How a Kindle Is Changing the Way a Reader Reads Books

In May, Amazon.com announced that it was selling more e-books for its Kindle device than books printed on paper. I'm part of that.

Last year, I spent some time on Twitter musing about whether or not I should buy a Kindle to accompany me on a cross-country plane trip. In the end, I decided that it was just too pricey (this was before the smaller, lower-priced ones came out) and opted for audio-book downloads instead.

That worked fine, but when I came back, a kind pal gave me a Kindle DX -- that's the big one -- as a gift.

I now read books. Old books. New books. Lots of books.

Don't get me wrong, it's not that I didn't read books before. I have always been a voracious reader and, in my time, have plopped down untold amounts of cash in bookstores and on Amazon.com.

But the way I read books is different now.

I tried getting books from the library. One was on a list, but when I finally got it, it proved to be a dense tome and had to be read slowly. I couldn't finish it in time, and since it was on a list, the library wouldn't let me renew it.

That's the last time I went to the library. I put this book on my Kindle for a very low price (it wasn't a new release), so nobody can tell me how fast I have to read it.

Facing a long train ride but not wanting to spend a whole pile of money, I took advantage of the many free books available for Kindle download. I went the American-history route and got "The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin," "The Federalist Papers (Optimized for Kindle)," Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" and Alexis de Tocqueville's "Democracy in America, Volume 1 & Volume 2."

Then, for fun, I threw on "Pride & Prejudice" and the complete works of William Shakespeare.

For very nominal fees, I've added a couple of Bibles, a pile of Oscar Wilde and "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes."

And that's only a fraction of the classic works available for Kindle (and, one assumes, for Barnes & Noble's Nook, the iPad and other devices) at low or no cost.

The biggest change is that I also now read new books -- when they're new. I seldom wanted to fork over $25-$30 dollars for a new hardcover. And I didn't especially like lugging around hardcovers, particularly while traveling. So, I'd usually wait months or a year for the smaller, lighter trade paperback, which cost about $12 or $15.

Now, that's what I pay for new books, and I buy them as soon as they come out or sometimes with minutes of hearing about them. I can also read them on my computer, phone and tablet.

All of this is terrible, devastating even, for bookstores like Borders, which has been passing through bankruptcy. I feel sad for the people losing their jobs -- especially in this dismal economy, and most especially in California -- but these stores are going the way of video stores before them.

The way we consume media is changing fast, and not every business will survive.

But then, small bookstores decried the existence of the big-box ones like Borders. Oddly enough, these small stores may revive, perhaps bolstered by a trade in older and used books not available for e-readers or catering in a personal way to people who still prefer paper books and the company of fellow bookworms.

Like every other media enterprise, the publishing industry is convulsing, trying to deal with new technology and economic realities. Authors worry that the low price on e-books will diminish their ability to make a living; publishers have to revamp their strategies, once built entirely around the production and distribution of paper books.

On a positive note, while I simply avoided new mass-market hardcovers in the past, at least they're making some money from me now.

Will paper books disappear? I doubt it, not so long as there is a sufficient market for them. But they will diminish, and jobs that depend on the production of books will suffer as well -- from paper merchants to printers to delivery trucks.

One major underpinning of the business model in all types of media is the cost of the production of that media, and the cost of delivering it to the consumer.

The production costs in visual media -- movies and TV shows -- remain relatively high, though digital filmmaking is lowering it somewhat. But, the cost of delivering this material digitally is going down rapidly.

People still go to theaters to see movies, because on the opening weekend and for a short while after, they have no other option to see them (and home TVs are still not quite as big as movie screens).

People still watch TV shows on commercial TV (again, they're not often given an option, at least for a day or so).

But the market in DVDs is sinking fast. Fox Home Entertainment recently had layoffs, because the lower cost and greater ease of digital delivery and On Demand are eroding the DVD market.

Publishers have already lost the exclusivity war. Many new books are available for e-readers as soon as they come out on paper, and those resisting that trend may simply see many consumers pass them by for books available by easier and cheaper routes.

In the end, the pressure of the marketplace may force almost all publishers to go out digitally at the same time as the traditional release, unless they believe their readers are so dedicated that they'll buy the book no matter what -- and that's a risk many may not be willing to take.

On the other hand, while Kindle does allow limited lending of its e-books to other Kindle owners, e-books generally can't be easily passed around. So, while one purchased book might go through several hands, someone raving about a book they have on their Kindle may instead inspire friends and relatives to get it themselves.

Some markets and revenue streams will disappear, and it will be painful. But as the market has shown over and over again, new ones will emerge (just look at the thriving trade in iPad and Kindle covers and accessories).

If my Kindle fell off a cliff tomorrow, I wouldn't go back to buying new mass-market hardcovers. I'd buy one of the smaller, cheaper Kindles -- which, as with all electronics, becomes better and less costly as it becomes more popular -- reload all my existing Kindle books from my account and move on from there.

Had it been within my means to afford a Model T when they came out, I don't think I would have passed on it just to save the jobs of blacksmiths, farriers and carriage makers.

What about those who can't afford Kindles or other e-readers? They do without, as I did for a long time, and as many do today. There will never be a new technology that is immediately affordable for all people.

But things change, as I realize when I see teenage kids wielding cellphones with capabilities that would have been beyond the means of all but the very wealthy a few years ago.

And some schools are using Kindles in the classroom (which may save the spines of a lot of kids now straining under book-laden backpacks).

