Call me behind-the-times, call me a stick-in-the-mud-paper-waster, but I just don't give a flying fig about the Kindle. Ditto for the Sony e-reader. I'm glad they're out there. I'm glad they're an option to folks, but I am sick to death of reading about them on every damn blog I visit.
I am a reader. I am a long-time reader. I am also an internet-savvy, computer-addicted, modern woman. You know what else I am? Poor. At least right now.
I suspect that I'm just like most of you. I don't have an extra $350 sitting in the bank waiting to be spent on a leisure device that will then require me to spend the same amount on books as I currently do. When I'm done with the book, I can't donate it to my local RWA or library, I can't sell it at a used book store, I can't loan it to a friend and I definitely can't throw it against a wall.
If I drop my $350 piece of machinery on a hard floor or in the tub, I can't pick up a replacement for a few bucks on www.half.com. From what I read, if I have a hardware or software failure somewhere along the line, I can't even get a replacement copy of something I never physically laid my hands on, because the companies who sell these books & devices don't have customer service to that level yet. Admittedly, a publisher wouldn't replace a lost / damaged copy of a paper book either, but chances of my having the sort of catastrophic failure of 200 paper books as I could have with a single device is unlikely.
All of this translates into the fact that the e-reader has a long way to go before it will be something that factors into my perfectly average life.
When I started this blog, it was partially a response to the myriad topics I see on other romance blogs out there. People talking about issues in writing. People talking about decisions in publishing. People talking about their reading experience. All of which fascinate me, are important to me and matter to the quality of the books I produce. I wanted to have a space to say my own thing without feeling like I'm hijacking someone else's space. So I'm using my own space to say that the advent of the Kindle and the Sony e-reader are NOT Romance topics.
The Kindle and the Sony e-reader are pieces of machinery that have nothing to do with the visceral experience of writing, reading, creating a plot, building a character, living up to readers expectations, awesomely bad sex scenes, or a romance novel so good that it moves you to your soul and makes you a devotee for life.
To the few people who read this, I beg of you, please, go back to talking about romances on your blogs. Take your technophile discussions to the altar itself. Engage with Sony and Amazon (and now Fictionwise) on their own soil and get back to the stuff that made you worth reading in the first place. ROMANCE.
Just finished: One Silent Night
Just finished: Violet Among the Roses
Just finished: Sugar Daddy
Just finished: P.S. I Love You
Just finished: Dream Warrior
Currently Reading: Wolf Tales III
Currently Reading: Slow Hands
Just about to start: A is for Alibi
Just about to start: Lover Awakened
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2 comments:
Loved your comment over at Moonrat, so I dropped by. I'll try to remember to do so in the future. Anyway, I was just sent a Kindle from my dad, but haven't used it yet. My wife bought one book and has been carrying it around. I imagine it could be useful if I bought one of my academic books on it, because the Search feature could be super useful. I won't talk anymore about that as that would be kind of against the point of your post. :)
Hope you are well. And I think you nailed it on moonrat's blog. We all have to write people and their unique experiences.
paca,
I wrote a nice meaty response to you and managed to close the tab just before I posted it. Grrrr.
here's the upshot:
Dear Author had a great post about e-readers, you can find it here. http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/2009/03/08/how-to-decide-between-the-sony-and-the-kindle-eink-readers/
Talking about race is hard and confusing.
Hope you're good.
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