We recently talked about the monetization aspect of the Paleo movement, a trend that will only continue growing in parallel with the Paleo community itself. It should be expected, after all, that people will seek to make money where they can, and so riding the coat-tails of a popular movement is a typical strategy. No surprise, then, when we recently started seeing advertisements for podcasts and eBooks in an effort to cash in on the drive to be better at Paleo. While some Paleo gurus published books that act as the foundation for their presence in the paleosphere, they have typically not witheld information from the Paleo masses by erecting paywalls. Robb Wolf, known for his book The Paleo Solution, is one such guru, who runs a blog and a rather excellent podcast, where he gives out a ton of useful information for free. Others, meanwhile, dispense information through monthly and yearly memberships, presumably relying on this type of information as their primary source of income.¹ We were rather surprised when we saw Wolf advertising his recent The Paleo Diet Budget Shopping Guide as a paid eBook

Our first reaction was something between a sigh and a cringe, and had anyone other than Wolf advertised the book, we would have cried foul immediately. That’s not because the concept of the book is bad, but because it’s hard to see how one could distill enough useful information into an eBook to justify a $19.99 price tag.² Coming in at 67 pages front-to-back, this budget shopping guide effectively runs 30 cents/page. Compare that to a copy of Paleo Magazine (68 pages), at $5.99³, and you can see why we’d be skeptical. Still, we’re a fan of Wolf and know he isn’t a shill, so we picked up a copy of the guide to see what secrets it would divulge.

More breakdown.

There are seven sections to the guide: six chapters and a final section entitled “Resources”. The Chapters are titled accordingly:

1. All the excuses
2. Learn to cook
3. Meal Planning 101
4. Money Saving Tricks
5. Budget Shopping Priorities
6. In the kitchen

We left off the [sic] tag above, but those are verbatim titles, complete with inconsistent capitalization. We don’t mean to gripe unecessarily here, because the content is most important in a guide like this, but since we paid for the eBook, it’s fair to assume the publishing quality is up-to-par with other eBooks we buy. In this case, the editing seems poor from the get-go, and makes a very poor impression when we haven’t even come to the meat of the book. We’ll focus on the meat in a moment,⁴ but it’s worth mentioning that the guide reads like a self-published eBook (that’s what it is, after all) and not a professionally published one; it doesn’t read like a finished book. That’s rather unfortunate, because we believe it’s fair to assume a 67-page book regularly priced at $19.99 bearing Wolf’s name would be a pretty high-quality affair.

Page three of the guide includes a sidebar explaining the eBook, a PDF, is actually “a multimedia guide”. If that sounds misleading, it’s because the eBook contains hyperlinks to web content, making it less of a static document than your average PDF. It’s quite possible that some PDF readers have inline browsers to make accessing this content more convenient, but in iBooks, it means touching a link opens a dialogue box asking whether you want to open the link in Mobile Safari. We would sooner define a multimedia guide as an eBook designed for embedded multimedia, such as one can create using various eBook authoring tools like iBooks Author.⁵

That said, there are plenty of links to follow, even if they blend in with non-linked content. The sidebar we mentioned earlier points out how the links are orange in colour, but they’re not the only orange text in the book, which can lead to trying to follow links that simply aren’t there. For example, section headers are orange, and more than once we assumed a header might link to a blog post explaining the topic in more depth.⁶

The meat.

The first chapter is focused on debunking the excuses for why someone can’t buy food according to the Paleo template. We’ve actually seen some of this information before via Wolf’s other outlets, so it became pretty clear early on that if you follow Wolf’s blog and podcast, some of the information in this guide is recycled and may not be that valuable. Wolf openly states in the guide that some of the information discussed is borrowed from previous blog posts, but it’s not clear to the potential buyer that most of the guide isn’t new information that can’t be found on Wolf’s blog and podcasts. In other words, this should be more clear before you buy the guide, not after.

