Mark Charan Newton

A friend of mine asked me today about the death of the book as a result of the Amazon Kindle. I emailed him some concise reasons why this just SO wasn’t the case:

1 ) People who read a lot of books, love books, the physical thing. Period. They are unlikely to stop buying books because of this physical love. They like them on their shelves. They like walking up to them. Perhaps lending them to a friend.

2 ) People who don’t buy many books, but still read say a few a year, will not see any logic in purchasing an expensive device for such limited use.

3 ) You can’t see what someone’s reading—a significant driver in book sales. (Those seeking to wear books as a statement of intellect, fashion etc)

4 ) Would you want to read an expensive device in the bath? Books are quite easily replaceable. And they dry out, too.

5 ) Books are pretty cheap, easy to transport, and durable as it is. You can annotate them properly, and underline stuff etc. Nothing needs improving (which may well be a factor of it’s own).

6 ) The major book buying market exists for more older individuals; perhaps they are not technologically savvy.

7 ) This cannot be compared to the iPod. Music has always been played on a device—from early days etc to now. It’s just finding the perfect device. Well, books work as they are. They have never been ‘on something else’ apart from audio books, which play some role in the industry, but they’re for people on the go.

8 ) Individual mp3s were driving many of the sales behind iPods. The fact that you could hold a thousand tunes on one device was a wow factor. That’s not the same for books. people don’t read random chapters from many books. They read one book at a time.

9 ) This might work for some textbooks perhaps—but without colour? Really?

10 ) Many book purchases are made on cover design. You have no cover for these things that people can browse over.

11 ) The Kindle is being sold as something to consumers in a really persuasive way. When you saw simply what the iPod was, you just wanted to own one. You thought, that’s what I’m missing. I have to have it.

12 ) Amazon are spinning the hell out of this: ’sold out after a few hours’ - note that they’re also not listing this in the electronics store, but the ‘kindle store’, so it can’t be compared to other devices in sales rankings. I suspect if we look past the hype, which is painfully obvious here, things aren’t so pretty.

13 ) The digital rights on this suck. No one wants their book usage dictated to by a table full of lawyers.

14 ) The gift value of books—you only have to look at the fact that the majority of book sales are in the Xmas period. Unwrapping an ebook, not so nice or practical.

15 ) The Kindle looks as though it was designed circa 1983.
These are more points for considering, really. I’ve always maintained that those who are praising the ebook revolution are those who think they can sell product. They’re forgetting about readers, fundamentally, and see them as simple consumers. Book buying audiences are, generally, more than just a number.

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