I bought a Kindle.
It arrived today.
I feel a bit like a pastor caught with a Playboy under his arm.
I’ve been considering (albeit rather idly) a purchase for some time. After all, the reviews and press have been largely positive. Yes, I love gadgets and technology (I’m not quite sure how I checked email before my iPhone). And I really like the idea of being able to carry around enough titles to satisfy most any reading mood that strikes me, as well as the ability to get a book immediately
But as someone who for the better part of the last dozen years has made his living in one form or another from books (real, physical books), none of these reasons were enough to convince me.
Until I found an ugly and seemingly innocuous ex-library tome at the bottom of a box of books.
You see – about a month ago, I was evaluating some new acquisitions, either cataloging them in my database for sale online or tossing them aside. Most were scholarly texts – university press titles and the like. And when I came across an ex-library book, I almost rejected it right away. But the fact that it otherwise looked unread made me take a second glance. Only a couple of years old and on a very technical and obscure subject, it was the kind of book that even as an ex-lib can retain value. And indeed, a bit of poking around online found only two other copies being offered, both listed at well over $100.00 each. These prices struck me as optimistic, so I listed it at a still healthy $75.00 and was about to forget about it when I noticed something on the title’s Amazon page.
“Kindle price: $44.95”
And I knew.
I knew – in a way that was much more immediate than any previous exposure to e-books had been – that this device’s ability to offer scarce out-of-print titles at cheaper prices had huge implications for my business in particular and for the future of bookselling as a whole. And it would be foolhardy not to begin to understand and appreciate (and adapt to) those changes as soon as possible.
At least, that’s what I told myself.
Of course, the fact that Amazon cut the price by forty bucks on Tuesday didn’t hurt either.
And so now I – avid reader, casual book collector, irrepressible book accumulator, devoted lover of the codex, former independent bookstore employee and current purveyor of used, rare, collectible and antiquarian titles of all sorts – I am the unlikely owner of an e-book.
Over the coming weeks, my plan is to blog (in addition to the usual posts) my impressions of and experiences with the Kindle, and to consider what it and similar devices might mean for the future of the book and of reading and bookselling.
But right now, I have to go play with my new toy.
Oh. And the first book I downloaded to read? Jeff Gomez’s Print Is Dead: Books in our Digital Age.