eCards, eBooks, NOT eNough eTime!
Do you read eCards?
Most of us donââ¬â¢t. We have our exceptions. We read them — IF they come from our children or a dear friend. We read those because we love the people who sent them, and we know they spent time to choose the right one.
We also read eCards WHEN we know someone is going to TEST US. . . . Did you like the dancing bear I sent you? . . . We read them THEN, but we don’t like it. No, uh-uh, not one bit.
Do you download eBooks?
Most of us do. We download them; print them; and read them — or we set them aside and forget them. eBooks used to seem a bargain. After the third, fifth, seventh download, we’re finding they’ve got their drawbacks. The investment seems to grow with each one.
Some of us read them on our computers. But most eBooks are darn long for that.
Are you less interested in eBooks now than you were a year ago?
Another isn’t as appealing to me. Even the free eBook doesn’t do anything — because free is far from free.
7 Reasons eBooks Peaked in Their Life Cycle
Are you less interested in eBooks now than you were a year ago? Do you think it could be because an eBook isn’t really made to serve you the way quality products are?
In the world of publishing, an eBook at its core is unfinished. It’s basically what would be sent to a printer. The eBook format makes sense for the most time-sensitive, changing information, such as Aaron Wall’s SEO Book — accurate, well-designed content, which includes free lifetime updates (no longer available in ebook form).
The speed at which I can get an eBook no longer means much when I consider what I invest to take it off my computer. I am the printer, binder, shipper, warehouse. When I download and print an eBook
- I pay for the paper, the ink, and the wear on my printer.
- It’s my time. It’s my computer. It’s my schedule that makes room for the download.
- I get inconsistency and often more work than I bargained for. Would that every eBook was held to Aaron Wall’s standard of content, editing, design, and production. His book looks, reads, and prints like a dream. No I don’t know him. I appreciate quality.
- They are not books. Books rarely fall apart when we turn the page.
- An eBook takes up far more space than a bound book.
- No matter how compelling the content, an eBook is an unlikely gift.
- No eBook could hold a place of honor on an elegant bookshelf or coffee table.
As a delivery system, an eBook is unconstructed, low design packaging that benefits the author/publisher, more than the customer/reader. It’s not Web 2.0. It’s less choice than fast-food, usually with less quality control.
With what time I have to read, I read things I want to keep. An eBook is a pile of paper from my printer. It is not made to deliver reading ease or pleasure.
A traditional book is less expensive. Itââ¬â¢s designed to be read, easy to navigate, and it fits elegantly on my shelf. If you can only do it one way, a real book serves more readers in presenting information in a printed paper format.
Time, money, paper, ink, space, aggravation . . . what have you spent on eBooks?
Yeah, I could leave an eBook on my computer and read it there. There’s a list to go with that too. It starts with using resources and keeping me on my computer even longer than I am now.
To put it plainly, I’ll pump my own gas, because it’s faster. I’ll print my own boarding pass, because I don’t have to stand in line and wait. They both save me time and don’t tie me up or tie me to my computer.
Most eBooks deliver too little and cost too much for me. For a product to win on speed and low-cost design/production value, we have to get something real in return that we want.
I’m not. Are you?
–ME “Liz” Strauss
If you’d like Liz to help you make a plan to meet your goals, click on the Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar.
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Liz, I stopped reading e-cards years ago. Like many e-books, they are marketing gimmicks that often buy me space on more SPAM mailing lists This is a detractor for me, in addition to the points you made.
On the other hand, I have some 30 and 40 year old SF paperbacks that are fading. If I had them in e-book, I could splurge on acid free paper. As it is, I have to ration myself how often I re-read Pauline Ashwell’s ‘Unwillingly To Earth’.
Great points, Brad!
Thanks for those.
I forgot the entire issue of SPAM with eCards and eBooks, (as well as other dangers.)
Now we have two uses for eBooks.
Hi Liz,
I’ve learned to examine my thoughts carefully when I differ with you on a topic where it’s Bambi vs. Godzilla in the experience department (and I’m Bambi). 😉
First I’ll say that Brad has pointed out a real business opportunity. There are so many great out-of-print books that could be made available in a print-on-demand, ‘look-at-me-I’m-riding-the-long-tail fashion’. I wonder why no one does it? I’ve used the Gutenberg Project to read some really old books, but it was painful, since they have no formatting whatsoever (which supports your points exactly).
As for the utility of eBooks, I think speed of access has real value. If I’m looking for information on a topic and can get some NOW, that’s good! Unfortunately, many sites have now taken the approach of adding delays and hurdles to that process. So those eBooks fall into the ‘thanks, but no thanks’ category.
Are you advocating that eBook authors always offer a physical alternative to their electronic offering?
