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No one buys books

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Re: No one buys books

#501

Post by BoringTimesGang »

TheCapeGreek wrote: post #386
AlotOfReading wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You forgot the third and fourth failure modes: weight and bag space. Books take a lot of it. An e-reader is thinner than any book and weighs the same no matter how many it's holding. I used to take my e-reader on field expeditions when I was an archaeologist. Never had one die or break even after months in places like Siberia. The number of notebooks that were ruined during those same expeditions is non-zero, usually…

Considering you're on HN, it's likely a safe bet to say you also travel with a laptop. In which case, an e-reader is still a waste of space because your laptop can just open ebooks too. Or if you don't, then your phone is still a better space saver for reading books with. Yet, you will likely prefer to take your e-reader with anyway (and its charger if it isn't the same as other devices). This is why I find "saving s…

My laptop and phone can't last through a long-haul flight. My e-reader doesn't need charging until I come home, fits in a jeans pocket and is a similar weight to my passport.

Re: No one buys books

#502

Post by DrBazza »

paxys wrote: post #101

Can't help but feel for the publishing industry considering how shafted they got by tech. You distribute books all over the country? Amazon can do it better and cheaper. You print books? Well we have e-books now. You have a massive back catalog? Google just scanned all of it. You do marketing? Authors now have their own followings on social media and can reach them directly. You give cash advances? Fans on Kickstarte…

In the UK many years ago, there was the Net Book Agreement, which was price fixing and Amazon, BooksOnline/StreetsOnline comprehensively broke that. Unfortunately, book shops didn't really learn, and we are where we are.

Back to the title. I still buy books. I've stopped buying them from Amazon, and just buy them from my LBS.

Though one thing still makes me irrationally angry - "SciFi + Fantasy" as "a genre" in bookshops. No. It. Isn't. It's two separate. Two loved-up vampires, isn't sci-fi. At least on Amazon I can filter that. Browse on Amazon, buy in the LBS. Which is the reverse of what I did a decade ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_Book_Agreement

Re: No one buys books

#503

Post by TheCapeGreek »

BoringTimesGang wrote: post #501
TheCapeGreek wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering you're on HN, it's likely a safe bet to say you also travel with a laptop. In which case, an e-reader is still a waste of space because your laptop can just open ebooks too. Or if you don't, then your phone is still a better space saver for reading books with. Yet, you will likely prefer to take your e-reader with anyway (and its charger if it isn't the same as other devices). This is why I find "saving s…

My laptop and phone can't last through a long-haul flight. My e-reader doesn't need charging until I come home, fits in a jeans pocket and is a similar weight to my passport.

That's kind of my point - your preferences are to the advantage of the e-reader. For others, the same might apply to physical books instead, despite the disadvantage of bulk.

Re: No one buys books

#504

Post by BoringTimesGang »

hollandheese wrote: post #221
echelon_musk wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The older I get the less I trust myself to know how to administer or even to care how to work any current or future reading e-device. A printed book requires light as just about it's only dependency! I definitely agree with you about the distractions of digital devices. Switching to a book is a focused mode.

E-readers are often very simple devices. Their main audience is older people. Light being a dependency of reading a printed book is one of the biggest plus for e-ink readers. You don't need light, they already come with it! It's so much easier reading with a Kindle (in dark mode) at bed time than it is a paper book.

And when you read lying on your side, no awkward holding for the nearside pages!

Re: No one buys books

#505

Post by theshrike79 »

For "linear fiction"[0] I use an e-ink reader exclusively. I also re-read books pretty much never. There are way too many excellent books I haven't read yet, so why would I spend time redoing something I have already experienced? I can easily hi-light stuff on the Kindle and check them out from Goodreads if I need to later.

For books I read for work and other knowledge stuff it's either PDF on an iPad or a web page. In some rare cases a physical book, but stuff tends to move so fast paper reference books expire too fast to have any advantage compared to asking a large language model.

If I get the urge to make any notes from this category, they go into Obsidian.

[0] Books that are read from beginning to end with no need to jump around to check stuff you read before. Could be a biography too, which isn't fiction per se.

Re: No one buys books

#506

Post by BoringTimesGang »

endgame wrote: post #212
yreg wrote: post #51

I recently started buying paper books. Yes, it's not particularly ecological, but I found that I'm able to focus at the text much better this way. My Kindle (despite plenty of obvious advantages) just doesn't really work for me. It took me years to realize this, but I always start to tinker with the brightness settings, switch pages back and forth, go into the book library and back, play with highlighting words, etc.…

On top of all of that, nobody's going to revise the book out from under me while I'm reading it, or prevent me from loaning it to a friend, or even yanking it entirely from my device.

Reading ebooks doesn't mean submitting to Amazon's ecosystem.

Re: No one buys books

#507

Post by dredmorbius »

paxys wrote: post #126
WolfeReader wrote: post #23

Haven't libraries already been a "Netflix of books" for millenia now?

How much of the population has access to well stocked libraries?

Within the US, virtually any resident of a large city or major metropolitan area, which is over 85% of the population: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/08/12/us/census-results-da...>.

This is also one of the areas in which the Internet has actually delivered on early promise (though the success has been a long time coming, and remains precarious): the Internet Archive offers access to over 20 million records, and aims to have a web page for every book ever published. Note that this still isn't full access to all material, but it's quite good.

https://openlibrary.org/about>

The US Library of Congress has also been expanding its public access, as have other large public libraries (the New York Public Library notably). LoC also have specific programmes aimed at disabled readers such as its NLS BARD programme for the visually- and reading-disabled.

https://federalnewsnetwork.com/open-datatransparency/2022/02...>

https://www.loc.gov/nls/how-to-enroll/sign-up-for-bard-and-b...>

Re: No one buys books

#509

Post by eeskildsen »

grepLeigh wrote: post #332

From the article: >>> "Wouldn’t it be great if you could pay $9.99 a month and read all of the books you want?" I sincerely hope nothing "disrupts" public libraries in my lifetime. As a California resident, I can walk into ANY public library in the state and get a free library card with access to physical books, audiobooks, ebooks. Some branches have laptops, hotspots, tablets, e-readers available to borrow. My local…

Since going full-time on my startup, I often work remotely at my local library. Over my time there, my eyes have been opened to what an absolute treasure public libraries are.

Besides the physical books everyone knows about, which are a treasure by themselves, there are many other valuable resources, as you mentioned, including:

- The Adobe suite, even including Character Animator

- Udemy

- Digital access to The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and others

- Free notary services

- Print magazines and newspapers

- Puzzles

- Music and films

- eBooks and audiobooks

...not to mention community activities like classes, groups, and concerts.

Just being physically present in the library has benefited me. When I take breaks, I sometimes pick up a book at random. It may be about sales, health, politics, history. I sometimes come away with new ideas for my business, sometimes am just inspired or informed or amused in general.

I encourage anyone reading to stop by a library if you haven't been in a while. See what they offer. You might be surprised. And please, do what you can to support them in whatever way you can, even if that's just to use them, demonstrating the need for them by your patronage. We need these institutions, and they won't be around forever without our support.

Re: No one buys books

#510

Post by yard2010 »

grepLeigh wrote: post #332

From the article: >>> "Wouldn’t it be great if you could pay $9.99 a month and read all of the books you want?" I sincerely hope nothing "disrupts" public libraries in my lifetime. As a California resident, I can walk into ANY public library in the state and get a free library card with access to physical books, audiobooks, ebooks. Some branches have laptops, hotspots, tablets, e-readers available to borrow. My local…

Sure but why would I pay for something I can get for free from the library - either a physical one or genesis?
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