There are situations in which I would prefer a physical book–if I were doing research or coordinating academic group research. Beyond that, give me an ebook anytime.
Forget all those pluses that ebook proponents tout about electronic reading. You simply have to try it out for yourself.
What puts people off ebooks is having to read one on a laptop, having to sit before a laptop for every read and wishing the lappie doesn’t run out of juice in under two hours. That is rather frustrating. You feel tied to the laptop.
An option is to invest in an ereader. Believe me, I have combed the Shoprites, Park and Shops, Sahad–every major department store known to me–in search of an ereader. Funny thing: they had in stock the latest tablet computers and gizmos, but they had never even heard of ereaders.
In the end, I had to order one from an online store that operates out of Hong Kong. My reading life changed the moment my order came in.
The 4gb on the ereader holds:
some 2,000 books (of pdf, epub, lrf, doc, html, fb2),
at least a hundred music files (mp3, wav, amr),
hundreds of pictures (though for the life of me, I am better at taking pictures than viewing them, hence don’t know just many of those are in there really),
and hundreds of video files (mp4, flv, mkv, avi)
For starters, with an ereader, I read even faster. Standard novel reading time came down to just over 2 hours. I could read one novel before bed. Mornings when I wake up really early, I knock back one more novel before daybreak. And those endless hours on 10-hour bus rides from one end of the country to the other are filled in quite nicely–two books to the rescue.
With an ereader on full charge, I don’t worry about giving up a book I have sank my teeth into just because power goes out sometime before I go to bed at night. A physical book means finding some other source of light to continue reading. With an ebook on a laptop, I sigh when the juice runs out. But with the ebook on an ereader, I just carry on until my eyes give out or the reading becomes unbearable.
Ebooks also mean I can get whatever book I want, published in any part of the world. If there is a digital version somewhere, I can get it. Ebooks really come with freedom.
Reading E books strain my eyes.It limits the number of chapters I read.I have the same problem with reading work by authors on Naija stories. Therefore I prefer paperbacks.
I still prefer hard covers, but I predict the e-book taking over and becoming the new-new. With the world raging on about recycling, paper books will soon be a vintage and highly-valued commodity, so stock up on all your hardcover books.
In regards to price tagging, there is a system run by a certain publishing house which allows the reader to buy their work at any prize whatsoever. Crazy idea but effective because, it gives the reader a certain amount of power and also it provides a platform for upcoming writers to get proper exposure.
I rather suspect that in the next five years, new book prints will be less and less. Last set of data from Assc of Publishers in England shows that for the first time ever, eBooks now surpass print. I can understand the various reasons for having that hard copy in the hand but think we can start to say goodbye to it.
