Clean Your Reader: A Wrap-Up (and For Me, Lessons Learned)

But first, an apology: I've been a terrible host of the CleanYourReader challenge. So much so that many of you probably don't even know it's been an ongoing thing that some readers (myself very much not included) have been participating in with all the diligence I'd hoped to inspire in myself.

The goal for Clean Your Reader was simple: Over a three-month time period (January to March), make an effort to finally, finally read all the e-books collecting dust on our e-readers. Some participants did a great job. I, on the other hand, read one e-book. One!

The 2016 Clean Your Reader Challenge: Join Us!

Come one, come all, to the 2016 Clean Your Reader Challenge.

The goal is simple: read as many (or as few) e-books from your e-reader as you like over a three-month period (January through March 2016). Because I'm not great at hosting (or participating in) challenges with lots of rules and regulations, that's all there is for structure, but here are a few guidelines and suggestions:

Clean Your Reader: Sign-Up Post

I'm hosting a #CleanYourReader challenge in January, the goal of which is simply to read some of those accumulated e-books that I bought when they were on super-sale and promptly forgot I owned. So without further ado... my own goals for the month:

My e-reader of choice...

... is a Nook. Specifically, I have the e-ink Nook and the Nook HD+. I take the little one to the beach and when I travel for long periods of time, because it stands up to the sun and holds a battery charge for long periods of time. I take the big one when I travel for shorter periods, often in place of my laptop, because it multi-tasks as a tablet. I use the Oyster app on the HD+, but I get most of my e-books through Barnes & Noble these days.

I can't say no to...

... e-books at the $1.99 price point. I buy plenty of full-priced e-books, but those are rarely impulse buys--they are books I want to read for a specific reason at a specific time, so I find them, buy them, read them. The ones that accumulate are the ones that I see and think, "Oh! I've been wanting to read that! And look--it's only $1.99! I'll buy it now so I have it and read it later when I feel like it." At which point I promptly forget about it.

My goal for Clean Your Reader...

... is to read 5 of the e-books on my reader in January. I have the benefit of being slightly ahead of schedule on my review copies, and the fact that several of the books on my e-reader are short, so I'm hopeful I can do more... but at the very least, plan to do 5. 

Are you joining in to Clean Your Reader, too? Sign up here!

E-Readers, Travelling, and a Plea for Nook Advice

I'm going to Italy in the fall. 10 days of winey (not whiny) foreign goodness. We're planning on jumping around a lot, renting a car and driving through Tuscany, and a train ride (or two!). Still working on the itinerary. BUT. This poses a colossal problem. Because I do not travel with less than one book per day. No that's not a typo. One book per day of travel.* So that means 10 books.

You see the problem? That's a whole suitcase. And so I have decided to purchase an e-reader. I already have a Sony Pocket Reader, but this will not do because a) I do not like it and b) I want a new gadget and c) I cannot underline or highlight or take notes on books in it and d) it is a few years old already (shocking, I know) and the battery life is leaving something to be desired.

Couple this with the fact that I have a $100 gift card to B&N, and I am leaning towards a Nook. BUT (Always the "but"). Which one? The Nook Color? Or the new e-ink Nook? The latter is definitely a more attractive price... but the former has apps! And email! And color! BUT (there it is again) maybe that is not such a good thing, all that distraction?

Alternatively, I could just buy $100 worth of really long, lightweight paperbacks.

Help, please?

---

*This method of counting the number of books needed for a trip is tried and true. I took 7 books with me on my 8-day honeymoon and had to purchase a paperback in the Mexican airport. I took 5 books with me on my 5-day trip to Cape Cod and read 3 of them, and I ended up working remotely for a solid day of that 5-day trip.

Kindle With Special Offers... Wait, What?

Ok, I know I'm way late to the game on this one. Amazon's Kindle with Special Offers has been on the market for several weeks (months?) but as any of my regular followers will note, I've been living under a rock made of work lately and have been missing out on all the bookish conversation surrounding such things as the release of the Kindle with Special Offers.

