Posted by admin on July 21st, 2009 in Book Reviews, Hot Topics, Shopping

I have been a lifelong reader. Books have been my friends since I was a child.  Before the Internet, it was how I did research.  Oh, I don’t mean official research.  I mean if I wanted to know how to do something or wanted to understand something, I did not wait for someone to teach me.   I found a book and taught myself.  Books represented freedom and independence for me.  My love affair with books began in a very small library in a rural Texas town and continued with my journeys overseas.  While overseas, my favorite thing to do was go into the bookstore (even though all the books were invariably in French).    I’m geeky enough to add libraries to my list of favorite places to visit in while on vacation.  I can’t wait to visit the New York Public Library when I travel there this summer.

It’s not too hard to transition to a love affair with the Internet, where all knowledge seems to be contained.  If I want to learn how to tie a perfect knot on a necktie (for  my son who is still learning) I can find a video that demonstrates the technique.  Love of learning has led me to the Internet.  Love of reading  has led to my writing this blog.   It follows that I wanted, and recently received, an E-book reader.  I researched the top two (really there are only Sony and Kindle to choose from, although others will be on the market soon).  I decided on the Kindle, although I’m relieved that version two was out at the time of my purchase, as it is SO much better than version one.

Not Enough Books Available!

Here’s the deal.   Not everyone is making their books available for e-book publishing.  In a day where most information is free via the internet, it’s hard for me to stomach that.  Also, not many blogs or RSS feeds are available on Kindle (both of which I’m an avid reader).  When I travel, my Kindle is my rock.  But, it frustrates me to no end when I go into an airport bookstore, see a book I want to read, try to purchase it on my Kindle (that is a really cool feature because you can buy on the fly, so to speak)and discover horrors of horrors – it’s not available!

So, today when I read the announcement from Barnes and Noble that they would offer more than 700,000 books that could be read on various devices, including Apple’s IPhone, Blackberry and various laptop or desktop computers, I was happy.    They are promoting their e-bookstore as the world’s largest (Amazon.com offers 330,000 books for it’s Kindle)  Of course, e-book pricing has become a touchy subject because publishers are concerned that by selling new books at the comparatively lower e-book price (typically $9.99), e-book retailers will undercut sales of hardcover editions, which average about $26.00 thereby eroding publisher margins.

Barnes & Noble also announced an upgraded version of its eReader software that users could download free from its Web site, making it possible to read any e-book bought on BN.com on various devices.  These books can NOT be read on Sony’s Reader or on the Kindle.

Add More Books!

Let’s keep adding to the openness of the e-books!  Let’s make it possible to read any book on your laptop or reader.  There has to be a business model for the publisher’s to stay in business and also allow openness.  Maybe they should charge more for a new release? I’d pay more for a new release book I really wanted to read.  I think this applies to textbooks as well but I’ll write a separate post about that later.

(Disclaimer: This is my personal opinion and I did not receive any information, money or product in exchange for this review)