Mark Kolier’s Blog

Posts Tagged ‘e-books’

I received a nice gift from a good friend and associate last week. It was a signed copy of restaurateur Danny Meyer’s 2006 book ‘Setting the Table’ (very good book too). I didn’t know it was signed until I opened the cover and saw the signature. It made me smile and it made me think about e-books and the constant drone that e-readers and e-books are going to eliminate the need for the printed book.

Having spent a good part of my career helping clients put ink on paper – a business that has changed (ok been reduced) dramatically I can relate to new technologies sweeping out the status quo. And while I still enjoy my 1st generation Amazon Kindle, I find that I carry it around mostly when I am traveling as a hedge to be sure I always have more than enough to read. I still enjoy a good old-fashioned printed book –hardcover or soft cover.

Now there are color e-readers and they come with even more features. This morning I read in the New York Times http://nyti.ms/dPXmMI about e-readers that can display picture books in spread form such that you can see the spread page as the author intended in the actual book. I think that is a good and useful feature. And yet I wonder if Mom or Dad and their young child would ‘curl up’ to read a picture e-book?
If you are out at a book signing would you ever hand over your Nook to the author to sign the latest copy of their hot new book? I am sure there will be a way (if there isn’t already) for authors to sign e-versions of their books. But to me it will never be or feel the same.

The point is that there is ample room for both e-readers and printed books to compatibly co-exist. I don’t want to give up my printed newspaper (although when I travel I am happy to read the e-version of my favored publications), or magazines. And I’ll say it –I am willing to pay more for the expense to put actual ink on paper.

I’m not sure it’s a luxury to have a printed book but if I were to have a signed copy of a book from any author, an e-signed book would leave me cold.

How about you?

As an early adopter (November 2007) of the Kindle I have been a rather ardent fan of what could now be considered the forerunner of e-readers. I recently downloaded several titles that I wanted to read. I opened my Kindle the other night to see some odd horizontal lines across the entire screen yet the device was in the off position. After charging and recharging with no change in the display it was obvious that the flame had gone out on my Kindle.

Out of warranty (this one was more than a year old) apparently I am out of luck. So now I have several titles in my account that I cannot view unless I purchase a new Kindle or I guess return my Kindle to Amazon (at my cost) and hope that they can somehow repair it for less than the cost of the now reduced price of $ 259. I paid $ 399 for mine and it does thrill me that not once did Amazon offer me some sort of discount on purchasing the latest version which apparently is superior to the one that I have. Of course mine now does not work at all so a book with no printing is on a par.

A little history – the first one I received did not work and I had to send it back. Amazon had me check a bunch of things prior to agreeing to replace it which they did with no questions asked. Then I had another one which after several months also went dead. Again through the checklist that Amazon has you do on the phone (a half hour or so) with their tech person before they assented to my sending it back for yet a third which I received and has been working fine for more than a year.

I have been (and remain) a fan of Amazon in general. Jeff Bezos is a smart guy and has defied his critics in managing a company that has a stellar reputation for customer service and intuitive product offerings. But I really don’t understand the idea of not offering a replacement for a broken Kindle ANY TIME a customer asks. After all aren’t I going to use that platform to purchase e-books for the foreseeable future? And I buy a fair amount of books. I can ‘return’ those titles that I downloaded but have not read for some sort of rebate but that really does not solve my problem. I love e-readers (as well as traditional books) and think they will only get better (how about color folks and a back-lighted screen option?).

So now I have to reconsider my entire relationship with Amazon’s Kindle. Maybe the Sony Reader, or the new device from Plastic Logic, or maybe even the new Barnes & Noble device. What a shame, the Kindle had me at hello.