About 20% into the book, the excuses are behind you and you’re into chapter two, which focuses on cooking. For those who don’t know the first thing about cooking, the very first page of the chapter has linked videos on pressure cooking and slow cooking. The chapter continues with other cooking techniques like making soups, cooking veggies, and common cooking techniques. Unfortunately, it’s a rather short chapter that ends after five pages of content, trailing off with 10 recipe links. The chapter does contain links to a handful of other online recipe resources, including popular Paleo cookbooks.⁷ Yet, we wished the chapter were more fleshed out and included more basic cooking tips, like how to best combine certain ingredients, the basis for utilizing acids and marinades, what spices should be on-hand at all times, and basic recipes the reader can build on to developer more complex meals. As it is, the chapter feels very under-developed, pointing to a variety of online resources like Wolf’s blog and social networking accounts, which may very well contain useful information, but aren’t content-specific enough compared to what we expected.⁸

Almost a third of the way into the guide, Wolf talks about meal planning. This chapter has a lot more useful content than the first two chapters, complete with resources that a lot of families could use. It’s pretty clear at this point in the guide that the target audience is people very new to eating Paleo, as most everything is something Paleo veterans have figured out ages ago. We were hoping for a greater emphasis on where to buy select products online for cheaper than in local stores, and while the chapter does have a link to a page in the Resources section listing several online sites, it’s not clear from the guide itself what products one should seek out at these destinanations. For example, we hoped the guide would address good places to buy very specific products, be it coconut oil, pemmican, or some other Paleo food/product. Arguably the best section in this chapter is entitled “What do I do with that?” The section lists several Paleo ingredients and explains how to best utilize them in recipes.

Chapter four is seven pages of content and could arguably have been merged with chapter five, which is only four pages of content in length. Again, the advice is nothing we haven’t heard before, but it may be one of the most useful sections for those new to Paleo eating. Chapter six has more kitchen tips, and feels like an addendum to the second chapter on cooking; it’s six pages long and includes reader tips on food preparation.

Finally, the Resources section includes links to Wolf’s other products, including his first eBook, Robb Wolf’s 30 Day Total Transformation which retails for $25.⁹ A lot of the links in this section can also be found elsewhere in the guide, but it’s nice to have them consolidated for easy reference. We expect a lot of people who buy this guide to read it once and then just use the Resources section as a reference in the future, perusing the 38 blog links at the end when they need recipe ideas. The guide’s index takes up the last two pages of the guide, but it’s almost unecessary considering how short the guide is, and because the table of contents breaks the guide down nicely enough.

To buy or not to buy?

In our case, we were a bit disppointed with the guide, but that’s only because we’ve read several Paleo books and remain somewhat involved in the online Paleo community. That we listen to Wolf’s podcast and follow his blog’s RSS feed means a lot of the information in this guide is old news to us. That’s really the major complaint we have about the guide other than its price: it’s not clear that all the guide does is consolidate Wolf’s previous information in a paid eBook. This means that those who do have the time to scour the web and listen to old podcasts will find this guide rather redundant, but those new to Paleo, or those who don’t have the time to find all this information, may very well find the guide a useful purchase. In fact, for the average household who is just now being introduced to Paleo concepts, this guide makes a nice gift, though as we remarked earlier, a different eBook format would make more sense (i.e. native Kindle or iBooks versions).¹⁰

For those focusing on the cost, we admit it’s hard not to think about the monetization shift in the paleosphere, as this guide is a very different beast from Wolf’s The Paleo Solution. The latter is chock full of useful information and at $9.99, is a significantly better buy than this guide. For those who already understand the basic Paleo concepts and are truly wondering how to afford real foods, this guide may be something to look into, but we’re frankly surprised it’s a big enough conundrum to warrant a $19.99 purchase, especially when a lot of the information in the first chapter is basic common sense.¹¹ For $5, this guide would be a much better buy, and almost a no-brainer for anyone getting Wolf’s other material for free.¹² Though, for those on the fence, there’s a 30-day money-back guarantee.

There are useful tidbits in the guide, and if you’re not at least actively lurking the paleosphere and the price doesn’t put you off, pick up a copy at the current sale price of $14.99.¹³

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Gary Arndt talks about using the iPad while traveling, and his review is perfectly reasonable until he mentions content creation.

[The iPad] is fine for sending out tweets, replying to email or updating Facebook. I have never written a blog post nor have I edited a photo taken on my SLR with the iPad. I could do it, but it just wasn’t designed as a tool for content creation.

