The EBook War

Amazon and one of the largest book publishers got in a fight last weekend over what the pricing on ebooks should be and as a result Amazon stopped selling the publishers books directly and only allowed sales by third parties.  Buying books from Amazon is very convenient and they usually have the best price on new hardback books. Amazon’s pricing on new hardbacks has enabled me to order several  in the last few months that I would had to wait on paperback copies of otherwise. For this I love buying books from Amazon.

I have been an avid reader since the 6th grade; I love books. As someone who makes their living through technology I have been fascinated by ebooks and ebook readers. Amazon’s Kindle platform and Apple’s upcoming iPad are very cool devices. I however will not be using them as ebook readers anytime soon for several reasons.

1. I love books. I love holding a book in my hands.
2. I reread books I love. I have several series of books I have reread many times.
3. When I buy a book I own a physical copy and no one else can tell me what I can and cannot do with it.
4. I am not dependent on a third party corporation or reader to be able to read what I have purchased.

For ebooks to be attractive to me they would have to have the following attributes.

1. Be cheaper than the print books.
2. Be available within a reasonable time frame of the books release.
3. Be unencumbered by formats that restrict my use of the ebook on the platform of my choice.

Here are some articles with commentary by some of the authors that were effected by Amazon’s actions over the weekend.

Charles Stross: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/01/amazon-macmillan-an-outsiders.html
Cory Doctorow: http://www.boingboing.net/2010/01/29/amazon-and-macmillan.html
John Scalzi: http://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/01/30/a-quick-note-on-ebook-pricing/