The Amazon Kindle, after 5 months of ownership [TSS]

My Kindle 2 arrived on July 20th of 2009 (see "My Kindle Come! Initial Thoughts...."), so today marks its five-month anniversary. Since then I've read 18 books on it plus a lot of parts of books--free samples of books I decided not to read or went on to read in hard copy because I had them sitting on my shelves already. One of the 18 was a Kindle-only novella, so I don't know what its corresponding page count would be. But I actually looked this up and the total number of pages of the other 17 books--counting trade paperback versions where possible and hardcover if not--is 6,122 (an average of 360.12 pages per book, and about two thousand pages more than all the Harry Potter books put together.). So that's 6122 pages that were never printed and bound and carted around and, most importantly from my perspective, 6122 pages that aren't now taking up room on my already crowded shelves. Here are the seventeen books I don't need space for:


Five months in and I'm finding myself liking the reading experience on the Kindle as much or more than ever. In particular, I've discovered that reading on it while exercising on a treadmill is a great experience. The exercise time flies by, one is doubly constructive, and the hassles of propping up a bound book and somehow holding the pages open simply don't exist. I in fact prefer reading books on the Kindle now because it's ergonomically more pleasant, because I can exercise while doing it, because I can change the font size at will, and because I don't have a physical book to deal with after the fact. I wish all the books on my TBR shelves were instead on my Kindle.

After six days of ownership of the Kindle I wrote a bunch of pros and cons of the device in a blog post. If I were to address the same issues now, I'd say:

• I've gotten used to navigating the menus with the five-way controller and no longer find it very clunky. I believe navigation has also sped up since the release of the most recent version of the...firmware, I guess it is.
• The experimental web browser is still an unpleasant experience, but I just don't use it very much.
• I no longer worry about opening the Kindle case the wrong way and possibly cracking the plastic housing of my Kindle because I put a bit of velcro between the case and the back of the machine. A simple fix, and it's sufficient to keep me from making a mistake.
• I'd still like to see cover art on the home page.

The Kindle and review copies

I'm hoping that at some point Amazon and publishers will get together and figure out a way to send out review copies via Kindle. It seems to me that it should be possible. I would propose this: Amazon sells the publishers a bunch of one-use coupon codes. The publisher gives a potential reviewer a coupon code to download the book for free from Amazon. Perhaps that code could be linked to a particular email address, perhaps it doesn't matter. Either way, once it's used, the coupon no longer works, so it's only one digital copy that's used.* Amazon makes some money from this. The publishers spend some money, but surely less than they have to spend by having ARCs published and shipped at great expense to reviewers who may or may not review the books. And for what it's worth there are no ARCs out in the wild reducing the numbers of copies of the books that will be sold.

* After writing this I in fact received a coupon code to download an iPhone app for free from the iTunes store. Worked like a charm.

Comments

[Dani in NC]

1.

I'm fascinated by the Kindle as a gadget, but I don't have a good reason to buy one because all my books come from the local library. I would only consider buying a Kindle if they came up with a way for me to borrow e-books from the library and have them self-destruct after my borrowing period was over.

[Amy]

2.

I passed on the Kindle for the Nook which was supposed to be a birthday present and should arrive in time for Valentine's Day. :-) I love my books so I think this will be an interesting experiment for me. My husband thought it was a necessary purchase and believes the book shelves will thank me. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on it. I'm looking forward to trying out my first book...when and if the Nook ever arrives.

[Debra Hamel]

3.

Hi, Amy. What made you opt for the Nook over the Kindle?

Dani: Is borrowing in fact possible? I haven't been following all the particulars related to the Kindle, but I thought I'd heard something about borrowing. Maybe it's actually borrowing the device in some libraries? Not sure.