benifits and drawbacks of ebooks

[Ebookare]

Hello Everyone! I've been looking over the post in this section of the ebooks forum for quite some time now. I noticed that their is quite a bit of disagreement on what the true benefits of ebooks are. There is also a lot disagreement about what the drawbacks of ebooks are. I am an ebook author myself and have been for quite some time. I have spoke in great detail with other ebook authors about these subjects but not as much with ebook users. I'd be very interested to know what everyone thought the greatest drawbacks and benefits of ebooks are.

I'll start out..

Benefits:
1) Users can download the information they want immediately. This is useful for those who don't have easy access to a bookstore.

2) Gives you access to information and perspectives that you can't find in bookstores because they have not been published into a hard copy.

3) Ebooks are more interactive than regular books. Ebook can provide you with the ability to interact with the information through the use of links you can take online tests, keep journals, be redirected to further information. As well, coming up with new editions can be quick and virtually costless.

Drawbacks:

1) People really like to be able to read away from their computer. Printing the ebook is not always and option and may not even be desirable.

2) Quality of the ebook. Over the years I have downloaded many ebooks, many of which were garbage. I would pay a lot of money for a non fiction ebook that turned out to be only 34 pages long with very uninteresting information and a poor presentation. At least with regular books you can see the quality before you buy.

3) Piracy. Although I have not been effected by this too much as of yet, it could definitely become a problem in the future.


I'd be interested to know what everyone else thinks the drawbacks and benefits are ebooks are!

Kind Regards

John
Ebook Architect
http://www.zizzoo.com/guides/ebook/index.php

[SteveHoward999]

Benefits:-

Portability - hundreds of books on one SD card v's one book in my bag.
Ease of use - read with only one hand, no changing how you hold to move from left to right page, no need to use the other hand to turn the page ...
Versatility - I can read the same book on Mac/PC/PDA/...
Bookmarking - I never lose my place!
Nighttime reading - No need to keep your spouse awake as you read that thriller at 3am.

Drawbacks:-

Price - come on publishers, we all know electronic ink is free, so is the paper. There is no logic other than profiteering to keeping the price of electronic books as high as paper.
It's Not A Real Book - I thought I'd never like electronic books. I LOVE books, I have thousands. .... but (Benefit) reading on PDA is SOOOO much less hassle.
Cannot share - its difficult (sometimes impossible) to let your friends borrow an ebook. Either they have no appropriate device, don't like to read from a screen or the book is encrypted. Publishers lose out here because people get introduced to fewer new books/authors ... see Baen's take on this http://www.baen.com/library/home.htm
Piracy - you can get as many books as you could ever read for free ... again, from Baen as a for-instance http://www.baen.com/library/defaultTitles.htm. I have read more free books in the last 3 years than I have bought in the previous 10. but I have also bought more eBooks in the last three years than I have bought paper boks in the last 5 or so. In other words I read more now than I ever did becuase of the convenience factor of being able to carry a complete library of books whereever I go, and being able to pick up a book to read any time I have 3 spare minutes.

[surur]

Advantages as above. I just bought the Dirk Gently Omnibus as a hard cover book the other day (I had a discount coupon), and I really wished it was an ebook. The hard-cover book was huge, heavy and unwieldy. I could not carry it with me discreetly everywhere I went, so I could not read it in snatches like I usually do. I also could not read it at night without disturbing my SO. Reading a paper book felt really primitive.

The disadvantages of an ebook I feel is simply the lack of big name authors, the lack of selection, and not knowing who to read new book wise. They could do a bit more of that Amazon-type recommendation thing at Peanut Press.

I think a large collection of moderated links to a free first chapter would do wonders for readers AND authors, by letting the good books bubble up.

I must say I am also loath to pay >15 dollars for an ebook.

Surur

[disconnected]

Surur, I'd also love to see the Dirk Gently books as ebooks. For recommendations/reviews I still use Amazon, even though I buy the ebooks from Peanut Press.