There’s only one problem with Arndt’s take on this: it’s wrong. To argue that the iPad wasn’t designed for content creation because you don’t use it for such is ignoring a considerable number of iPad owners who do manage to successfully create content on the device, and ultimately speaks nothing of Apple’s intended use of the device; the fact that Apple has itself released content creation tools for the iPad (e.g. iMovie) tells us that the iPad was indeed designed as a tool for content creation.

Arndt seems a little confused, because he does mention doing some photo editing on his iPhone. And, while he complains about the virtual keyboard for longer written pieces, he states early on in his review that he doesn’t use an external keyboard. Well, why not? That would obviously address the issue of the virtual keyboard not being a good enough tool for sustained writing sessions.

Naturally, TUAW picked up the story and couldn’t help but chime in on the iPad hate, because apparently it’s trendy to dismiss the iPad as a long-term travel companion because the new MacBook Air is so damn sexy.

As Arndt points out, yes it’s great to be able to carry dozens of books with you on your travels, but what’s not great is the limited battery life your iPad is going to give you while reading (blame it on the LCD display, which is much more power-hungry than the e-ink screens of many dedicated ereaders). If you’re a huge reader, stick to a Kindle or my preferred choice, the paperback.

Only, bringing paperbacks on extended trips puts us right back in the situation Arndt used to find himself in (toting around media), instead of consolidating his media in one compact device. And we really have to wonder how much battery life you need in an eBook reader. Is the iPad’s 10 hours of battery life in airplane mode insufficient for eBook reading? Who is traveling for that amount of time without access to electricity? For hardcore travelers, there are several backup batteries available that will allow you to do more than just read eBooks while on the go, and if you’re truly out in the country without access to the electric grid, there are solar chargers available that work wonderfully.

But yeah, Michael Grothaus back to the MacBook Air:

But the biggest reason I won’t be taking my iPad with me is because I do a lot of content creation on the road. I write books and for blogs and magazines. The level of writing I do makes the touchscreen keyboard on the iPad impractical — and the 11″ MacBook Air a godsend.

Again, use a fucking external keyboard. Thinking you’re a fancy-pants book and magazine writer has no bearing on your ability to write on the iPad, because there are several external keyboard options available to you. And when you don’t need it, the iPad’s smaller footprint kicks in and offers flexibility that your shiny new MacBook Air doesn’t. If you argued that you needed specific functionality in, say, Photoshop, or you needed to work in a CAD environment, you’d have a solid argument for needing a notebook, but you’re a writer, and there are plenty of solid writing apps for the iPad that people have used to, you know, write books.

Does anyone else think articles like this are just excuses for justifying a new MacBook Air purchase?

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Two years ago we addressed eBooks and the Kindle, pointing out how the $360 device required about 150 book purchases just to break even compared to the cost of buying paper books. Convenience aside, eBooks were no cheaper than paper books short-term, which is ridiculous considering the savings a publisher has by not having to acquire resources, print the physical books, and distribute them to retailers.

Today, the ad-supported Kindle runs $114. With an average price savings of $2 per book,¹ a Kindle owner still needs to buy 57 books to break even on print sales. According to an article in the Wall Street Journal from last August, the average eBook reader goes through 2.6 books per month, which means their average savings are $5.20/month. We can say, then, that the break-even point for the $114 Kindle will be in about 22 months.

So just under two years for the average eBook reader to break even? That doesn’t seem like a great deal, even considering the nearly $250 price drop on the Kindle from two years ago. Rumours suggest that Amazon intends to release another e-ink version of the Kindle for even cheaper later this year, but even a $99 Kindle won’t rectify this rather major pricing issue. As we pointed out in the past, this pricing discrepancy isn’t as bad when we considering eBooks on a device that does substantially more than just present eBooks, like the iPad and similar devices. Here, the savings are considerable, because we don’t have to make up the cost of the hardware on eBook sales alone, since most people aren’t buying devices like the iPad for the primary purpose of reading books.

Yet, eBook sales appear to be eclipsing print sales despite the fact that the average reader isn’t saving money. Is it a matter of the up-front hardware costs not being considered by the consumer, or do most people simply value convenience this much? We imagine it’s a rather thin line, which is why so many people are still on-the-fence about switching over to eBooks. Presumably, by the time the Kindle reaches a price-point of $60, where a $2 price difference between book versions means that savings start after the first year of ownership, a lot more people will jump on the bandwagon.