And let me tell you, from what Amazon is saying, this thing is a real gem. Now you can get a Kindle for less money and receive special offers shipped directly to your device! It's like, win-win, right? Totally... for Amazon.

First off, these aren't "special offers." They are ads. Sure, ads often include "special offers" (i.e. Click here for 10% coupon! or Find out how to make thousands as a stay-at-home mom!), but those are merely hooks to get customers to click through. So. Special offer = ad. Sponsored screensaver = ad.

Hell, we're already smacking advertising on school lockers, state license plates, and yes, even sheep... why not books, too, right? But maybe there's a side to this I'm not seeing, in my stubborn refusal to a) like the Kindle and b) like the concept of putting ads anywhere near my reading materials (this from someone who works in advertising, too). Let me know what you think. I'm sure there's flip side here.

E-Reader Courtesies

So I'm sitting on an airplane yesterday, flying to Chicago (hello, Chicago!), and the man sitting next to me (and too close to me, if you want my opinion) pulls out an iPad and opens his Kindle reader. The angle at which he holds the device allows me to see that he is reading Matterhorn, a book I've had my eye on for some time.

Now, if this were a print book, I would not have hesitated to make a bit of small talk and ask about the book. But if this had been a print book, I would have recognized the book by its cover, not by looking over the man's shoulder (I guess I'm nosy like that). And I would have been able to see how far into the book he was - if only five pages, I wouldn't ask how it he liked the book, you know?

In the spirit of not being that obnoxious person that talks too much on an airplane and snoops into others' business, I let the matter go. But it left me thinking: what is acceptable in this (or similar) situations? Is it ok to admit that I can see your iPad screen perfectly clearly and am interested in what you are reading? Is it rude to peek in the first place?

Read Forever

Barnes & Noble launched their new Read Forever ad campaign at the end of April, with TV spots and print ads emphasizing the notion of reading forever. According to a New York Times article on the campaign, the ads feature a hopeful message: "Reading is changing, but it’s not going away."

The article also posits that the lack of images of any Barnes & Noble stores in the ads is an accurate reflection of the current transition in the publishing marketplace: brick-and-mortar foot traffic is down, online purchases are up.

And Barnes & Noble wants the Nook (specifically, the Nook Color) to take a cut of those online purchases. Hence, the campaign. Duh.

To this marketer's mind, Barnes & Noble had two main challenges to overcome in the marketplace. First, the resistance to e-books and e-readers that has been displayed by many tried-and-true bookworms (like yours truly). Second, the simple fact that the Kindle beat them to it, and "Kindle" has, to many, become synonymous with "e-reader," just as we've abandoned "self-adhesive bandage" (too many words) in favor of "Band-Aid" (the first of its kind, you kn0w).

And to this bookworm's mind, the campaign hits it out of the park on both accounts. It hits the emotional nail on its proverbial head. By focusing on books instead of readers, the ads succeed in not driving e-book hesistants away at first glance; by scattering the Nook among images of people reading real, old-fashioned p-books, the ads successfully (I think) position the Nook as just one among many ways to read.

In short, it celebrates the act of reading rather than the way in which we choose to do it. What better way to celebrate a new way to read the books we already cherish?

Newsweek Questions the Future of Reading: "Big Brains on e-Books"

The last few weeks have been good to bookworms, with one rich and though-provoking article following the last. Last week I featured HuffPost's discussion of how to keep book reviews relevant. Today, Shelf Awareness excerpted a quote from Newsweek's article on the future of reading, Big Brains on e-Books.