John, I don't think I've read any books that are solely published as ebooks; I mostly look for authors I already know I like, or that are compared to authors I'm familiar with. I imagine that there are lots of authors I'd enjoy that have not yet been published in paper/hardcover, but I'd guess it would be somewhat difficult for those authors to find their audience.

I'd definitely agree with your benefit 1, 2 could be true but only if the ebooks are brought to the attention of the target audience, and 3, while theoretically true doesn't really apply to the types of books I mostly read -- minstream fiction, particularly mysteries.

As has been mentioned, portability, the ease of carrying hundreds of books around, and being able to read in low-light or no-light places are great benefits.

As for drawbacks --

I can live with the high prices and the cumbersome DRM, although I think they must greatly affect the sales figures overall, so my biggest complaint is the fact that so many authors/publishers don't release their books as ebooks.

Since I don't buy anything that I don't know anything about and can't find reviews of, I don't have any complaints about the quality of the ebooks I buy.

I think piracy is an imaginary issue (you can find some other threads here about that); if a book is popular enough for there to be a big market for pirated copies, the hardcopy book will have been scanned and made available for unauthorized download anyway -- might as well make it available for legitimate paying customers as well.

As far as being able to read away from the computer -- everyone here that reads ebooks is reading them on Pocket PCs, which is quite different from trying to curl up with a desktop PC. :)

[SteveHoward999]

I think piracy is an imaginary issue (you can find some other threads here about that); if a book is popular enough for there to be a big market for pirated copies, the hardcopy book will have been scanned and made available for unauthorized download anyway -- might as well make it available for legitimate paying customers as well.


Yeah I think so too - I am happy to buy the books but if I really want them and they are not available legitimately, I really have little choice but to look for illegal copies. Many authors and their publishers are great (Stephen King as a lot of books available, for instance ... and he is among the most popular authors around) but others are juust plain stupid IMHO. They are missing out on (I guess) millions of sales because of the books that they keep out of our reach.

I have no idea of real figures, but I would guess that a significant percentage of those downloading pirate copies would prefer to have legitimate, error free copies from the publisers, complete with working hyperlinks and menus instead of the less-than-ideal but free pirate versions.

[Mona13]

Pros:

1. Portability
2. Backlight (they don't bother my husband when I read at night)
3. I can have a ton of them on my SD card and not weigh down my shoulder
4. Convenience of being able to open to the correct page
5. Begin reading immediatley in just about any environment
6. I try a larger variety of authors because they are available as e-books
7. I haven't bought a paper book in more than two years and I read ALOT and spend ALOT
8. Ereader is more convenient than driving to a bookstore
9. Large library in a small amount of digital space
10. James Patterson, Jeffrey Deaver, some Patricia Cornwell, among others are available in legal e-books

Cons:

1. Some of my favorite authors are not available via legitimate e-books so I don't read their books anymore
2. I don't read illegal copies even though some of the books I would like to read are available
3. Ability to loan to friends, but the pros far outweigh this con
4. Pricing should be at paperback price or less, not hard copy price

My opinion is that authors that are not providing e-books are missing out on a growing market. Unauthorized copies are already readily available and, as with music, authors are missing a paying audience that would rather purchase them legally.

Mona13

[Jacob]

One big con:

- Availability.

I've wanted to find e-copies of some rather large books I have and can't find any. If the book isn't common, it's likely it hasn't been converted to e-form yet and may never be.

[Kowalski]

it depenends on what to read and where to read.
if i am reading a novel or a non-computer article, i prefer reading at the backyard of our house, sitting on the grass.
if i am reading something related to computers, an e-book seems a better choice.

[Nurhisham Hussein]

Agree with all the advantages - I've bought more books in the last two years than the last ten combined, and 99% in e-book form. On the piracy issue, I believe one of the other prime motivations for looking for pirated copies is the availability. As jacob said, some simply can't be had in e-book form. I would also add two more factors - back catalogue/out of print stuff that may never be put into an e-book format, and e-books in a form that you detest (*are you listening, Adobe?*).