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Things have come a long way since we voiced our concerns on eBooks two years ago. Today, our primary medium for books is the iPad, as we alternate between iBooks and the Amazon Kindle app¹. When a book isn’t out for either reader, we’re more likely to wait on a purchase. We don’t seem to be alone either: John Gruber reports that Amazon is now selling more eBooks than print books. This despite the obstacles.

What obstacles? As we pointed out in the past, DRM and the obstacles associated therewith, such as sharing. Our chief complaint with eBooks is that we can’t do much with them once we own them. We can’t sell them, and in many cases, we can’t loan them². In the case of iBooks, we can’t even gift books because Apple somehow never implemented the ability for someone to buy a book for another iOS user, even though this capability exists for iOS apps. About the only quasi-work-around is sharing a book with someone in the same household using Home Sharing. And the side-effect: we buy less books as gifts, because we feel almost guilty not taking the more sustainable, practical. route. And this doesn’t even consider the increased cost of a physical book most of the time.

At this stage in the game, though, many publishers still aren’t pushing for eBook versions. Amazon has a link on each book’s page to request an eBook version, assuming a digital version isn’t available yet. It’s is a quick process to follow. Apple’s process is a tad more complicated, and we’re curious how well either system really works once reports have been filed. More importantly, we’re curious about what the push-back from publishers is about offering eBooks versions? Presumably, the process to create an eBook isn’t difficult if a print version is ready; how much more time and money is needed to verify layout and get an eBook version out the door?

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While we brought the Joo Joo up in passing, Rob Enderle proclaimed that the former CrunchPad could crush the market for tablet computing, thereby souring Apple’s entrance into the market altogether. The only problem with his assertion is that the Apple tablet isn’t the same beast as the Joo Joo, and to say that the latter will quell consumer desire for the iTablet is like saying that Motorola’s Razr savaged the Apple iPhone.

Enderle is really comparing apples to oranges (no pun intended); all of these non-Apple products are extremely limited: the Kindle is first and foremost an eBook reader, the Razr is just a cellphone, and the Joo Joo is a web-surfing tool. For those like Enderle who still don’t get it, the Joo Joo is a one-trick pony. It’s not a media monster running iTunes, it isn’t a keyboard-less computer with the capacity to run OS X applications, and it certainly doesn’t have the potential packing of the print industry to push forward with digital distribution of magazines and newspapers.

Most consumers probably haven’t even heard of the Joo Joo and its developer, Fusion Garage. The Joo Joo will cost $500, and for what’s probably just twice that, users will be able to own an Apple-polished product that does significantly more. So even if news of the Joo Joo does trickle down to the average computer user, we’re not so sure anyone’s going to care, especially once Apple announces their own tablet (which will be an actual computer and not just a web-browser).

But what can we expect from a tech analyst with such stunning gems as this:

[It] sounds way to close to JewJew with implications that could offend a wide variety of buyers…

You’re right, Enderle, that’s what’s going to make the Joo Joo fail.

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All this talk about the iTablet, and we’re still confused as to what the ultimate point is. Not about the talk itself, but about the reasoning to release an iTablet in the first place, novelty factor aside. The iPhone Blog was keen on pointing out the OS possibilities for the rumoured iTablet, and that consideration will clearly define where the device fits into Apple’s lineup, and what kind of consumer it will target. We thought more on the subject of use, and came up with a couple iTablet versions worth discussing.

The Browser

Those in the “large iPod” camp are undoubtedly browsers. That is to say, they’re the exact market the iPod Touch and iPhone go after when Apple advertises mobile Safari and video iPod features. So why a new device? Because as good a mobile entertainment center it is, the Touch/iPhone isn’t ideal for sitting back on a couch and watching a movie. Granted, that’s what TVs are for, but the iTablet Browser will enable users to take their movies and television shows to places their TVs can’t go: camping, the hotel room, the back-yard, etc. In other words, the iTablet Browser is exactly what the iPod Touch is, albeit bigger, which means less eye strain, easier-to-navigate web pages, etc.