The article kicks of with the oft-repeated and still-unintelligible-to-me claim that Amazon's e-books now outsell paperbacks before polling some well-known bookworms on their thoughts on e-books and e-readers and the future of reading:

"Not to diminish the value of a paperback, when it comes to somebody investing in a hardcover, it’s something you want to keep. Everything from a cloth-case wrap to a leatherette to a foil-stamped cover, heavier paper, better binding, innovative cover design. You have to give readers a choice, between a richer experience with paper and board and cloth, and a more sterile experience through an electronic reader. We just try to make every aspect of the physical book as good as it can possibly be, because that’s our greatest hedge against the dominance of e-books." -Dave Eggers

I've written before about the power of a paper book (whether paperback or hardcover) over an e-book, particularly in the arena of smell. Eggers, like so many other bookworms, is acutely aware of the power of a physical book to captivate and spellbind readers, and despite the convenience of e-books, we have yet to see them figure out that part of the industry.

"How you read is not as important as: will you read? And will you read something that’s a book—the sustained train of thought of one person speaking to another? Search techniques are embedded in e-books that invite people to dabble rather than follow a full train of thought. This is part of a general cultural problem." - James H. Billington, Librarian of Congress (this passage also quoted in today's Shelf Awareness)

This is why Billington is the Librarian of Congress and I am not: he's managed to put into words my own problem with e-books and the concept of enhanced e-books (which Ron Charles also touched on in one of his Totally Hip Book Reviews). E-books, and particularly enhanced e-books, are designed to give readers more options, more content, more information. But when reading a book, do we really need all that? Do we even want it? The book itself should shine through on its own, without the aid of author interviews, blurbs from famous people, or embedded video.

Personally, I avoid reading editorial introductions to any book I have not yet read. I tend to skim the back-cover summary to see what a book is about, but avoid learning much more about it so I can form my own opinion. The book is a standalone item, and if it fails to succeed without the noise that surrounds it... well, then it's failed to succeed.

So. I have an e-reader, though I have yet to complete an entire book on it. I am intrigued by the convenience of an e-reader, and the options for enhanced e-books. There are some titles - like War in the Pacific - which cry out for an enhanced e-book, but I believe this is an area in which authors, publishers and editors should tread lightly. It's just one quick slip to fall into the imagined world of Ron Charles, after all. What about you? Thoughts? Do you have an e-reader? Do you read enhanced e-books?

Hug a Book (Quote of the Day)

"You can't hug an iPad." -Nancy Pearl, when asked at a book signing at Wide World of Books & Maps if she used an e-reader.

Via Shelf Awareness, Monday, Dec 20th.

The Saga of the Sony Pocket Reader

Dear readers, I have neglected to inform you of a very important development in my reading life - the acquisition of a Sony Pocket Reader. Those of you who follow me on Twitter might have seen my initial disappointments with the thing (the screen broke after only a few weeks of use), but my blog-only followers most likely know nothing of this saga. [Note: Sony replaced the Reader and even let me keep the extra charger. No hard feelings, although the process wasn't quite painless.]

I've let the issue lie for several months so I could give the thing accurate feedback. So far, I must admit, I am less than impressed. The device itself functions well (although I wish it was Wifi-compatible), and the screen is easy to read, etc, etc. In fact, much to my surprise, I have no actual complaints with the device or the technology itself.

Instead, though, I find I have criticisms of my own reading habits when reading digitally. Case in point: I have yet to actually complete a book on the Reader. I've started several - some for work, some e-galleys from NetGalley, a few downloads from Gutenberg (notice I have yet to actually purchase a book, which is enough matter for a separate post) - but have not yet read a "The End" page in e-ink. I've enjoyed those books I started - including Our Tragic Universe, which I had been itching to read for some time, and the first half of Road to Bedlam, which I ultimately completed in paperback and reviewed a few weeks after starting it on the Sony Reader.

No, when I read on the e-ink screen, I for one feel a distinct lack of connection with the words in front of me. Maybe I'm biased - I'm certainly pre-disposed to love the look, feel and smell of printed book - or maybe it's just my own personal reading style, but screen-reading has yet to catch on for me. I gave it a six-month shot, and remain unimpressed.

Am I just using the wrong device? Am I reading the wrong books? Am I going about this in entirely the wrong way? Does anyone else feel this disconnect? For those that do enjoy their e-readers, any advice? It would carve a significant amount of added space into my house if I could start collecting digital files instead of dusty old hardbacks and ARCs I have yet to read...

