Hi all,

Nowadays, there are a lot of ebooks that can be found all over the internet. Before the invention of computer and internet, most of us, including me rely on books for information and entertainment.

Sometimes I still prefer books or magazines over ebooks. I know ebooks, we can save them up and read them anywhere or anytime we want from our laptops or desktops. But, for books, sometimes I feel that they are much better off as I can read, keep and treasure them better. Sort of like a collection, even though it will take a lot of space in your house.

Books and magazines will still be my priority but at times, I think of keeping some nice, informative ebooks in my laptop.

What do you think, are you an ebook junkies or prefer the conventional books + magazines junkies ?

For me, I still vote for books and magazines !

Cheers !
Vince

I still prefer books as well, with one exception: computer books. I find it frustrating to buy software manuals and guides, only to have to replace them whenever I upgrade to a new version. It's such a waste of paper! I would use e-books for that purpose instead.

As for magazines, our household subscribes to only three magazines and we get two of them electronically; that works pretty well for me. The great thing about electronic editions is that you also get access to the archives. We now get Protegez-Vous (Québec's answer to Consumer Reports) electronically, which means that if we want to find their reviews on any kind of product we can search online and find it instantly instead of trying to wade through five years of back issues in the bookshelf.

For newspapers, I am totally into them online. Much easier, and free! I can't believe the NY Times is free; it would cost me an arm and a leg to get the paper version, plus the waste of paper is terrible for someone like me who only has time to read a few articles per day.

For leisure-reading, including magazines, I prefer dead trees. I read those front to back. Newspapers & manuals can be electronic, since I skip around and read what's important to me.

Words printed on paper are fantastic... they're durable, they take abuse, they're still readable after years of neglect.
To read ebooks, I would need a device that I didn't have to worry about the power supply, I could read in low light, I could loan to friends, I could cram into my bag or pocket without worrying about breaking.

I don't see that happening for quite some time. And on the rare occasion I get to meet an author I admire, how do I have them autograph an e-book?

For me, this is the ultimate argument:

I still don't have a device that I leave in the bathroom or will bring to the beach and toss around.

I have fixed feelings on this. Most of my information consumption is now computer-based. I'd love to be able to get electronic versions of my favorite magazines. Some, such as The New Yorker and The New York Times do offer solid electronic versions, so that's nice. (A lot of the content is even free!)

However, I don't like reading most books via a screen. That bugs me. Some books are okay in electronic format, but mostly I like mine printed.

As I pointed out in my fiscal fitness journal, I'm actually in the process of converting from physical comic books to digital comic books. This is a sort of leap of faith, but I think it's going to be keen.

I have two kinds of reading:
Read-Once, which includes things like newspapers, magazines, etc. which I'd be happy to have in an electronic form. This also covers a great amount of my Library reading (I like Tom Clancy books, but I'll never re-read them)
Read-Again, which covers many books that I love. There are books that I've owned several copies of because I love them so much I give them away. "Here, you _have_ to read this!" Books that I want to live with, so that I can go back to them at any time. I don't think I'll ever replace this set with an electronic form.

I vote for paper books and magazines, and I generally go for used versions. It's hard to lie on the couch with a laptop and read.... It's easier to underline or mark up margins in a book.... It's easier to use a book if you want to flip between pages, or cross reference between books (jumping from a work of literature to a mythology text, for example). It's just so much easier to interact with real (paper) books and magazines; reading becomes more of an active, participatory process for me. Computers just don't cut it in this regard. I read some magazine and news articles online, but it's like observing an ancient artifact that's inside a glass case. Sometimes it's handy to have a recipe on the computer screen when I cook, but I still prefer laying a barbecue spatula on the pages of a paper cookbook, to hold the recipe in place as I trundle along in the kitchen. I guess I sort of feel like my cooking experience is more authentic if a paper book is involved....

I read a lot of stuff online, but I prefer books. However, sometimes it's more cost effective to publish something as an ebook. For example, I've written a couple of ebooks that have a very specialized market. If I were to try to sell these in paper form, I'd have to make them more generic. By sticking to electronic form, I'm able to offer them at a reasonable price and still target the niche.

I would -LOVE- to convert to ebooks if it made any sense to do so. There just doesn't seem to be any one solid standard for ebooks (the books or the readers). That, and almost every time I've went online to see if whatever book I'm interested in is available in ebook format, it isn't available. I don't want to go invest in an expensive ebook reader if I can't get all the books I want in that format. Makes no sense.

That said, once ebooks start to catch on and there becomes difinitive standards for ebook formats and readers, and more books become available, then heck yeah I'll be on board. Some of the new ebook readers look great with the e-ink displays that look like actual paper with printed ink. I'd love to have my entire library on a memory card. Books, as nice as they are to have around, are a huge waste of space and resources (paper).

I've grown to really love my local library system lately, though. Not sure how ebooks could be integrated into libraries... maybe have ebook computer kiosk, insert your memory card and "check out" the book from there, but it would have DRM attached that would make the book expire after a month or something.

Yeah, that's why I do mine as PDFs. That way, anyone can read them.

I prefer physical books for lengthy material because it is easier on the eyes. I hear the Sony Ereader is great for reading e-books but that jarring effect when you "turn a page" looks like a big turn off.

I was looking into ebooks again, and I just noticed that a lot of ebooks seem to cost the exact same amount as a regular book. That, in my opinion, is bogus. It must cost virtually nothing to distribute ebooks -- they're hosted online. There's no cost for paper, printing/binding, warehouses, distribution, etc with ebooks, so why do they cost the same? That just means way more profit for someone, when it SHOULD be savings passed on to the consumer.

It's the same kind of thing with iTunes or something. If I'm going to buy a "virtual" copy of an album, I'm sure as heck not going to pay full price ($10-$12ish) when it costs them virtually nothing to get the album to me. I'd rather go to a store and spend the same amount of money and get the artwork and a physical copy of the CD. I'd consider buying albums on iTunes or a similar service if they were heavily discounted (i.e. $4-5 per album).

Will, do you mean that they're the same price as the print copy of the same book? And are you talking about new books or old books?

Yes, and I was looking at new books.