While a niche target for sure, the iTablet Browser could be the most basic of all netbook-like devices: targeting the most casual of casual computer users. In other words, this device would be for the many grandparents out there who only need to get online to check their e-mail to receive pictures of their grandkids, or to folks who do little more than surf the web. It’s the perfect dumb-terminal for people who don’t do enough traveling to justify the small screen real-estate of the iPod Touch, or don’t need a portable phone-computer like the iPhone. What’s more, with a screen able to run multiple iPhone apps, or even customized apps like a large Kindle application, the iTablet Browser could becomes a cross between the Kindle (albeit with no e-ink display), an iPod Touch, and an AppleTV. In other words, it would be the ultimate throw-in-your-briefcase computer.

The beauty of this device is in its low-hardware requirements. The iTablet Browser needn’t be much faster than the iPhone 3GS (though likely will be since its size will be larger), and there’s little need to enable the device to run more than one application at a time, much like with the iPod Touch. Thus, the OS would likely be the same (with minor modifications), and the overall price of the device wil be low.

The Secretary

Moving up a notch, the iTablet Secretary addresses one of our oldest complaints about the iPhone: the lack of a solid input mechanism. The iTablet has the additional real-estate we need to adequately review our textual input, but at its core, a bloated iPod Touch still doesn’t have a good way to type. So, the iTablet Secretary will have to either have a bluetooth keyboard, some sort of slideout keyboard, or fancy handwriting recognition ala the legendary Apple Newton. Plus, for bloggers, students, and other multi-taskers, there would need to be an ability to quickly switch between a note-taking application and a browsing screen (mobile Safari, an eBook application, etc.) This could be as simple as beefing up the iPhone Notes app and letting it run in the background just like the iPod app, but with this and handwriting recognition, we’d likely be looking at faster hardware. Plus, there’s the whole issue of a stylus, which we wouldn’t discount outright, but it’d still be a questionable move for Apple, since their reliance on new capacitative touchscreens left the stylus behind. Of course, the iTablet Secretary could work by just letting users write letters with their fingers, which seems like the most logical move at this point.

Obviously, the cost of the iTablet Secretary would be greater than the iTablet Browser, but it would have many more uses, and target many more consumers. The cost needn’t be much higher, however, since adequate handwriting recognition was done years ago in portable devices. In fact, one would have to wonder why Apple wouldn’t release the iTablet Secretary over the iTablet Browser given that its hardware requirements wouldn’t be vastly greater, what with software considerations being the primary difference. Indeed, a modified iPod Touch OS would work wonderfully here, too.

The Excelsior

The ideal ultra-casual, portable PC, is embodied in our idea of the iTablet Excelsior. In short, it’s a full-on Apple computer with the regular version of OS X. Like the MacBook Air, it would have an attachable SuperDrive as an accessory, and would work with bluetooth devices like keyboards and mice (in addition to maintaining handwriting recognition). It would have a USB port, and maybe even a video-out port. It wouldn’t be particularly powerful, with specs at or below the basic MacBook, but it would easily handle all the tasks the iTablet Secretary could handle. In short, it’s a MacBook Air, sans keyboard.

But why go this route? Some may argue against this because of possible cannibalzing of MacBook sales, but we could make the same argument for the iTablet Browser or iTablet Secretary cannibalizing iPod Touch sales. The reality is that in their current state, the iPod Touch and iPhone are mere extensions of the home PC. That is to say, one needs a PC or Mac to sync with, and one needs iTunes to similarly manage media. Without a home computer, the iPod Touch and iPhone are artificially limited. The iTablet Excelsior, however, could serve not only as the backbone for one’s existing iPod Touch and iPhone, but for those only wanting only one super-portable device for media browsing, the iTablet Excelsior is it.

In other words, for an all-in-one solution for the average student, the MacBook may be the way to go, and maybe the iTablet Excelsior, with all its options (superdrive, keyboard, mouse, external display) would dwarf the MacBook in price, but by itself, it could squeeze well below the 1k mark and still offer a great niche computing experience. In other words, it wouldn’t cannibalize MacBook sales (effectively being part of the lineup), and would serve as the Mac Mini of the notebook world; it would be extensible enough to still offer a great home-computing experience, while working great as an on-the-go computer for class, managing warehouse inventory, or just blogging from the local coffee shop.