Mike
Hi Liz,
Lost comment alert! WordPress knows I sent it, but won’t show it. Bad WordPress! No blogtreats for you.
Mike
Wow Liz:
You have really missed the mark here. Nobody in there right mind would print out ebooks to read them.
I have 300 various ebooks in both novel and short story form. I have them loaded on an old Gemstar REB1200 ebook reader for reading in bed. I also have converted them to Mobipocket for use on my Palm Treo. The Treo is really good (yes, small on screen size) for anytime you may have a moment to kill. It’s much harder to carry a paperback around and I have access to many different books to choose from.
You should get used to it because it is more convenient. There are many books that really need to be in a larger format.I really don’t think it replaces paper books at all. We just have another option.
The only problem at this point s the many formats that are available and the fact that you sometimes are not able to read an ebook on another device because of the publishers DRM. The publishers need to come together on interoperability.
Bret Drager
Hi Mike!
For information fast, that we throw away in a small info snack . . . yep that works. I couldn’t agree with you more.
And yes, folks are putting up hurdles and writing stuff not to inform or publish, but to get our email addresses or to have a platform.
Neither of those is customer-centered. 🙂
I don’t disagree with you at all. I knew I was only telling part of the story in this post. . . but I didn’t want to write a book. 🙂
Wow! Bret!
Did you really say that? –> You should get used to it because it is more convenient.
More convenient for who? For you? 🙂
I’m so smiling because I knew when I wrote this post two days ago, I would get at least one response that was like yours.
It’s not a black and white issue.
Nobody in there right mind would print out ebooks to read them.
Let’s look at that . . .
First of all, I guess you just called me and quite a few people I talked to in the last week out of our minds.
Readers read for different reasons.
Products should serve customers. Not exclude them. But then, eBooks aren’t products, are they? They’ve turned into marketing tools. 🙂
I don’t think eBooks should go away or that it’s a choice between traditional and electronic books.
EBooks work well if they are short. But a 250 page e-book is a bit much. Like I said I spend too much time at my desk or with my laptop as it is.
I don’t want to read a book on Treo. I like turning the page. It makes me feel accomplishment. 🙂
Liz,
I’d probably set the page threshold a little lower than you, something between 100-200 pages. Yaro’s eBook is a great example of something I DID print out and read at home on the weekend.
So are you saying it’s an either-or proposition, or that eBook publishers should give customers a realBook option?
Mike
Hi Mike,
I think that publishers who can should offer more options yeah! If you could have bought YARO’s book for a few bucks delivered to your door would you?
Ah, but would you still give him your email address? 🙂
I don’t think most eBooks are about readers — most are about the marketing funnel.
Generally, I like ebooks. I have a couple of hundred on my laptop. I’ve several, including several from Project Gutenberg, that I reformatted into pdfs myself because they were so painful to read in plain ascii. I’ve even printed out a few and bound them in spiral bindings. It ends up costing more than buying a pre-printed book, and the size isn’t convenient, but can be worth it for hard to find or out of print books.
But if you want my email address, you can keep the book. It is just a way to build a list, and I avoid such things.
I do wish people who had ebooks that aren’t made available for marketing purposes had the option of buying a printed copy. With POD they may cost more than a mass-market book, but still cost less and have better results than printing the book out myself. I’m not saying I would always chose that option. It depends on the book. But the availability would be nice.
Hi Rick,
As always you state the case with thought and clarity, when I fall woefully short. It’s about options really and about what works for what. 🙂
I wish I did (speak with clarity) and we know you don’t (fall short), Liz. I especially like your #6 – an …ebook is an unlikely gift. I can see it now. Your daughter has just turned 9 and you give her a pdf of The Secret Garden. My daughter loves her computer, but she also, like you, likes the feel of the book in her hand. Ebook readers, along with their interoperability problems, still don’t have the basic usability that a hard copy book has.
Hi Rick,
Humans have five senses — one of them is touch. 🙂
Liz,
I personally prefer to read e-books. I have a vision problem, and reading print is extremely difficult. I use an e-book reader so I can adjust the font to a readable size. If a book is not available in an e-book format, I don’t buy it unless I’ve seen it and am sure I can read the print.
Like you, I don’t like to read on the computer. But with an e-book reading device, I can read comfortably (in fact, it’s easier for me to hold the device than to hold a hardcover book).
E-books should be cheaper than print books (though a lot of publishers haven’t discovered that yet) because the production costs are much lower. I encourage my self-publishing clients to offer their books in both electronic and print formats. Some readers will spend $5 to try a new author but wouldn’t spend $10 or $15. And there is a small, but avid, group of readers who prefer e-books.
It doesn’t have to be one or the other – e-books and print books each of have advantages and disadvantages.
