McHuston Booksellers

Rare, Collectible, & Otherwise

Tag: eBooks (Page 1 of 2)

Mark the date: May 19, 2011 ends the reign of King Book.

May 19, 2011 /

Everyone was expecting it, but still – wasn’t it supposed to happen a little later in history? Thursday ends the reign of the Paper King, supplanted by its young descendent, Prince eBook.

Amazon, the big book retailer (they sell small ones, too), announced on Thursday that sales of electronic books, those digital computer files that are read on the screens of such devices as the Kindle and the Nook, officially surpassed the sales of regular paper editions.

In the future, when the generations of little e-readers look back on the occasion, they’ll note that the actual date was April 1, 2011, when Amazon.com sales of e-books began to outpace physical editions at the rate of 105 to 100 copies sold. Some Kindle books are provided without charge, but Amazon says those figures are not included in the statistics, otherwise the ratio would be even higher.

“Customers are now choosing Kindle books more often than print books,” said Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. “We had high hopes that this would happen eventually, but we never imagined it would happen this quickly.”

Amazon has been selling the old-fashioned books for fifteen years, and the electronic kind for just over three.

I’ve yet to even hold one in my hands.

That’s probably a good thing.

It’s a Lookbook, by hook or crook.

May 16, 2011 /

I think I may have just been slapped in the face. I’m not certain about the actual location of the hit, but I’m still sort-of stinging from a customer’s question today.

She wondered what I knew about the Look, her new electronic book reader.

“The Nook, you mean,” I answered.

“No,” she replied. “It’s a Lookbook. Do you have wi-fi here?”

I felt like I had been drawn into some sort of science fiction time warp. Here I am with my stacks and stacks of books – those old paper ones – on shelves, perfectly content in my work-a-day world, when I am suddenly barraged by this techno-robotic-electronic invasion.

“Lookbook?” I asked, thinking she must be mistaking the name of her device. I was at the laptop, and sure enough after a quick Google, I learned there is some other morphed product that stores books in a plastic-cased battery-operated device. Look. The Lookbook.

I found it listed as available at Walmart and CVS Pharmacies. Color!

150 Free Books!

Wireless book reader.

“Do you have wi-fi?” she asked again. “I was at Panera Bread and I couldn’t get the connection to work at all.”

“Why do you need wi-fi to read your Lookbook?” I asked. “I thought the books were stored on the device.”

“I was trying to download more of my free books,” she said. “I don’t have wi-fi at home.”

Ahhhhhhh. Now I see. She needed a wireless internet connection, since the Look has no cable-connect ability. She was out scouring the town for an internet wi-fi hotspot that would let her download, and came to – naturally, I suppose – the book store.

She was hoping that I had wireless internet so she could use my connection to download free books onto her electronic reader.

Slap!

Ouch. That smarts.

Not only did she not want to buy a book, she wanted to use my internet to collect her free electronic books. I kept smiling.

“No,” I said, finally. “Sorry.”

After she left I was thinking about wi-fi and remembered I had a hi-fi stereo once. Traded it for an 8-track.

Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a darn, cad-dash-it.

May 5, 2011 /

It was 75 years ago this month that those immortal words (or a similar phrase) were uttered by Rhett Butler in Margaret Mitchell’s lengthy antebellum romance, Gone with the Wind. Given that the book is set in the Deep South, her title is pretty close to the mark.

They are still working just to get started with the cleanup from the wind damage from the tornado-packing thunderstorms that raked the southern US. Tara, Scarlett O’Hara’s plantation home will have survived, along with Mitchell’s book title, which has become one of the post-twister phrases painted on rubble where homes used to be located.

For the 60th anniversary of the book’s release, publishers whipped up a fancy hardback edition as a commemorative item. Now, on the 75th year after the debut, stores can offer a paperback printed for the occasion – or that commemorative digital download with special gold-flecked text that glimmers in direct sunlight.

I’m kidding about that part.

It is obvious that the big sellers care more about the new electronic books than the standard, don’t-ever-need-a-battery type. With the exception of James Patterson, a suspense novelist who cranks out a new title every forty minutes, there are no television ads for published works. Even the Kindle and Nook don’t advertise titles, just devices.

Barnes and Noble never had a commercial before. Now, they’re talking about how the book lives on, or some other marketing phrase. Ironically, the ads will eventually contribute to the death of the book as we know it.

It’s a matter of time before the paper and ink items will become as curious and collectible as 45rpm vinyl records or as obscure as eight-track music tape cartridges (already most of you don’t recall those…).

I’m asked my opinion about whether the Kindle and the Nook will catch on, and – saluting Margaret Mitchell on the anniversary of her life’s work – I reply, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a…”

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