Sharing is Caring - An Amazon Tale

Last week, Amazon finally learned that crucial lesson that the rest of the world learned in kindergarten: sharing is good for us. For the first time in Kindle's short history, Kindle users will finally be allowed to share their purchases with friends. The lending options will be available "later this year," according to Amazon's announcement.

The sharing comes with a few catches, of course - books can only be lent for a period of 14 days (which, if you're as bad at planning reading choices as I am, could prove problematic), and the owner cannot access the book while it is lent out. Of course, the counterargument to those who protest this last restriction is simple: you can't access a paper book that you've lent to your friend, either, unless you kept photocopies of it on your shelf in the meantime?

Amazon will let publishers (or rights-holders, as the case may be) choose whether or not to participate in the sharing program.

It appears that the details of the lending program are still fuzzy. Case in point: will lending be available to any Kindle App users, across platforms, or just other Kindle users? I'm also unclear on whether or not sharing options will be made clear to buyers before purchasing - has anyone heard more about this?

Read the original announcement or the TechCrunch article for more information.

Macmillan's John Sargent Creates a Blog

For those of you following the Amazon-Macmillan price wars, or the least bit interested in e-books and e-book pricing, I highly recommend that you check out the new blog created by Macmillan CEO John Sargent. He presents his blogging efforts thusly:

After the events of the past several weeks, I have been in touch with many of you. It has become clear to me that there is far too little accurate information available in this time of unprecedented change. The issues we all face together are complex, and no news story or 140-character snippet can adequately address them. Therefore, I propose to write you occasionally, when I get a sense that there is a need for direct information.

Enjoy!!

Branding the iPad

Perhaps the most rampant criticisms of the iPad (besides the lack of camera, lack of Flash, lack of e-ink, lack of multi-tasking... did I miss anything?) center around the name. Many reports have claimed women are offended by the name because of its connotation with "sanitary napkins" (a term I've always despised). Personally, I think that's taking the gender barrier a bit too far... but there are a host of funny alternatives floating around out there: iTampon (a thumb-size drive for your iPad) and MaxiPad (either the pink alternative or the larger-disk-space alternative).

The most interesting bit of the debate (in my mind, anyway) is the role MadTV has come to play - after all, they released a skit of two women joking about a device called the "iPad" years before the rumors on an Apple tablet became mainstream.

E-books Won't Kill P-books

Earlier this week, YA author Katherine Paterson (Bridge to Terabithia) wrote an op-ed piece entitled "Apple's iPad is no book-killer" for the New York Daily News. It's short, but to the point. And with cleverly incorporated references to Plato and Socrates' fear of literacy as the death of poetry, Paterson lays bare our fears of the loss of the book.

True, the development of a literate society has forever changed how we listen and how we consume literature, but it has not killed an interest in either. And, if the book truly is "the perfect technology," as Paterson writes, it will withstand the test of time.

Anyway, check out the article - it's well worth a read. Happy Friday!

Tor Authors Speak on Amazon/Macmillan Debate, and Booksellers Support Macmillan

Simon Owen, over at Bloggasm (no, not the same thing as Bookgasm), recently sent me a link to his blog post on the Amazon/Macmillan debate. He had a chance to speak with a few Tor authors (a science-fiction and fantasy publisher that is part of Macmillan), and the article was pretty interesting. Great to get a different perspective on the ongoing discussions as well.

In relation to Tor authors, and other science-fiction and fantasy authors published by Macmillan, the Science Fiction Writers of America (SWFA) are removing any links to Amazon from their site, instead sending customers to Indiebound, Borders, Barnes & Noble, and Powell's. You can read the SWFA release, with their reasoning behind this decision, here.

One Week After the Storm...

One week after Apple announced the iPad, and have you seen the debates? There are those who love it, those who hate it, those to love to hate it and hate to love it... you get my drift. Is there an overall consensus? It's hard to say. But here's what a few top-notches are saying these days:

The Apple Tablet is Here!