In the end, I don't care if a book is on paper, an e-reader, sheepskin parchment or a stone tablet. It's not the form of the book that matters, but the information it contains. People want that information, and at least they're not expecting to get new e-books for free (unlike the pirating tsunami that hit the music industry).

I just want people to read. And from the looks of the writing I see on the Internet, any way to get noses into good books is a good thing.

UPDATE: Apparently someone sees this coming and is saving paper books.

UPDATE ON THE UPDATE: A man saw the future way back when ... click here.

Future of Media: The Beginning of the End of the End of the Beginning

Is this a photo of dawn or sunset? Without knowing what direction the camera's facing, how could you tell for sure? It's amazing how much alike the beginning and end of the day can look.

I've talked before in this space about the impact of technology on how people consume their news and entertainment, and, of course, Apple's new iPad tosses a fresh element into the mix.

In many of the conversations I hear, though, it's about, will we get our news from TV OR print, or from print OR online, or from online OR TV, or from a laptop OR an iPad ... and so on.

But the reality is, we seldom have just two courses of action in any situation. There are just too many variables.

Take, for example, you're in an alley and an armed, masked mugger appears. Your choices: Hand over your cash or be killed.

Or, you could pull out your karate ninja skills and take the guy down; or you just pass out, and the guy takes your stuff and runs away; you could throw up, skeeving the guy out, and he runs away; or the guy hears a noise, loses his nerve and runs away; or you start screaming your head off, and he shoots you (or loses his nerve and runs away).

A car could appear in the alley, causing him to either shoot you or run away; or an explosion in a nearby building could startle you both, and you both run away; or the sudden appearance of participants on a bicycle race scares him off; or he suddenly realizes you're his long-lost aunt, high-school crush or third-grade teacher, and he takes off.

Or you give him your cash, and he shoots you anyway.

No matter what you think your choices are, you never really know how it will turn out -- and that's perfectly normal.

There's no doubt we're at a crisis point in the evolution of delivery systems for news and entertainment, but the idea that we all should pile onto one option or just die is ridiculous. In the history of human communication, new methods have regularly popped up, but they never entirely displace the previous method(s).

We still have wall painting and graffiti, just as they did in the Stone Age and Ancient Rome; we still have campfire storytellers and town criers (if you count those dudes with the sandwich boards or the arrow-twirlers on corners); we still have pamplets and fliers and word-of-mouth; and we still have -- in the order they were invented -- newspapers, movies, radio, television and the Internet.

None of these things has disappeared, they've just changed their focus to whatever they do better or more economically than the other delivery systems. This isn't to say that individual outlets haven't disappeared, of course they have. That's the normal economic evolutionary process of creative destruction.

There wasn't always a Rocky Mountain News; there may not always be a New York Times. And do you remember the DuMont TV network? That's OK, hardly anybody does.

There will always be news and entertainment, and people will always need ways to get them. But if more energy is expended to preserve a delivery system for these things -- such as printing papers, mounting a nightly network news broadcast (or even maintaining a broadcast network) -- rather than focusing on the quality and appeal of the content, you may wind up saving something that nobody wants anymore.

After all, when the auto became dominant, lots of farriers and harness makers and wheelwrights lost their jobs. Would you have rather we had preserved the horse and buggy to keep them employed? I'm sure they would have been in hearty support of that if you'd asked them at the time, and who could have blamed them?

Doesn't mean they were right.

It's never pleasant to be the one smack at the pivot point of change, but someone's got to be. Fighting the future is not only pointless, but it siphons energy and creativity away from efforts to adapt to the new reality.

So what will that reality be? I guarantee you that, right now, nobody knows. We're all guessing, and in the end, at least some of us will get it right.

For example, imagine this scenario for news delivery (hardly the only possible one and likely not the best or even most probable one) ...

* Small newspapers could thrive in communities, neighborhoods and towns, with intensive local reporting and targeted local advertising, serving the needs of a specific audience in a cost-effective, efficient way.

* National news is relegated to television and online incarnations of a few national publications, such as the New York Times, USA Today, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, etc., which may or may not continue to print on paper (or they may only print weekend and specialty editions). Why should a local newspaper waste space on national stories, unless they're giving a local perspective on how that story affects their readers?

* International news can be gotten online from the nation of origin or on television. Why should I read about the British elections in the Boston Globe when I can read about them in the Times of London? Again, local and national publications, whether on paper or online, could offer perspectives on the effects at home of international stories or help to put them in context.

And all of the above might be gotten on a phone, an iPad, an eReader, a television, on paper, on a laptop, through a corneal implant or in whatever other way suits the needs of consumers, who will ultimately decide which sorts of information they prefer on which device(s).

I don't believe any of this is an either-or decision. It's more a both-and, or better yet, an all-of-the-above.

As Marshall McLuhan famously observed, "The medium is the message," but if the message isn't there, who cares about the medium?

Of course, we come back to that sticky issue of getting people to pay for it all. Honestly, sometimes I think if IBM or some other corporation had created and evolved the Internet, rather than the government and universities, somebody would have figured out a way to monetize it right quick, and we wouldn't be in this situation.

Information is not free ... of cost, that is. If it were, universities wouldn't need to charge tuition, teachers and journalists wouldn't need salaries (and I, for one, need my salary) and publishers would just toss books to people on the street or sneak them into their Kindles in the middle of the night, just out of the goodness of their hearts -- after they gave them the Kindles for free.

People must pay, because people must be paid. But that's an argument for another day, and one that's taking place all over the media world every day. The good news is I'm convinced the new technologies will eventually add to the media marketplace instead of destroying it.