I’d assume rent and food are expenses you’d have regardless of whether you are writing a book so those aren’t necessarily “book” expenses. (You can’t deduct your rent off your taxes as a business expense for writing the book.) Most of the expense of a normal book is in printing the first run (and publicity if your publisher does it, but most do very little). My point is that most authors who work with a publisher get less than $1 per book for a typical hard back. So a price in the $3 range should be plenty to cover typical expenses and still give authors a much larger cut than with the traditional publishing model. At that price point I see ebooks as really bringing significant value to the end user. At higher price points, buying a physical copy of the book used is probably a better value.

I also have a kindle edition on amazon.com (which would cost another us$300 to produce). I priced it at 9.90us$. Amazon intends to give me 70% royalties (which I still have to see if it’s true). If I sell less than a 1000 ebooks that wouldn’t even cover the costs; although I of course hope that the printed edition will eventually make up for my expenses.

So my point is: just because it’s an “ebook” doesn’t mean there’s no costs to produce it. Plus there’s a critical amount to be sold before it even covers these costs of production

I also don’t have to lug around several different books on trips anymore just because I’m uncertain about which book I might want to end up reading. Now I can bring however many ebooks I want (Sony Reader can potentially expand to 10 gb of space which is hundreds of thousands of books).

I wish I had the Reader when I traveled to India for two months. I ended up packing over 10 books, which was a huge strain. Though I read many of them during my trip, it definitely did not go well with my goal to travel light with a backpack. If I had the Reader, I could have taken way more books with me without the weight and space.

My only regret is that my local library can’t/won’t “rent” out e-books for the Reader (or the Kindle or anything else). Apparently these e-books can only be viewed on the respective site with some kind of login/password. I’ve never been able to figure out the weird system. So I admit that I generally end up downloading these books for free.

+ bookworms that travel
+ readers who want larger print
+ a handheld reader for free books
+ saving money on volume reading

I still buy regular books, audio books, pdf books, so the Kindle is just extra way to read and not a book replacement.

Jim

Until then, a real book, my scanner (with feeder) and http://textonphone.com and a few minutes’ work will get me much farther than the Kindle will.

Infopackets.com posted this link (warning: LONG url!): http://www.friedbeef.com/2007/04/09/best-places-to-get-free-books-the-ultimate-guide/
for the best places to get free books–34 sites submitted by readers. Includes audiobook sites and book exchange sites as well.

Thanks, Jason M. Blumer

I thought the menu system was pretty good for the limitations of the system. E-ink isn’t like a computer screen.

I would recommend that anyone considering a Kindle wait until they see one in person first. They are a quirky little device. I showed mine to a couple recently and they both liked it, and I expected them not to like it. So there’s no telling how you’re going to react.

I don’t know much about the Kindle and haven’t used one by Scobleizer gave it some bad reviews when it first came out.

Check it at: http://scobleizer.com/2007/11/25/dear-jeff-bezos-one-week-kindle-review/

Has it changed, or does it still seem to be easy to use? Just curious.

Thanks, Jason M. Blumer

They are good for collecting hundreds of classics in one place and jumping over to other books to just get the feel of how another book reads for comparison purposes.

And like you said, electronic readers aren’t good for the beach or the bath. I consider mine a magnifying glass or instant larger print book maker. I have a very specific need.

I’ve yet to connect my Kindle to my computer with the USB cable. I keep meaning to, but it’s much easier to pay Amazon a dime, or is it quarter, and send it by email. But that’s only for documents you create yourself or download from the web. For instance a free Gutenberg book.

Jim

keep telling myself that part of that money is for unlimited cell phone access to Amazon.

What do you mean by this? Are you talking about the ability to browse the Amazon store from the Kindle?