e-reader is pointless with the tablet being so closely related. The same technology is employed in both, only the tablet refines it into a more modern feel.” He does point out that the traditional e-readers have some benefits like extended battery life and e-ink (and new Paperwhite) displays, which are easier on the eyes than an LCD screen.
For authors the e-reader vs. traditional book debate is a lot trickier. Converting a manuscript to an e-reader file is simple and cost-free, and by saving on printing costs by publishing digitally authors can get anywhere from 50-90% profits from their books.
Traditional publishing typically only net an author 10-50% of the profit and requires a lot more work and many more steps. However, publishing digitally increases the risk of piracy, because book files can be illegally downloaded for free via peer-to-peer sharing networks.
Whether you’re a reader, a writer, a student, or all of the above , an e-reader is no doubt on your horizon. Will you take the fancy new thing of the future, or stick with the old, tried and true standard physical book? Only time will tell.