Conclusion

Undoubtedly, Apple will be targeting some sort of niche with the iTablet, but just which niche will it go for? Will the iTablet cut into would-be iPod Touch customers, or would-be MacBook customers? And can it carve a definitive place for itself in the market? The hype behind the device will no doubt steamroll it into the mindshare of computer users, but only its practicality will determine its success, and save it from the fate of Apple’s hobby venture, the AppleTV. We tend to think that the potential for a surefire hit is there, but even as gadget aficionados, we’d be hard-pressed to justify the purchase of anything less than the iTablet Excelsior, considering we already carry an iPhone and use a MacBook.

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By chance, shortly after writing our take on the status of eBooks and the Kindle movement, we hopped online to buy a bunch of books that we’ve been meaning to acquire. The books themselves aren’t specifically relevant to this discussion, but what is relevant is the type of books we were after. To clarify, the books we were looking to get were, in general, reference books for various things:

1. I Will Teach You to be Rich, by Ramit Sethi.
2. The Transition Town: from Oil Dependence to Local Resilience, by Rob Hopkins
3. My Tank is Fight!, by Jack Parsons
4. How to Make Wargames Terrain, from Games Workshop

The first two books we picked up are available for the Kindle, and as we briefly considered buying the eBook versions to view on our iPhone, we quickly realized the folly of that idea. Ultimately, what it came down to was the convenience of not having a physical copy of the book versus the advantage of not keeping the book to begin with. In other words, the (slight) financial advantage that came along with saving space in our home was temporary: in reality, we probably won’t keep either book around for long anyway.

In the case of the first book, a financial guide, we intend to gift the book soon after we acquire it. That raises the simple question of sharing eBooks, which, we understand, usually have DRM attached to prevent rampant eBook piracy. This is interesting because it means that owners of a book can’t easily transfer that property if it’s in eBook format, compared to physical books that can be given away after one is done with them. With eBooks, the assumption is that the first owner will be the last owner, and as a result, eBook sellers will make more money than with traditional books, because people won’t be lending their eBook readers to friends; if a friend wants an eBook you have, they’ll be forced to buy their own copy. In our situation, perhaps there’s a way to gift an eBook to someone else’s account, but it’s clearly not as simple as just shipping a book to them, or giving a book to them in person, especially if we intend to flip through it first.

The second book on our list, related to transition towns and sustainable communities, is one that we intend on reading and then passing off to our significant other. After that, depending on how good of a reference it is, we’ll either hang on to it, give it to a friend, or sell it. With both latter options, the eBook option is ultimately poor, once again because of the restrictions on eBook ownership. Also, loaning out our iPhone, even to our significant other, just to read a book now and again, is an inconvenience. If we had a Kindle, this might not be a problem, since we wouldn’t take a Kindle everywhere we go, but the problem of transferring ownership once again comes up if we later want to pass the book on.

Put simply, there’s no market for second-hand eBooks, which is probably one of the main reasons Amazon is happy to start the eBook bandwagon. For consumers, who don’t intend to keep a book they buy long-term, going the eBook route doesn’t make sense unless the convenience of not having physical copies is really worth that much to them. For most people, however, especially those who are happy to recoup some money by selling used books down the road, the only way eBooks are worthwhile is if they’re substantially cheaper than their physical counterparts. For example, if we were to buy a $10 book new, and were able to get $5 from a used bookstore a month from now, then we effectively only spent $5 to “rent” the book. This means that the eBook option would only have been worthwhile if the eBook was priced at $5, half the price the physical version sold for. This is why non-reference books don’t make as much sense in the eBook format; works of fiction, which will likely only be read once before being discarded, are ideal candidates in their physical form, since some of their cost can be recouped later. For books that will definitely be kept around, however, even after they’re read initially, the eBook option begins to make sense, since they’re not books whose price can be recouped later from a second-hand sale.

As for the last two books we picked up, they were not available on the Kindle. The third book, half-fiction and half-history book, would have made a decent eBook – we’re not quite sure if we’d keep it long-term, though there’s a good chance we would. The pictures included are, we believe, black-and-white or grayscale images at best, so the Kindle would be a good candidate for this work. The fourth book, however, a reference guide for modeling wargaming terrain, includes colour photographs that would look poor on a Kindle. That said, since we’re likely to keep this reference book around and not sell it, it would be a good eBook candidate if we had a good, large-screen colour display for it. Alas, the Kindle does not have colour e-ink yet, and the iPhone is simply too small of a display device for this kind of work.

