I can’t believe that companies are pushing e-readers these days. Sony has been very active, Amazon too, and now Samsung is coming into the mix. But why are they all pushing these products? It’s never going to sell anyway and here’s why.
It starts with the presentation. The screens are always black and white to represent true paper. The idea behind this is that it feels like you’re really reading a book, like you’re used to. But it doesn’t fool us simply because we aren’t reading in the real traditional book format. Each time we turn a page we’re reminded by the fact that we now have to push a button to turn the page. And the borders around the screen are also good indicators for our minds that we are using an electronical device. For example have you seen the Kindle? It looks like it was made from an old typewriter by a guy with a gray hairdo. It just doesn’t feel like a book so why try the black and white screen? It doesn’t read much better anyway.
And then there’s the price. Do they really expect people to spent 300 hard earned bucks on a device that looks like david hasselhof’s buttocks? For starters they are often ugly because of the buttons and cheap frame (one exception is the new high end Sony) and secondly for less money we can buy full HD screens -in color!- or high end devices that can do way more.
So they are never going to sell these things. People will look at it, see the design, see the screen and then they move on to something that looks like it came out this decade. Why would we buy these devices? You don’t look good using it, they can’t do much and most of them only enable book transfer from a store with prices far above street price. I mean come on.
So is there hope for the e-book business? Yes, yes there is. The concept of being able to carry hundreds of books with you in something really small and light is great. It’s a fantastic outcome to a lot of problems for students and researchers out there. But what should people do to enjoy good book reading without the hassle of these colorless E-readers? The answer is very simple, a tablet.
With a tablet you can do other stuff besides reading. They’re multi functional machines. People want to enjoy movies, the internet and communicate on the go. And to have the possibly to read books besides these primary functions can really give a great impulse to the market of publishing. Imagine a student in a bus. He just found out that he still need to read a chapter of the story Camelot for school. He takes his tablet -on which he previously enjoyed a great episode of Scrubs- and goes to his book collection. Now he has access to every school book he needs from the touch of his finger on a device that’s really small and great to use. He selects Camelot and starts reading. After 15 minutes or so he’s done. He exits and twitters his friends for the remainder of the bus ride.
That’s how E-books should work. It should always be something that it can do on the side. People will not carry these ugly E-readers with them beside their phone, laptop etc. And people will not use devices that makes them feel ashamed and embarrassed. So tech companies out there. Focus on making great multi functional devices that allow book reading. Don’t make devices just for reading, they will not sell… at all.