[SteveHoward999]

and e-books in a form that you detest (*are you listening, Adobe?*).


Me too! Me too!!!

[uwaku]

Even the Adobe file issues can be avoided with a little effort. I copy & paste the text into Notepad, then use Reader Studio to convert it to LIT.

My biggest advantage for ebooks is a little unusual: military deployments! As a veteran of both Gulf Wars, I saw how difficult it was to get real books sent from home, and to carry real books around. Most of us read books from the camp's Red Cross tent and returned them there when we were done because carrying or shipping boxes of books home was too much trouble.

This time when I went I carried my PDA with literally hundreds of ebooks. I re-read all the ERB John Carter Warlord of Mars books, along with dozens of others. Friends in the US even emailed me ebooks, and believe me, that was MUCH easier than if they'd sent me a paper version.

Now that I'm converged (iPAQ h6315), since I always have my cell phone with me, I always have ebooks! I have paperbacks/hardbacks at home, books-on-CD converted to MP3 in the car (1 or 2 books per disc!), and ebooks in my pocket. And no, I don't get the plots confused...

Ebooks have far too many advantages to go away. My wife & I are collectors & have about 2,000 books in our library. In the past two years I've collected more than 6,000 ebooks!

[Mona13]

I forgot to mention, that it's easier to read an e-book on my Dell x50v at the pool than a paper book. I always manage to get the paper books wet. I put my x50v in an AquaPak and it's good to go.

[Nurhisham Hussein]

Even the Adobe file issues can be avoided with a little effort. I copy & paste the text into Notepad, then use Reader Studio to convert it to LIT.


uwaku,

It's considerably more difficult with DRM books - you can't copy the text at all, or even select any text. Any other format i have little trouble with, but pdf drives me nuts.

[dMores]

I forgot to mention, that it's easier to read an e-book on my Dell x50v at the pool than a paper book. I always manage to get the paper books wet. I put my x50v in an AquaPak and it's good to go.
:)
i once had the great urge to take a bath, but i couldn't put a book down.
so i decided to get a ziplock back and put my p900 in there ... when my girlfriend saw me walking through the appartment, naked, with a p900 and a ziplock bag and an i'm-so-smart smile on my face, she stopped me and took both p900 and bag away from me.
well ... i guess i understand since the p900 was her present to me :)

yep ... i'm an ebook freak as well, and i can only second all the advantages and disadvantages that were posted here.

[SteveHoward999]

... when my girlfriend saw me walking through the appartment, naked, with a p900 and a ziplock bag and an i'm-so-smart smile on my face, she stopped me and took both p900 and bag away from me.



My wife says she wouldn't think to stop me. In fact she thinks it's a great idea!


Face it - it's either the PDA or the girlfriend!

[asuspocketpcw]

Pros:

1. Portability
2. Backlight (they don't bother my husband when I read at night)
3. I can have a ton of them on my SD card and not weigh down my shoulder
4. Convenience of being able to open to the correct page
5. Begin reading immediatley in just about any environment
6. I try a larger variety of authors because they are available as e-books
7. I haven't bought a paper book in more than two years and I read ALOT and spend ALOT
8. Ereader is more convenient than driving to a bookstore
9. Large library in a small amount of digital space


Cons:

1. Some of my favorite authors are not available via legitimate e-books so I don't read their books anymore
2. I don't read illegal copies even though some of the books I would like to read are available
3. Ability to loan to friends, but the pros far outweigh this con
4. Pricing should be at paperback price or less, not hard copy price

Mona13


Amen! I'm reading several books at a time now--more books and more variety than I've ever read before. I can read on the porch while the sun sets (no lights on to ruin it), I can read in a bumpy vehicle by upsizing the text...the list of advantages goes on and on. Its great!!