Opinion: The Kindle, and other e-readers didn’t kill Borders, Independent Book stores can still survive in a ‘digital world’, and why the e-book debate, is focusing on the wrong issues.

This news right here ↑ has caused the hipsters of the internet to vent their collective rage. The reaction to the news also served to form the ‘inspiration’ for the following wall of text:

Opinion: The Kindle, and other e-readers didn’t kill Borders, Independent Book stores can still survive in a ‘digital world’, and why the e-book debate, is focusing on the wrong issues…

The recent [late April / early May] news that Amazon are now selling 105 ebooks for every 100 Physical books has, to put it mildly, irritated a fair few people.

Computer files outselling, real, physical books?

Fuck You Amazon!

they screamed, as they rocked, backwards and forwards, clutching their battered, dog-eared physical books, like they contained the secrets of the universe.

Fuck you for killing Borders. For destroying small, independent bookstores – for depriving our future children of the joy of reading, from stealing from the world, the smell of new books, the pleasure of cracking the spine of a book for the first time, the pleasure of feeling a books’ textured pages, as you journey into a new world…

Suffice to say I have a few things to say as well…

First things first – for any new ‘followers’, or anyone who has found this via one of the Tags – I’m a Kindle owner. I wrote a short(!) piece about the device back in December of 2010, after owning one for a little over a week. You can find said ‘review’ ::here::

So yes - obligatory disclaimer - I’m a Kindle user. However, I’ve been reading books since I was 11 [It’s a long story]- I was 26 when I picked up my Kindle, so I think it’s fair to say in the 15 years since I learnt to read, that I’ve read substantially more ‘physical’ books, than I have ‘e-books’ – I don’t have detailed records of all the books I’ve ever read, but I can tell you that since December, I’ve read 32 books on the device.

Which is a reasonable amount, but probably around 5% of the total number of books I’ve read in my book reading ‘life’. So hopefully, that should demonstrate that I’ve spent considerably more time reading ‘physical’ books, then e-books.

Are we in agreement? Then I’ll carry on to the point I wanna make…

Amazons’ Kindle didn’t kill Borders. While I’d be willing to agree that Amazon as a company most definitely helped contribute to the downfall of the company – it’s not like they didn’t have any help in the matter – From Borders themselves. It’s something I touched on back in March [interestingly - at least to me, in the form of a queued post], but basically my position is that Borders went into administration through poor management decisions, and attempting to diversify into too many different areas, as opposed to as a consequence of the Kindle.

I’m not saying the popularity of Kindles helped matters, but it definitely wasn’t the main problem. At push, I suppose you could argue it was the ‘straw that broke the camels back’.

If you’re reading this anytime after [I’m gonna be generous] 2014 - Amazons Kindle didn’t kill Waterstones, either. Actually – let’s expand this away from one company [I’ve noticed that the ‘Anti ereader brigade’ seem to focus on the Kindle, in much the same way that a lot of people think Apple are the only people in the world who make Multimedia players] to encompass the whole e-reader marketplace – be it Kindles, Nooks, Kobos, or some as yet unveiled uber-ereader.

I’ve also noticed almost all of the ‘Anti e-reader’ brigade seem to fall victim to the same problems. Firstly, they seem to fetichise [sp?] physical books to the extent that I’m sure some of them are actually suffering from a paraphillia of some sort.

Secondly, they also seem to suffer from what I call the ‘Apple Syndrome’. Basically there are a lot of people in the world, who think Apple are the only people who make handheld multimedia players [was tempted to put ‘mp3 players’ there - showing my age]. It seems that the majority of people who’re against e-readers, seem to suffer from this – they all seem to think the Kindle is the only e-reader on the market. I suppose, from Amazons’ perspective this is a good thing, but spare a thought for the other e-readers on the market.

