eBooks

The Reader

I have a Kobo Aura H₂O. The reading experience is excellent. Like all e-readers it displays an attractive serif font on its eInk screen. It is light and easy to hold. I've added a neat closable cover with a magnet that automatically displays your current page on opening. So far so good.

Turning the page involves lightly tapping on the right side of the screen. This works fine. But it's when you've finished your book and want to read another one that things start to creak a bit.

Although the eBook Reader people say it's like having a library in your pocket, if you take them at their word and put hundreds of books in it the selection experience is excruciating. Unlike a bookcase, or bookshop, you can't quickly scan a number of books, read part of the intro, then choose another. You start to hate that eInk screen with its sluggish interface.

We are used to the fast, buttery-smooth interfaces of our phones and tablets, where you scroll quickly, and get near-instant response. So if some forward-looking company made a device with a small tablet screen for browsing and previewing books plus an eInk screen for the actual reading that would be perfect. I would happily pay the premium.

My current workround is to use a piece of software called Calibre. It's FOSS so won't cost you anything. Calibre allows you to browse a library of eBooks on your computer and then only transfer selected books to your eReader. Keeping about 8 books at any one time on the Reader works well.

Getting eBooks

My daughter's original eReader came with a CD holding hundreds of out-of-copyright eBooks, mainly classics. Simply importing these books into Calibre gives a library which will keep you going for a long time. Project Gutenburg is an easy to use online repository of 57,000 (and counting) free eBooks. So with minimal effort you're sorted for classics and old books.

But if you hanker after up-to-date eBooks things get more complicated. Panicked publishing houses have failed to grasp the new technology, and do not pass on ebook savings to the reader. They point out that actual paper-book printing costs are a small part of overall production costs. Yet there are big savings on print-runs, physical delivery costs, wastage of unread books etc. And their argument only applies to the private purchase of new books. They have failed to reproduce the typical paper-book reading experience which involves libraries, second-hand, and borrowed books, with an occasional new book purchase.

The underlying problem is that an eBook remains as-new for ever, rather than hard copy being repeatedly lent or resold and becoming ever more tatty. Further, multiple perfect copies can be made and easily distributed mirroring the illegal music downloads which were widespread before the music industry got its act together with streaming.

And the big e-publishers are desperately protecting their operations. Kindle books are tied to Amazon (who have now discontinued selling via their Kindle App). Amazon plc is widely disliked for their aggressive business practices. Worse, close your Amazon account and all the eBooks you bought will disappear. Paper 1, digital 0.

How about voluntary donations? "If you enjoyed this book please donate to the author. Suggested amount £x." Sadly the payment procedure always involves a bit of hassle and I suspect those authors get very little in return.

This has generated some discussion which remains unresolved. Music piracy is a minor issue now with the population happily turning to streaming services. So for a while now we have had the equivalent: e-book subscription services.

Which Subscription Service?

Scribd £11.99 pcm (UK) is the service that currently gets the "best" flag from reviewers. But £144 per year is rather a lot for the occasional reader. And despite the vast number of books on offer most are classics or self-published with a limited selection of recent books by well-known authors. Scribd also restrict your book choices for the rest of the month if you read too many - which because I usually drop a disappointing book after a chapter or so might well both affect and irritate me.

Conclusion

Like many others I have ended up with a lovely eReader but a rather disappointing eBook experience. I continue to enjoy the holiday browsing of charity and second-hand bookshops, reading borrowed books, and buying the occasional new book. I simply don't read enough books to justify the cost of a subscription service and having an arbitrarily limited selection would annoy me. So for e-books I read the occasional free, out-of-copyright, book on my Kobo. I've enjoyed revisiting H G Wells etc.

Dear publishing industry, you have failed to provide for my e-book requirements. I don't mind paying appropriate amounts for the books I read, but I very much mind paying far more than I currently do, and on a fixed subscription basis, for a limited choice. Sorry Scribd and Kindle - you forgot about people like me. The e-book industry enjoyed greatly increased profits during Covid, how about investing in your service for your readers?

The future was supposed to be better.