The ground-breaking, revolutionary equipment has arrived! Apple announced the iPad yesterday. Despite the many jokes regarding the feminine-hygiene-connotations of the name, it actually looks like a great product. Priced between $499-$850 (depending on size and capabilities), and weighing in at a mere 1.5 lbs, it looks to be a combination of an iPod/iPhone and a laptop... slightly more navigable than the small screen of the former (the screen of an iPad is 9.7" long), slightly more portable than the bulk of the latter. A full break-down of specs can be found on Apple's website or at Gizmodo.

It will run on the same OS as the iPod/iPhone, meaning the 100,000+ Apps in the App store will all work on the iPad. Sadly, as unlimited as the App store seems to be, this is in fact a bit limiting: software that runs on any 'normal' OS will not run on an iPad, making it more limited than a traditional laptop.

Sadly, the tablet does not seem quite as ground-breaking as it could have been. No camera, no multi-tasking (which means no web browser and e-mail app, no Pandora and web browser, no iTunes and iBooks). No word processor. It's still linked to the AT&T 3G network, which I think we've pretty much established is an excellent way to lose customers. AT&T cannot support the existing 3G demands from iPhone users, damaging its service to all customers. I shudder to think what an influx of iPad users will do to the network.

The best news for the publishing industry comes in the form of iBooks, a proposed e-bookstore that would come pre-loaded onto the iPad, and will (Apple hopes) parallel Apple's success with iTunes as an e-music store. The format looks like it will be similar to the Classics App (which I absolutely love). Books purchased will display on an e-bookshelf and as you read, you can flip paper-textured e-pages. You can see a sneak-peek here.

Currently, the store plans to launch with e-book content from Hachette, S&S, Penguin, Macmillan and HarperCollins. Random House, you might notice, is suspiciously missing from the list. In a statement, however, Stuart Applebaum said, "Random House welcomes Apple's iPad and iBooks app and we look forward to our continuing conversations with them about how we might best work together." (from yesterday's PW announcement)

The iPad will run on the traditional e-Pub format, but it is still unclear if e-books obtained from outside the iBook store will work on the iPad as an e-reader (are you tired of all these vowels yet?). Technically, e-books in e-Pub work across various devices, including the Sony e-reader. Apple also has not clarified how it will address self-publishing (which Amazon offers for the Kindle).

Most importantly, it looks like Amazon might face some threats from Apple in the world of how-we-price-e-books. The first book shown at the reveal was Ted Kennedy's, priced at $14.99. This morning, one guest on NPR reported that Apple will allow publishers to set the price of e-books in iBooks, and will simply take a cut of each book sold. This would be a huge challenge to the Amazon Kindle way of doing things, which is $9.99-or-bust. Whether or not this will give publishers enough of an opportunity to stand up against the Amazon giant we have yet to see, but many are hoping that the launch of an e-book store with the backing of a major corporation like Apple will give the publishing industry a chance to hit the 'reset' button on the production, marketing and sale of digital books...

The iPad will be available in March... expect a lot of buzz (and bashing) before then.

The Apple Tablet Is Coming...

... and some (including today's NY Times article) are predicting that, as with the iPod and iTunes, the tablet will turn the status-quo of media consumption on its head. The days of free newspaper and magazine content online are coming to an end (not necessarily a bad thing). Amazon's days of mass power over digital content pricing are dwindling (definitely not a bad thing). Furthermore, this will hopefully give media companies - magazines, newspapers, websites, publishers - a chance to go back and fix the mistakes of digital content readers past (absolutely not a bad thing).

But what is a bad thing (I think) is the power that the tablet will hand over to Steve Jobs - yes, the selfsame man who claimed that the Amazon Kindle would go nowhere because "people don't read anymore." And how wrong he was -- book apps recently overtook game apps as the bestselling category on the App Store for iPods/iPhones. In light of Jobs' earlier comments on reading and e-readers, the tablet seems a bit like back-pedaling, no?