Thirdly - they, to a person, seem to not be able to look up spec. sheets on the internet. If we go with the evidence from Point two – that these people all think the Kindle is the ONLY e-reader on the market – well, shouldn’t they have taken 30 seconds to look up the specifications. Seems they cant’. Oh well – I guess I’ll just have to say this again:

KINDLES DO NOT HAVE BRIGHT, SHINY DISPLAYS.
KINDLES DO NOT HAVE BRIGHT, SHINY DISPLAYS.
KINDLES DO NOT HAVE BRIGHT, SHINY DISPLAYS.

Clear enough?

They use Pearl E-Ink displays, produced for them, by a company called E-Ink Holdings. These displays aren’t backlit. As a consequence, it’s nothing like looking at a computer screen. Ask anyone who has ever read a book on a Kindle, and I’d be willing to bet a lung [which for me, is saying something] that most people will say they’re, at a minimum, ‘comfortable’ to read on. It’s not as good as high quality books – but compared to most books, it’s at a minimum, on par [in some cases, better].

Now of course, this doesn’t apply to all e-readers. The cheaper models / the tablet models DO use LCD panels. But the Kindle [which, as stated above, seems to be the source of peoples’ irk], uses an E-Ink display.

Oh, and while we’re at it – you can also add in bookmarks.

And Finally – And this seems to be the one everyone overlooks - Who the fuck said you have to be ‘exclusive’ to one format or the other? I use a Kindle [3] – and if the Kobo comes out over here, at a decent price, I might test drive one of those. I’ll also most likely buy a Kindle 4, in 2012.

But I still read ‘physical’ books. Yes, since buying my Kindle, and ‘acquiring’ a metric fuck-tonne of books, I’ve donated a lot of physical books to charity. But I still own at least two hundred physical books.

Anyways – I seem to have wondered off the rails a wee-bit [I never really plan any of these ‘articles’ - I just sit down and start writing. So they usually do tend to jump all over the place, as I think of different things, however, even I’ll concede that this one got side tracked a little bit early]. So back on track…

I wanna focus this onto three specific points, that seem to crop up again, and again:

1. E-Readers are responsible for the closing down of Borders / the financial trouble Waterstones finds itself in.
2. E-Readers are responsible for the demise of independent bookstores.
3. The physical books vs E-Books debate is drawing attention away from the real discussion that needs to take place, with regards e-books..

So with that in mind…

E-Readers are responsible for the demise of Borders / the trouble Waterstones finds itself in.

To an extent, I’ve already addressed this, back in November 2009. On November 26th 2009, Borders (UK) went into administration. Two days later, I wrote a short [<1300 words] article that basically explored why, in my opinion, the company went into Administration [You can read it 

There’s also a fullsize bookcase [80% full of DVDs] on one wall, with a few other books, a utility room that contains a few shelves full of books, and a fullsize bookcase in my bedroom, that also holds books.

The other point, I wanted to make, before moving on. It’s perfectly fine to have a preference, one way or the other. I have absolutely no problem whatsoever, with people who’ve tried an e-reader [as long as it’s a decent, e-ink sporting one] and decide it’s not for them. I’ve also got no problem with people who don’t think the device suits their lifestyle – If you’d have told me in 2009 I’d be sitting here typing up a rambling, rambling, diatribe defending e-books – hell I’d have thought you were all kinds of crazy. My objection, as indicited a few thousand words ago, are the people who criticise, without taking the time to look into the device they’re so quick to condemn.

And now – the most important part.

#3 - The physical books vs E-Books debate is drawing attention away from the real discussion that needs to take place, with regards e-books.

Having spent almost 3300 words extolling the virtues of e-readers – now it’s time to address the concerns I’ve got. The way I see it, the following problems / issues, need to be addressed:

• Amazon need to embrace .epub
• Publishers need to figure out an appropriate business model, for ebooks that are being sold to libraries.
• [UK] The Government needs to drop the VAT on Digital Books.

Amazon need to embrace the .epub format.

