Thoughts on ebooks

I’ve seen a few stories about ebook sales declining this week. A small part of me is surprised, but overall I’m not that shocked. However, if there were articles that had said CD sales were on the rise, I’d think it was April Fools Day. The perfect ebook experience hasn’t been invented yet — we just have trade-offs. For me the pros and cons are:

The reading experience. I still prefer to read from paper. It feels better to hold a book and turn the pages in your hand. There’s less eye strain than staring at a screen. And even though you can fiddle with the settings, typography in ebooks is still generally terrible. It often feels like far more care and attention goes in to printed books.
With a physical book, you own the book. I have a Kindle and buy books from Amazon, but I’d rather not have the DRM.
It’s hard, or impossible (e.g. if you buy through Amazon) to gift or lend an ebook. Books make great gifts — something you can put a lot of thought in to — but with ebooks gifting is awkward. If your recipient has a Kindle, you have to get them to buy the book on their account, or get it in an open format and teach them how to put the book on their Kindle. That sucks.
Discovery often sucks with ebooks. There isn’t really a great online equilivant to browsing the aisles of a book store, picking random books up and flicking through. Online we have reviews (and it’s easy to get lost in the comments of the many) and previews, but the experience isn’t great.
However, ebooks are instantaneous. You have them in your hand a few seconds after you decide to buy — no need to go to a shop or wait for delivery. A few taps and you can be reading your new book instantly.
You have them all on one device. Ebooks don’t take up physical space (something that is a premium when you live in a city like London), they don’t gather dust, and you can carry as many as you want when you travel (when I do most of my reading). I also don’t particularly like collecting things, and very rarely read a book more than once.
Technology keeps getting better. The gap will close — ebook readers will keep getting better, and no doubt discovery will improve too. Ebooks are the future — we just haven’t quite figured it out yet.