Despite my cynicism, however, I do believe that the tablet - whatever it may look like and however it may work - will revolutionize the world of digital access, and that revolution gives new hope to the media world: just as we knew the music industry could not continue to stand on its feet if Napster remained the main source of music for the world, we now know (perhaps a bit too late) that newspaper and magazines cannot survive if 100% of their content is available online for free. We also know - well, some of us do - that publishing companies cannot survive if e-books are valued at only $9.99; the price of book is more than the sum of printing and shipping costs.

The mere fact that the tablet has successfully created so much buzz before even being officially announced lends credence to the theory that it will stand the industry on its head. Amazon, look out - looks like you're not the only fish in the sea anymore. What that will mean in the long run, though, we have yet to see.

For more information on the (rumored) tablet:

The Exhaustive Guide to Apple Tablet Rumors (Gizmodo)
New Money in Old Media (Wall Street Journal)
New potential for Apps on the tablet (NY Times)
Will Apple have to compete with its own products - the iPod & iPhone? (NY Times)

What do you think the tablet will do to the market? Or rather, what do you hope the tablet will do?

The Nook and e-Lend Options

One of things that both I and other people seemed to be most interested in on the new B&N Nook was the ability to share titles between readers. Sure, they had a 14-day limit, but there are times when I wish I could impose this on my lent-out printed books, so that's easy to get around. Original Nook announcements claimed that e-books on the Nook claimed that e-books would be lend-able an unlimited number of times, albeit not to more than one person at a time (kind of like a printed book -- are we seeing the parallels?).

But, lo and behold, DRM could not go so smoothly. Instead, publishers - yes, publishers! - are digging in their heels and throwing a bit of a fit about the lending of e-books. I fail to see the problem, really, as printed books are swapped, traded, lent, borrowed, stolen, etc, on a regular basis, and if our claim is that e-books should not replace printed books, than why would we want to establish e-books as "fixing the problem" of borrowed print books?

In response, B&N has limited lending to only 1 time per book. I guess that's kind of like lending a printed book to someone who always forgets to return it...

Moreover, with the ongoing debate about e-book pricing, does it really make sense for publishers to claim that e-books should be priced at the same level as their printed counterparts while simultaneously limiting the uses and capabilities of e-books? I'm big on not undervaluing e-books so as not to undervalue printed books (look at the crazy price wars), but in order to back up this claim, publishers (and e-book retailers) have to start addressing some of the issues of e-books: not compatible from one reader to the next, no lending rights, etc, etc, etc.

In the end, though, I guess it boils down to one question: e-book or p-book, does book lending really threaten publishing, or does it serve to promote books, authors, and the like? Any thoughts?

B&N Nook - A Round-up

Oh, this week I am a failed book-blogger. How can I claim to be interested in the book world and not write anything about Barnes & Noble's big announcement of the week: the release of the Nook? Information first appeared on the BN website on Oct 20th, and the Nook has been no small subject among the world of e-books (and p-books!) this week.

In short, the Nook is BN's response to the so-far widely successful Amazon Kindle. The $259 Nook has WiFi and 3G capabilities, allows readers to share books (oh, DRM, how we love you) across devices (although as far as I can tell, not the Kindle or Sony reader). The WiFi will only be in stores for now, but there are talks of opening it up later.

From what I can tell, it seems that BN has addressed many of the complaints that users have had with the Kindle and the Sony e-reader. It allows the sharing of books (which the Kindle does not), has WiFi access (available in stores, which is creating a brick-and-digital bundle many have been hoping for; this will also be seen in hardcover/e-book bundled sales), has a large, easy-to-read screen, can be used as a USB device... the list goes on.

Teleread, devoted to e-book developments, has more information on all of this -- here's a round-up of their coverage from the week.

As a side note, there are still theories that Apple will outdo the lot of the book retailers (look at the success of the book apps on iPhones and iPods...). Check out more details in Newsweek.