C. J. Box, on the Hugh Hewitt Show, just mentioned that “You can’t autograph a Kindle.”
I’m kind of embarrassed to admit that that was an angle on electronic publishing that I hadn’t considered. I kind of like signing autographs. Makes me feel like a big shot. I suppose authors will have to come up with some kind of cards that they can sign, so fans can collect them like baseball cards.
Another complication that had occurred to me is that you can’t lend an electronic book. The great era of loaning books you love to your friends is going away, or at least enjoying increased mobility.
On the other hand, as poets have oft lamented, even the best of friends tend sometimes to not return beloved books.
And no, I’m not thinking of anyone specifically. Offhand, I can’t think of anyone who’s got a book of mine. (It helps to have very few friends.)
OK, there’s one, but that’s a relative, and no one expects much from relatives.
I made a radical decision today (by my personal, low, standards). I decided to attend a Viking reenactment event down in Missouri, in late April. A fellow I know (he’s commented on this blog once or twice) owns a farm down there where he’s building a Viking fort. There’s a hall and another building, and it’s an ongoing project. He holds a spring and a fall open event, where the authenticity standards are low enough for me to squeak in, and he’s asked me to come for a couple years. I even get to sell books.
I’ve never gone before, probably because I have a fixed idea in my head that Missouri is a long, long way away. I lived in Missouri (though somewhat further south) for a year long ago, and got kind of tired of the length of the drive back to Minnesota. But since I drove to Chicago last fall, and go to Minot every year, I really don’t have a good excuse for avoiding northeastern Missouri. All you’ve got to do is cross Iowa, and you’re pretty much there, if the boredom doesn’t kill you.
What I found interesting was the decision-making process. I hemmed and hawed, argued pros and cons, and generally dithered. Then it occurred to me to pray about it.
The moment I prayed, I felt the answer in my spirit—“Yes, you must go.”
Now as you know, I’m no great advocate of feelings-based decision-making. But this seemed (and I emphasized seemed) to be a genuine answer from God.
I shall watch how things work out now, to test whether my sensitivity to the Spirit is better or worse than I think.
“All you’ve got to do is cross Iowa…” Ha! You might as well being crossing Mordor.
I thought I had read of someone working on a way to lean ebooks, even if it’s only Kindle to Kindle. The key will be to prevent people from copying them. I bet– in fact we should begin work on this idea so that our network will skyrocket–that as ebooks gain popularity, someone will establish a system for donating and borrowing them, but I think that idea rubs against the nature of ebooks. If they are cheaply purchased from the publisher, then there’s less motive to allow them to be passed between devices.
You can lend Kindle books using Kindle for PC (you can even read the same book at the same time as someone else), but then you have to read them on a computer. They’ll probably figure out a better way soon.
Not sure about the Kindle, but I know that the Barnes & Noble Nook will allow you to lend ebooks to a friend’s Nook for two weeks. Of course, what one company starts in consumer electronics everyone will eventually follow along.
The problem is that most systems will probably only work with the same systems—Nook-to-Nook, and Kindle-to-Kindle.
The major DRM brands for e-books have already been broken, with plugins available for download to Calibre. So lending e-books, as long as you trust a person to delete them, is actually pretty easy.
You can lend Kindle to Kindle via http://booklending.com.
In the big picture, I think that e-books will definitely make a big, permanent dent in the book market, but in the long run they will co-exist with autographable print books long into the future.