Why I Will Not Be Buying a Kindle

Dec 15, 2010 11:41

and as little from Amazon as I can manage ( Read more... )

censorship, books, computer

Leave a comment

Comments 22

louisedennis December 15 2010, 12:14:41 UTC
Concerns like this are why I bought a Sony ebook reader. I don't want my reading tied to the whims and preferences of one particular company.

Reply

lil_shepherd December 15 2010, 12:19:54 UTC
I've heard decent reports of the Sony. The iPad may also affect Amazon's dominance of this market.

Reply

louisedennis December 15 2010, 12:27:38 UTC
I'm still getting used to it, to be honest. My main interest was something that would be light to take with me to conferences and which I could also read on the many ten minute time spaces I seem to spend on station platforms and I already think it's going to be very good for that. Not so sure about bed time reading though ( ... )

Reply

lil_shepherd December 15 2010, 13:23:21 UTC
Louise, I don't know what software you are using, but another person on this page has just mentioned Calibre as her choice for the Sony.

Reply


reggietate December 15 2010, 12:35:33 UTC
What on Earth was their objection to 1984???

Reply

rdmaughan December 15 2010, 12:40:30 UTC
A publisher submitted 1984 and Animal farm for publishing as Kindle ebooks. When it was pointed out to Amazon that the publisher did not have the rights to either work. Amazon pulled them from the site and from all the Kindles that had downloaded them. I believe they refunded the money people had paid.

Reply

reggietate December 15 2010, 12:51:06 UTC
Thanks. At least they had the sense to refund the money on that occasion, then. If they're going to start pulling books 'out of service' they need a much better reason that 'we suddenly don't like the content even though we accepted it for publication'.

They seem to be adept at shooting themselves in the foot.

Reply

catsittingstill December 15 2010, 13:43:03 UTC
If I remember correctly people affected got their choice of three free books of their choice or a legal copy of 1984 and two free books of their choice. Amazon really tried to make things okay.

I'm very surprised they did anything like this, given the furball that 1984 was for them--at least this time they didn't delete stuff off people's readers--but I'm surprised they deleted stuff from people's archives either; I would have thought they had learned better.

As a Kindle owner myself, I will be contacting Amazon about this. I am not interested in incest erotica, but it's the principle of the thing.

Reply


melodyclark December 15 2010, 13:21:53 UTC
I can't stand reading text on a big screen. I don't know how anyone could do so on a small one. Saying that, I sell to epublishers but none that pub directly through Amazoned. They're just destroying their own business model.

Reply

catsittingstill December 15 2010, 15:21:28 UTC
Reading on an e-Ink screen (the sort in Kindles and Sonys and Astak readers and CyBook readers and a bunch of other less well known names) is much like reading on paper--it can't really be compared to reading on an LCD screen.

That said, some people still don't like it, but they don't like it in a different way. :-)

What kinds of books do you write?

Reply

melodyclark December 15 2010, 20:22:49 UTC
That's good to hear -- at least our younger generation will not be going screen-blind. lol

I write erotic romance of every variety. It sells. lol

Reply

catsittingstill December 16 2010, 02:39:45 UTC
Readers of such novels often enjoy the "brown paper wrapping" effect of various e-book readers, the Kindle included. Also many e-book readers can be "locked" so that it is necessary to enter a password to wake it from sleep--handy if one fears one has nosy co-workers or similar.

Of course, the downside is that forgetting one's paperback on a bus is a cheap mistake. Forgetting one's Kindle...not so much.

Reply


madfilkentist December 15 2010, 17:54:43 UTC
My response is simpler, but equivalent: Buying and DRM are mutually exclusive. I will not "buy" any DRM'ed e-book; a "purchase" which depends on someone else's continued cooperation is not a purchase.

Reply


Leave a comment

Up