Ultimately, eBooks will pick up more momentum, but the lack of a second-hand market is a factor against their proliferation. What Amazon should be doing right now, especially with the larger Kindle DX now showcased, is getting publishers of reference books on-board. That is, Amazon should be targeting publishers of academic text-books, as well as publishers of field manuals (for mechanics, makers, etc). If this segment of the publishing industry widely adopted the eBook format, it would be much easier to get people to adopt an expensive device like the Kindle DX. Of course, for industry and the academic community, physical reference books are already very pricey, so moving to an eBook platform with appropriate price differences compared to traditional publications would be worthwhile. (Students could recoup the cost of a Kindle DX much more easily if textbooks in eBook format were just a little cheaper than their physical counterparts, especially since some already spend hundreds of dollars on books per semester. After a few semesters, the Kindle DX could have paid for itself.)

The only other factor here is ease-of-reference, which we addressed in our last post. If cost and availability of reference books in eBook format were no longer factors, the Kindle itself would need a quick, efficient way to flip back and forth between user-defined sections. Right now, we’re not so sure the Kindle is adequate for that purpose. Still, the obvious potential for eBooks to overtake the conventional book format is there, particularly in academic and industrial circles.

Similar Posts:

• If eBooks are so successful, why the push-back? – Things have come a long way since we [voiced our concerns](http://beastwith.in/2009/05/05/on-amazons…
• eBooks still aren’t “cheap”. – Two years ago we addressed eBooks and the Kindle, [pointing out](http://beastwith.in/2009/05/05/on-a…
• On Amazon’s Kindle and the eBook format. – The very idea of an eBook reader is the stuff of the future. One device to store a library of inform…

The very idea of an eBook reader is the stuff of the future. One device to store a library of information? Just imagine – clearing up household clutter by being able to get rid of all one’s books (and bookshelves!) and replacing them with one small device. A device that, so conveniently, is about the size of a netbook. Paper is so 20th century, isn’t it?

Well, not quite. eBook reading hasn’t taken off, though Amazon wants to convince us that it has. With their eBook reader, the Kindle, and their recent purchase of the studio behind leading iPhone eBook application Stanza, Amazon is positioning themselves to dominate the digital book download market. The idea, from a future financial perspective, is pretty solid: get in on the ground floor, and establish oneself as the market leader. Then, slowly push out the legacy competition by offering the more convenient eBook format over paper.

And why not? From a convenience perspective, there are only a couple reasons not to jump on the eBook bandwagon. For one, buying an eBook is near-instant gratification. No need to run to the store, and no need to wait for a book ordered online to ship. For books sans graphics, read for casual entertainment, there’s little differentiating the reading experience on a Kindle compared to on paper. Most novels, for example, don’t require the reader to flip back and forth between pages; reading is an entirely iterative process: flip forward, one page at a time, until reading is complete.

But that’s where eBook convenience pretty much ends. No matter how great the Kindle’s battery life is, it’s still reliant on a battery. And on-Kindle service is bound to Sprint’s network availability. Even if these factors aren’t huge turnoffs, there’s still the fact that the Kindle is pretty expensive at this point, costing $360. Even with the inflated price of paper books these days, the Kindle proves a poor purchase. Just now peeking into Amazon’s store, Kindle books look to cost around $10 a pop, with their paper equivalents only costing a couple dollars more. With a price difference of only $2, the break-even price of a Kindle doesn’t happen until we’ve purchased 150 books, having spent $1,800. For most consumers, even buying 150 books is unrealistic, begging the question as to just how worth it the Kindle’s convenience is, space-saving aside.

The numbers above can be tweaked, naturally, if we discount the price of the Kindle. Assuming we already own an iPhone, for example, with the free Kindle application, we’re now talking pure savings, since we don’t need to break even on a hardware purchase. And this is really where the Kindle’s inconvenience can be seen. Talking about the break-even point for the iPhone is a non-factor because it’s unlikely that the purpose of purchasing an iPhone is for eBook reading alone. The iPhone is already used for a number of purposes, and a free eBook reader only makes the device more lust-worthy. Compare that to the Kindle, which offers almost no functionality other than presenting eBooks. Granted, there’s a built-in web browser, which is somewhat of a saving grace, but we question its usability over something tried-and-tested (like Safari).

