5 ms·

I think it's an interesting move, but not a "phenomenally important move". If I like print books but not ebooks, how does this affect me? It doesn't - not in th

I think it's an interesting move, but not a "phenomenally important move". If I like print books but not ebooks, how does this affect me? It doesn't - not in the least. If I like both, I'm sort of happy - "Uh, I guess that's cool." I'm struggling to think of the person who needs both a printed copy of a book and an ebook version. The only person I can think of is someone with a textbook/learning book - you read the print version (that's why you bought it) and you use the ebook to quickly search and have at your fingertips. But for fiction? I can't see how this helps.

rollo_tommasi 13y ago
I prefer printed books, but I frequently am reading on the subway, the train, the airport, etc, and so the portability of ebooks is a huge advantage. I'm definitely excited about being able to both pick up a printed copy of a book for leisurely reading at home and have my entire library in my pocket when I have to go fly somewhere.
- nsmartt 13y ago
  I infinitely prefer reading a physical book at home, but I love being able to access my Kindle library when I'm out and about. I want to be able to read every book on my shelf at home while I'm not there, and I'm loving this move on Amazon's part. I just hope it doesn't spell trouble in the long run.
eric_cc 13y ago
> I'm struggling to think of the person who needs both a printed copy of a book and an ebook version. Technically, nobody NEEDS a printed or digital book to begin with. Maybe you're just over-thinking this? I like print books but also have an iPad. For many obvious reasons it would be nice to have all of my books on my iPad (which is almost always with me).
- DigitalJack 13y ago
  You can't grep dead trees.
  - fpgeek 13y ago
    Unless you break the DRM you can't grep Kindle books either (and Amazon's search is a poor substitute).
- ChuckMcM 13y ago
  I've started buying movies on discs again. This is because even though they are sometimes available via streaming, it isn't a "now its available via streaming and will be forever" model that I was originally sold. Books have been "pulled back" on the Kindle, but I have never had a publisher send me a letter demanding I mail them back the book I bought. I also started playing around with XBMC which is a lot of fun, and streaming from my local copy is a whole lot nice than streaming over the 'net.
lukev 13y ago
The value proposition of an ebook is that (on average) it's a better reading experience. More portable, more comfortable, instantly accessible. The value proposition of a physical book is that is a physical artifact with concrete ownership; you can sell it, lend it, put it on a shelf for guests to see, forget it and rediscover it a decade later, or have your grandchildren find it in your attic in 80 years. These two value sets are not inherently exclusive; there's no reason why you can't have both. But until now, the business model has prevented acquiring both hard and digital copies of everything from being economical.
- ctdonath 13y ago
  The value proposition of a physical book is that is a physical artifact with concrete ownership; you can sell it, lend it, put it on a shelf for guests to see, forget it and rediscover it a decade later, or have your grandchildren find it in your attic in 80 years. This. I have a bookcase filled with "me". Those books constitute what molded me, and (if unread) what I hoped would. My longevity being in some doubt, my kids being very young, and my ability to tell them what's in my head limited, in large part I keep that bookcase filled and arranged in hopes that someday they will discover it, read the contents, and so absorb much of what their father is (or, at that future date, was). E-books, while convenient, can be lost en masse in an instant. Heck, a bunch vanished last week from my tablet when I upgraded the operating system (most were recovered, but not all). My wife may be irritated at the space occupied by my paper books, yet therein is the point: they're not going away any time soon without real effort. Atoms persist; bits are fleeting.
  - WalterBright 13y ago
    My father lost a great deal of his physical books in a flood. If they were bits, he wouldn't have.
    - dragonwriter 13y ago
      Unless they were DRMed and the provider had gone out of business, or cut off his access for other reasons, or...
ryanklee 13y ago
> I'm struggling to think of the person who needs both a printed copy of a book and an ebook version. Think no further. Because it's me. I've explicitly held off from buying a Kindle because it meant having to always choose between print and ebook. Sometimes I want to curl up with a book. Sometimes I want the convenience of an ebook. And I never want to have to make the choice about what kind of material gets relegated to one or the other experience. I like the way books look, feel, smell and sound. I also like the option of always having accessible my entire collection digitally. Now it looks like my problem is (partially) solved - at least sufficiently enough that I'm now going to buy a Kindle.
wpietri 13y ago
This is a major pain point for me, and this solves half of it. Every time I buy a book, I have to do a lot of thinking: Is is good enough I'll want to lend it? Will I need to travel with it? Is it worth getting rid of some other book on my bookshelf to make room for it? Am I going to refer to it? If so, will it be just the occasional text search, or do I need the random access of a physical book? There is often no good answer. This actually results in me buying fewer books. A number of times I have waffled on this and then just never bought the book. It also increases resentment toward Amazon: when I buy a book and then have to re-buy it in the other format, it's really annoying. In addition to this, I want them to add the other direction: if I buy the Kindle book, can I upgrade to a physical edition for the price difference (plus, optionally, a modest fee)?
- dsuth 13y ago
  I go through this a lot too. I've bought books in ebook format that I've regretted, because I can't lend them easily. Conversely I've bought physical books which I wish were ebooks, because I don't reference them that often, and they're really wasting space. Not being limited to one or the other format would be great! Although what happens when you buy the physical book, get the ebook for cheap, then on-sell the physical book? Seems like an open loop.
  - wpietri 13y ago
    Yeah. Although that's an open loop with CDs that has existed for years, so I imagine Amazon has some reasonable notions on the magnitude of the problem. I'd guess it's much less of an issue with books; CDs have a much higher repeat use value than most books do. My guess is that some people will do it accidentally, but that the number of people doing it as a book cost-reduction strategy will be pretty low. The net yield on selling used books is not good. And I'd guess further that for 98% of on-sold physical books, people will never go back and look at the ebook again.
    - dsuth 13y ago
      It depends on the type of book. For fiction this is definitely true. For textbooks and technical books, there is a massive used market with high resale prices, which is more what I was thinking of. I suspect a lot of these vendors simply won't jump on the bandwagon without some kind of reassurance.
tdwiegand 13y ago
If offered at the time of purchase I'm inclined to use this for gifts. I personally want the ebook version, but if this enables me to get a print copy for only slightly more I'll pick it up and worry about who to gift it to later.
fredcy 13y ago
I would use this with cookbooks. I like to refer to the printed copy in the kitchen but while shopping I could check ingredient lists from a reader.

