That's not a benefit to me or the majority of readers. For visually-impaired people, yes, but that's not going to overturn the world of the book anymore than audiobooks has done, and they've been around a very long time now.
I have yet to see anything which would convince me or any of my friends or family to buy an electronic reader, and I reckon we are collectively pretty representative of the book-buying public, at least in the UK. If you can't convince that market then your damnable machines are not going to replace books, I'm glad to say. I have a very good friend who never reads conventional printed books because he just cannot sit down for long enough - he always has to up and about and doing things. But his job involves a lot of driving up and down the motorways so he listens to a lot of audiobooks and gets his lit-fix that way. There's a big audience for audiobooks, but Kindles don't even change that. The visually impaired person described below is very much part of a niche market, with a minority need even in audiobook terms, although I'm glad to see that Kindles can fulfil that need. That last paragraph is marketing blurb and doesn't stand up to inspection. People who buy Kindles buy more books. I'll assume this means that they buy more e-books than they used to buy conventional books. Big deal. It tells you nothing about how many conventional books they used to buy, or how many Kindle-buyers were involved. If 10 people buy Kindles who had previously only bought one conventional book, and they each buy 2 e-books, that ain't gonna make a revolution. I'd be more impressed if they could show that a large number of people like me, who buy 50-100 books a year, were Kindling by the faggot-load, but they're not. Since they've been around I've only ever seen one person using them, on the tube, among probably millions of other people I see reading conventional books on their way to and from work, and that person was dressed like he was on his way to a sci-fi convention. That last sentence is completely vacuous. 'Bringing the benefits...'. Alright, what are they? Bob > -----Original Message----- > From: pdml-boun...@pdml.net [mailto:pdml-boun...@pdml.net] On > Behalf Of Paul Stenquist > Sent: 28 February 2009 19:32 > To: Pentax-Discuss Mail List > Subject: Re: on paper (was: Re: Our Book and other book pictures) > > > On Feb 28, 2009, at 1:37 PM, Bob W wrote: > > > > The benefits to the customer of digital books are not at all clear > > to me. I > > can't hear readers clamouring for electronic book readers, > all I can > > see is > > producers with vested interests trying to force them onto customers. > > > > What's in it for me? Why should I spend my money on this? > > The following is from the one other list I subscribe to, the Penn > State U Writer's List. Note the last sentence in particular. > BTW, the > people I know who write for a living long ago began preparing > for the > ultimate demise of words on paper publication. > > > As a visually impaired person I had been planning on purchasing the > Kindle 2 because there are virtually no books on fiction writing out > there on audio but there are quite a few for Kindle. But, late last > night on Amazon's Kindle support page the following notice > came out. > Now, I'm going to have to wait to see how many authors opt in > and how > many opt out. I'm hoping the authors and publishers of the kinds of > books that never get onto audio will opt in. > > Statement from Amazon.com Regarding Kindle 2's Experimental Text-to- > Speech Feature > > SEATTLE, Feb 27, 2009 (Kindle 2's experimental text-to-speech > feature > is legal: no copy is made, no derivative work is created, and no > performance is being given. Furthermore, we ourselves are a major > participant in the professionally narrated audiobooks > business through > our subsidiaries Audible and Brilliance. We believe text-to-speech > will introduce new customers to the convenience of listening > to books > and thereby grow the professionally narrated audiobooks business. > > Nevertheless, we strongly believe many rightsholders will be more > comfortable with the text-to-speech feature if they are in the > driver's seat. > > Therefore, we are modifying our systems so that rightsholders can > decide on a title by title basis whether they want text-to-speech > enabled or disabled for any particular title. We have already > begun to > work on the technical changes required to give authors and > publishers > that choice. With this new level of control, publishers and authors > will be able to decide for themselves whether it is in their > commercial interests to leave text-to-speech enabled. We > believe many > will decide that it is. > > Customers tell us that with Kindle, they read more, and buy more > books. We are passionate about bringing the benefits of modern > technology to long-form reading. > > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > PDML@pdml.net > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly > above and follow the directions. > > -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