First things first – huge, huge thanks to everyones favourite Apple loving Legal Superstar, Mr Chris D. Woo, for pointing me in the direction of this article, which saved me [and any poor souls still reading this tripe] a few hundred words. Basically e-books come in different file formats [though they typically contain the same html inside, from what I can gather].

The EPub Standard, is an attempt to create a ‘universal’ format, that’s readable on all e-readers / e-book applications. It’s not without its flaws – it doesn’t support different page layouts, and it can’t render equations – what should be rendered in MathML is actually linked as series of .bmp images, which aside from leading to an increase in filesize, can mean that certain parts of books aren’t displayed properly.

However, the standard [as well as the whole e-book industry] is still somewhat in its infancy, and the recently announced EPUB 3.0 Standard, attempts to address some of these concerns.

Of the numerous e-readers that are available Amazon are the only major company whose devices don’t recognise .epub files [the exception being one of the older Sony readers]. The format that seems to work best with the Kindle are .mobi files.

Now on the one hand – you could argue there’s nothing wrong with this. It’s no different to Apple – they manufacture their devices, and then [somewhat] force you to use iTunes to sync the device, as well as access to their iTunes store.

The difference, however, is that with Apple products, you can at least import mp3s / video into iTunes, and it’ll convert it. The same isn’t true with Amazon.

But why is this a problem? Well, seeing as how .epub is designed as the ‘universal format’, it’s the format that’s being embraced by public libraries. So whilst the vast majority of the e-reader devices will work with library e-books, as of the time of writing, the Kindle won’t.

Which is why the rumors that Amazon will eventually allow their devices to read .epub files, is all kinds of good.

Kinda.

First things first – having looked around a few Kindle boards, a lot of people think this means that you’ll be able to buy books from any bookstores, and read them on any device, assuming they’re in .epub format.

This won’t be happening. Amazon [I assume] will push out a firmware update that allows the devices to read unprotected [i.e. non-DRM] files. While I’ve never personally used the Barnes & Noble website [being from the UK], or any other sites that sell books in that format [due to the lack of support on the Kindle], I’m fairly confident that the files from said e-stores are DRMd, which means, of course, that if Amazon only allows unprotected files to work – That these purchases won’t work.

So that’s one thing that needs addressing – and will hopefully Amazon are currently working on it. However, there are a few other concerns – time to move onto the second one:

Publishers need to figure out an appropriate business model, for ebooks that are being sold to libraries.

For those who don’t know, HarperCollins recently incurred the wrath of a hell of a lot of libraries [and the public] when they set a ‘limit’ on the number of times that their ebooks can be ‘checked out’. According to HarperCollins, physical books have to be replaced, after a certain period of time, and so, according to them, it’s only reasonable to create an ‘artificial’ cap, on the number of times each book can be borrowed.

So that’s exactly what they’ve done. They’re limiting their books to 26 Loans, before they ‘self-destruct’.

I can’t even begin to describe how ill thought out this decision is. Yes, it’s true that physical books can deteriorate over the course of their ‘circulation’ in the library systems, however – most libraries sell off old stock, twice a year, to clear shelf / storage space, and to recuperate money.

The other thing, that immediately springs to mind – one of the ‘selling points’ of e-books, is that you can’t damage them. You can admittedly damage the device, but the file(s) itself, are backed up.

So yeah – suffice to say, this is a stupid decision. In the same vein as charging more for the Kindle editions, than their subsequent physical versions.

And now – the final part [and you’ll be happy to note, this one’s a quick point]

[UK] The Government needs to drop VAT on Digital Books.

Print books in the United Kingdom, aren’t subject to VAT. Which is awesome. The problem, however, is that Digital Books ARE subject to VAT, due to a loophole that our arsehole Government aren’t too eager to close. So one of my perpetual arguments about Kindle books – that they’re becoming more expensive than their print cousins, is partly due to the 20% Tax-levy imposed by the Government.

Suffice to say, I’d appreciate it if the Government corrects this. And by corrects it – I mean they reduce the VAT on Digital Books, NOT that they decide to inflict VAT on Physical books.

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