I'm in love...

...with my Kindle. For reals. That thing sees more time with me than my print books now. The ease of buying! The quickness of the download! How light and easy to operate it is! Heaven.

But I gotta tell ya. This is a funny pronouncement from a woman who was utterly opposed to electronic publishing back in the day. I mean, I was brutally against it. When Amazon attended BEA (Book Expo America, then called ABA), many of us print publishers and supporters of small, independent bookstores were horrified. Digital? Sacrilege! They were going to destroy small publishers, small bookstores, change the world!

Well, they did indeed. And it was, and still is, sad in many ways. But here's more brutal honesty: That's the way of the world. Things change. Advances are made, discoveries promoted, things end, and people adapt. They really do. Eventually. I still do and always will love paper-printed books. I very mildly dabble in rare book collecting, and there are certain authors whose books I automatically buy in hardcover. But being the kind of voracious reader I am, as well as a total nature girl, the invention of e-ink and e-readers was a marvelous thing on many levels. Pocketbook, environmentally, my aching eyes. So I do now embrace it fully. Even so, I haven't abandoned print books, and I very much understand the multiple layers of debate that are swirling now on the subject of digital publishing.

The recent announcement by Dorchester that they are going to an ebook model is earth-shaking in a lot of ways. I totally, totally get that many people out there will never use ereaders. Print books should never go away, is my thought...although perhaps one day they will. (Shudder! Don't like that idea, but it's a possibility for sure.) You can read a more detailed analysis and very intense comments over here at Dear Author.

How does the saying go, though? "The more things change..." Indeed. It will be utterly fascinating to follow this whole digital evolution of the book publishing world over the next decade, as we settle more into technology and try to find a good balance between that and what may now rightfully be called our "old ways." The dust will settle eventually. Always does. But here comes another round of ire, conflict, confusion, and basically balking at the amazingly quick changes our world is experiencing right now. And I do understand the reasons behind it all.

Still in love with my Kindle as well as my print books. :)

*more interesting links to further research on this subject:
Dear Author on Wylie Deal
Norman Spinrad on the Publishing Death Spiral: Part I, Part II, Part III
JA Konrath's blog

Kindle, Kindle, Kindle

So I just bought my first Kindle. It should get here tomorrow. Whee! I'd wanted an ereader for some time, but utterly balked at the prices. With their most recent cutback to $189, it fell smack into a doable price range for me. (And yes, I've read that they should drop even more by the holidays. If they do, I might buy me a Nook too, just to compare. Ha.)

So, hooray! Now, years ago, when the concept of ereaders first came out, I was among the many skeptical. I love the heft and feel and smell of a real live book. Growing up in a household of readers and books, I early on acquired the habit of collecting as many books as possible. I am far more choosy now...but my shelves still groan with alarm at the sight of yet another paper book entering the house! Nothing will ever beat the feel of a real book in hand. Nothing.

However. All that said, here are my reasons for finally buying one of them new-fangled futuristic ereader things:

1) I feel bad for the trees. Like, really bad.

2) I feel bad for my bookshelves. I feel especially bad when I buy new ones and am faced with putting them together. Grr...

3) I love e-publishing, and reading tales pubbed in such form on my laptop is very hard on my peepers.

4) I love the idea of carrying around tons of books...in one slender little package.

So hats off the developers who could see into the future. And thank goodness for the competitive market.

Now, back to waiting with one foot tapping for the man in the brown uniform to show up at my doorstep with my lovely new delivery...