rollo_tommasi 13y ago

I prefer printed books, but I frequently am reading on the subway, the train, the airport, etc, and so the portability of ebooks is a huge advantage. I'm definitely excited about being able to both pick up a printed copy of a book for leisurely reading at home and have my entire library in my pocket when I have to go fly somewhere.

nsmartt 13y ago
I infinitely prefer reading a physical book at home, but I love being able to access my Kindle library when I'm out and about. I want to be able to read every book on my shelf at home while I'm not there, and I'm loving this move on Amazon's part. I just hope it doesn't spell trouble in the long run.

eric_cc 13y ago

> I'm struggling to think of the person who needs both a printed copy of a book and an ebook version. Technically, nobody NEEDS a printed or digital book to begin with. Maybe you're just over-thinking this? I like print books but also have an iPad. For many obvious reasons it would be nice to have all of my books on my iPad (which is almost always with me).

DigitalJack 13y ago
You can't grep dead trees.
- fpgeek 13y ago
  Unless you break the DRM you can't grep Kindle books either (and Amazon's search is a poor substitute).
ChuckMcM 13y ago
I've started buying movies on discs again. This is because even though they are sometimes available via streaming, it isn't a "now its available via streaming and will be forever" model that I was originally sold. Books have been "pulled back" on the Kindle, but I have never had a publisher send me a letter demanding I mail them back the book I bought. I also started playing around with XBMC which is a lot of fun, and streaming from my local copy is a whole lot nice than streaming over the 'net.