Yes, there are other small advantages the Kindle offers, such as presenting text using a technology known to produce less eye-strain over the LCDs used in devices like the iPhone. But these minor boons to the device are what make the Kindle a luxury device, not a realistic, ubiquitous replacement for paper books. This becomes ever more noticeable when we’re looking at eBook readers for displaying textbooks and other tomes of reference. Simply put, tabbing paper pages is significantly more convenient than bookmarking eBook pages. That’s not to say a reasonable digital interface couldn’t be designed to simulate the real-world flexibility of tabbing pages (and adding notes), but no eBook reader is there just yet.

Recent talk is of a “large” Kindle for displaying newspapers, as though that’s what people (and not the newspaper industry) want. The Kindle isn’t going to solve the problem of newspapers publishing old news, nor the fact that the same news is available, for free, online. A Kindle with a large screen may be nice for displaying pictures alongside text (i.e. in magazine format), but without colour, the merits of such a device remain questionable.

What really needs to happen before eBooks will truly take off is a much cheaper cost to the consumer. A two-dollar price difference is nothing. eBooks should run $5 tops if there’s a paper-back equivalent, and more if the only alternative is an expensive hard-cover copy. As it stands, we’ve seen newly-released books cheaper in conventional format than their Kindle counterpart, and that’s based on Amazon prices for both. Ridiculous.

That’s not to say that a Kindle-like device isn’t attractive, merely that it’s not attractive right now. With a significantly larger magazine subscription selection, and more functionality (like colour graphics and a full-featured RSS reader), and ultimately a cheaper price, the Kindle may yet solidify the eBook industry. In the meantime, however, the eBook entrepreneurs at Amazon need to keep a careful eye on the potential competition: tablet-like devices could very well steal Amazon’s thunder, especially since they, like the iPhone, will be ever-more full-featured than the Kindle. Ultimately, it may be the Kindle eBook format that will determine the Kindle’s success, and not the Kindle device itself.

Similar Posts:

• eBooks still aren’t “cheap”. – Two years ago we addressed eBooks and the Kindle, [pointing out](http://beastwith.in/2009/05/05/on-a…
• If eBooks are so successful, why the push-back? – Things have come a long way since we [voiced our concerns](http://beastwith.in/2009/05/05/on-amazons…
• More obstacles for eBook adoption. – By chance, shortly after writing our take on [the status of eBooks and the Kindle](http://beastwith….

Every month or two, there’s mention of the E-Book revolution, and the consensus usually tends to remain in the favor of traditional books. However, some people are taking the E-Book issue out of the casual reader’s hands, and putting it into the hands of college students.

Reading a novel on my computer remains something I dislike, though using learning material online is something I’m much more fond of. When I took my Intro. to Psychology class as an undergraduate, our text book was in HTML format, and this made searching for key words incredibly easy. When I took a couple Distance Learning classes later on, a good deal of my interaction with other students was via an online medium.

The problem remains in the level of interactivity. A message board is only so useful, since ideas need to be pushed back and forth before a complicated argument or discussion can have any true conclusion, while real-time interaction allows one to quickly skip tangental remarks.

The E-Book revolution (everything’s a revolution nowadays, isn’t it?) is one that may very well seep into other niche areas. For example, I was amazed to see roleplaying game publisher White Wolf sell their out-of-print sourcebooks in E-Book format. In my opinion, this is great for two reasons: one, collectors and game fanatics can obtain, in at least one form, texts no longer available, and two, players can have easily-accessible books in which to search for rules and other reference data without leafing through fifty books. The only thing that can make this better would be for publishers to release E-Book versions of their material before said material is out-of-print.

Of course, the bag of worms this opens could be rather unpleasant. Would people be more likely to pirate E-Books and not buy bound paper versions if these books were available in both formats? I’m guessing White Wolf thinks so.

Similar Posts:

• eBooks still aren’t “cheap”. – Two years ago we addressed eBooks and the Kindle, [pointing out](http://beastwith.in/2009/05/05/on-a…
• If eBooks are so successful, why the push-back? – Things have come a long way since we [voiced our concerns](http://beastwith.in/2009/05/05/on-amazons…
• More obstacles for eBook adoption. – By chance, shortly after writing our take on [the status of eBooks and the Kindle](http://beastwith….