I’m talking about books – both fiction and nonfiction – that have real content, not promotional gimmicks created to get subscribers or promote a product.
Since I’m passionate about electronic publishing, I write about it on my blog and am working on a new series of posts on e-books.
E-books may not be for everyone, but some of us find them easier to read and more convenient than print.
Hi Lillie!
I’m behind you entirely and on every word. Everything you say makes so much sense. As a publisher and as a reader, I see the uses of both and why people would have each for a preference.
Web 2.0 is all about meeting customers needs. Too bad most publishers I know aren’t here in a personally deep way yet. They seem to be still studying the surface and the numbers. That’s not where real people are. 🙂
I think it depends on what you’re reading. I don’t want a novel in eBook form, but certain non-fiction topics I will buy in eBook form.
Books with a workbook component to them — lots of exercises, fill-in checklists and charts, brainstorming forms, Q&A, and so on — work well in eBook form. Need another page? Print it! Flubbed on the page you started? Reprint it! You have everything in one place. If you go through the book again at a later point (which would happen in, say, a find-your-passion workbook that you revisit in a different lifestage), print new pages and start again.
The pricing of some eBooks is what galls me. $79 for an 80-page book? $99 for a 120-page book. It doesn’t cost THAT much to produce an eBook (even a well-designed one). The seller actually drives off sales with that pricing; lower the price, and you might sell more.
I think some authors are deterred by what they’d have to spend on an entry-level package from a place like iUniverse ($400-$500) to self-publish a printed book. $400 is a sizable chunk of change, true; but if there’s something you feel so strongly about that you wrote a book, then it becomes a cost of doing business. But these authors can’t get past the cost (probably the ones that are just trying to build a mailing list) so they go for the eBook but don’t, as has been pointed out, consider the appropriateness of the choice for their subject matter or their audience.
Oh yeah…
I still send traditional cards, still send handwritten letters…even overseas, and regularly buy good stationery (Papyrus is my favorite store). I’ve never sent an e-card, and I’ve received very few; the e-cards I’ve received are from people I wouldn’t otherwise hear from much.
Everyone continually comments how nice it is to open a mailbox and find not just bills and junk mail, but an honest-to-goodness letter. A couple of friends have commented that it’s just as good as getting a package from a friend. So I continue…
Hi Whitney!
I can hardly add a thought to what you have here . . . but I do think that we all think we can design a book, just because we’ve read one. And in most eBooks it shows that we don’t value print design enough — probably because we grew up with it.
What a wonderful communicator you are. A written note allows you to write with a certain instrument and to choose certain paper, for your mood, for the person to whom you are writing. It’s a generous act on so many levels. 🙂
Liz,
I believe ebooks still have their place especially for time-sensitive information such as internet marketing or SEO where the information changes quickly. Just take a look at IM or SEO books that are in print. How many of them contain methods that are already outdated?
I know this because I frequently browse through the business section at Barnes and Noble.
Hi Hock!
Great to see you again!
SEO and eBooks were made for each other — you bet! It seems silly to put anything beyond the most basic SEO in a traditional book, except that certain readers would never have access otherwise. (The folks who hire SEO, not those who actually are learning it.)
Liz,
Yes indeed eBooks are always uncomfortable to use when you are reading it in computer. When you want it in print, it costs a lot. Yet, ebooks like Joel Comm’s AdSense secret and few others became best sellers. In eBay, ebooks are the most sold product.
Hi Ram!
I didn’t know that about eBay! Interesting way to make money . . . I wonder if they do. They must. They must.
Good morning!
I like the smell of a book; new book. You cant smell ebook. Ebooks consume more papers (hence more trees are cut) than books that are printed on, my be recycled paper. Yes. Lovely thought.
Hi Diogenes,
I was over to see you in the early hours. 🙂
Yes, printed eBooks sure do consume more paper. It’s odd — even when I print one on the second side of used sheets of paper because I use so much at once, I feel the hit more than I did when I used the paper the first time around. 🙂
Hi Liz,
I agree, in that ebooks are getting overdone (and overpriced, in many occasions). I also agree with keeping them around for certain reasons.
When I produced my first ebook, a reader emailed me and said, “this is the kind of book I’d like to take away from the computer and curl up with…” which was a real eye-opener for me. I read ebooks on my computer, and figured most other people did, too.
From here on out, here’s my plan for what I’m going to produce:
1. Free stuff? ebooks (but with a shift in design, since, like you said, who’s got the etime?)
2. Paid stuff? Print-on-demand, and give them the e-version, too. That way they have access to it immediately, and forever (if they keep it electronically). In a few days when the physical book arrives, the away-from-the-computer reader in them will be consummately happy.