lukev 13y ago

The value proposition of an ebook is that (on average) it's a better reading experience. More portable, more comfortable, instantly accessible. The value proposition of a physical book is that is a physical artifact with concrete ownership; you can sell it, lend it, put it on a shelf for guests to see, forget it and rediscover it a decade later, or have your grandchildren find it in your attic in 80 years. These two value sets are not inherently exclusive; there's no reason why you can't have both. But until now, the business model has prevented acquiring both hard and digital copies of everything from being economical.

ctdonath 13y ago
The value proposition of a physical book is that is a physical artifact with concrete ownership; you can sell it, lend it, put it on a shelf for guests to see, forget it and rediscover it a decade later, or have your grandchildren find it in your attic in 80 years. This. I have a bookcase filled with "me". Those books constitute what molded me, and (if unread) what I hoped would. My longevity being in some doubt, my kids being very young, and my ability to tell them what's in my head limited, in large part I keep that bookcase filled and arranged in hopes that someday they will discover it, read the contents, and so absorb much of what their father is (or, at that future date, was). E-books, while convenient, can be lost en masse in an instant. Heck, a bunch vanished last week from my tablet when I upgraded the operating system (most were recovered, but not all). My wife may be irritated at the space occupied by my paper books, yet therein is the point: they're not going away any time soon without real effort. Atoms persist; bits are fleeting.
- WalterBright 13y ago
  My father lost a great deal of his physical books in a flood. If they were bits, he wouldn't have.
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    Unless they were DRMed and the provider had gone out of business, or cut off his access for other reasons, or...

ryanklee 13y ago

> I'm struggling to think of the person who needs both a printed copy of a book and an ebook version. Think no further. Because it's me. I've explicitly held off from buying a Kindle because it meant having to always choose between print and ebook. Sometimes I want to curl up with a book. Sometimes I want the convenience of an ebook. And I never want to have to make the choice about what kind of material gets relegated to one or the other experience. I like the way books look, feel, smell and sound. I also like the option of always having accessible my entire collection digitally. Now it looks like my problem is (partially) solved - at least sufficiently enough that I'm now going to buy a Kindle.

wpietri 13y ago

This is a major pain point for me, and this solves half of it. Every time I buy a book, I have to do a lot of thinking: Is is good enough I'll want to lend it? Will I need to travel with it? Is it worth getting rid of some other book on my bookshelf to make room for it? Am I going to refer to it? If so, will it be just the occasional text search, or do I need the random access of a physical book? There is often no good answer. This actually results in me buying fewer books. A number of times I have waffled on this and then just never bought the book. It also increases resentment toward Amazon: when I buy a book and then have to re-buy it in the other format, it's really annoying. In addition to this, I want them to add the other direction: if I buy the Kindle book, can I upgrade to a physical edition for the price difference (plus, optionally, a modest fee)?

dsuth 13y ago
I go through this a lot too. I've bought books in ebook format that I've regretted, because I can't lend them easily. Conversely I've bought physical books which I wish were ebooks, because I don't reference them that often, and they're really wasting space. Not being limited to one or the other format would be great! Although what happens when you buy the physical book, get the ebook for cheap, then on-sell the physical book? Seems like an open loop.
- wpietri 13y ago
  Yeah. Although that's an open loop with CDs that has existed for years, so I imagine Amazon has some reasonable notions on the magnitude of the problem. I'd guess it's much less of an issue with books; CDs have a much higher repeat use value than most books do. My guess is that some people will do it accidentally, but that the number of people doing it as a book cost-reduction strategy will be pretty low. The net yield on selling used books is not good. And I'd guess further that for 98% of on-sold physical books, people will never go back and look at the ebook again.
  - dsuth 13y ago
    It depends on the type of book. For fiction this is definitely true. For textbooks and technical books, there is a massive used market with high resale prices, which is more what I was thinking of. I suspect a lot of these vendors simply won't jump on the bandwagon without some kind of reassurance.

tdwiegand 13y ago

If offered at the time of purchase I'm inclined to use this for gifts. I personally want the ebook version, but if this enables me to get a print copy for only slightly more I'll pick it up and worry about who to gift it to later.

fredcy 13y ago

I would use this with cookbooks. I like to refer to the printed copy in the kitchen but while shopping I could check ingredient lists from a reader.