19th, 20th Century Private Collection Bookplates

May 16, 2009 12:25 PM

Kindle seems to be on the way to marginalizing books. In memoriam, 19th and 20th century Bookplates from the Pratt Libraries Bookplate Collection.
posted by wallstreet1929 (67 comments total)

Marginalizing books, or print books?
posted by b1tr0t at 12:26 PM on May 16, 2009

Already? Book.
posted by wallstreet1929 at 12:28 PM on May 16, 2009

You kids, get off my lawn! I'm using it to grow papyrus.
posted by dhartung at 12:30 PM on May 16, 2009 [6 favorites]

Only two of those nine definitions cover bound pages of paper.

Regardless, this is a cool collection of book plate images.
posted by b1tr0t at 12:32 PM on May 16, 2009

Jesus wept! I've just accepted the marginalization of stone tablets! IF IT IS GOOD ENOUGH FOR GOD IT IS GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME !!!
posted by Foci for Analysis at 12:40 PM on May 16, 2009 [1 favorite]

My favorite bookplate artist (and possibly illustrator in general) is Audbrey Beardsley. Some bookplates and other drawings here

Also, how ironic.

"Tell the Publisher! I’d like to read this book on Kindle "
posted by fontophilic at 12:43 PM on May 16, 2009

They need to expand their range and drop their prices a little to be a real book killer - still, I suppose the claim isn't as entirely ludicrous as it used to be.
posted by Artw at 12:53 PM on May 16, 2009

The thing with actual books is that you get an actual object that you can hold in your hand, lend to a friend, scribble in the margins of, and so on. What's more, every era has had a different way of making books. I have a 19th century copy of Nicholas Nickelby with a leather cover, back when you would buy the book's "insides" and then have it bound by someone else. It still looks pretty nice, it's got the original owner's (beautiful) signiature on one of the first pages, and for a while a bookworm had taken up residence in it.

With the Kindle, you don't have any of that. Everything's all so... temporary these days.
posted by dunkadunc at 12:59 PM on May 16, 2009 [5 favorites]

Marginalizing books, or print books?

Both, probably.
posted by washburn at 1:05 PM on May 16, 2009

Kindle seems to be on the way to marginalizing books.

Amazon product hyped up by Amazon with sales figures produced by Amazon. Holy shit books are fucked!
posted by channel-1- at 1:13 PM on May 16, 2009 [11 favorites]

But... but... OMG TEH DRM!!!!11!1
posted by Ratio at 1:16 PM on May 16, 2009

I'm waiting for the Kindle that I can abuse in pretty much the same way I can abuse a magazine or cheap paperback. That means get it wet, drop it, toss it across the room, leave it in the sun, use it to prop up a couch ... and so on.

This will happen.

But I'll still buy books, mostly used, pretty much the same way I still buy vinyl records, mostly used.
posted by philip-random at 1:18 PM on May 16, 2009 [2 favorites]

*Kindle seems to be on the way to marginalizing books for traditional bound books sold on Amazon.com.*
posted by ericb at 1:20 PM on May 16, 2009

I think it might be a tad premature to say Kindle is going to "marginalize" books. The linked article points out the following:

If 10,000 copies of a book are sold in physical form, and another 3,500 in digital form that is a total of 13,500 copies sold. The Kindle portion selling at 35 percent the rate of physical titles, but represents 26 percent of the total. (Showing it as a percentage of print books rather than as a percentage of the total sales makes for a better slide).

Books have been around for centuries, require no electricity to operate and, speaking solely for myself here, there's something about a displayed home library that's kind of aesthetically appealing, not to mention the thought that these books could be heirlooms for future generations. I'll also note that there's nothing indicating that increasing digital book sales are eating into print book sales. Who's to say people don't buy both?
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 1:21 PM on May 16, 2009 [2 favorites]

...to marginalizing books for traditional bound books...
posted by ericb at 1:21 PM on May 16, 2009

.
posted by fleetmouse at 1:29 PM on May 16, 2009 [1 favorite]

Here's another nice collection of bookplates (which I may have originally found via MeFi, but can't remember).
posted by findango at 1:35 PM on May 16, 2009 [3 favorites]

there's nothing indicating that increasing digital book sales are eating into print book sales. Who's to say people don't buy both?

Exactly. It's just a new medium. Paperbacks dd not destroy hardbacks, as everyone feared. Now you have an option, pay a premium for the hardcover or get the cheaper paperback.

Here is the most interesting thing: how much cheaper are digital books, really? Obviously it's a lot cheaper to "print" a Kindle book than a real book - but is this so? I've read otherwise. The material cost in books is marginal, maybe a couple bucks for a $25 book goes into paper and ink. The majority of it is labor. The $10 Kindle books on Amazon are being sold at a loss (so I hear) and eventually the prices will rise (already happening with some titles). If this is so, about the only thing the Kindle has over the book is an easy way to make pirate copies.
posted by stbalbach at 1:37 PM on May 16, 2009

...these books could be heirlooms for future generations.

I'm going to make up a number and say that fewer than 10% of all print books are ever read by more than one person. Probably it's even lower; I bet 50% of all physical books are never read at all.

I buy both print and ebooks. If I think I'll want to share it, save it, re-read it or display it, I buy it in print. Otherwise it is a joy to have one fewer physical object to throw away, recycle, or resell for pennies.
posted by nev at 1:38 PM on May 16, 2009

The collection is great, but it makes me sad when library digital archives aren't released under a Creative Commons license.
posted by nev at 1:42 PM on May 16, 2009

I'm going to make up a number and say that fewer than 10% of all print books are ever read by more than one person.

My collection consists of 50% books I bought from a bookstore, 20% books I bought from a flea market/sidewalk sale, 15% books given to me for various reasons, and 5% books I inexplicably found (got Murakami's Wind-Up Bird Chronicle when I found it on the sidewalk - there was a cell phone number inside, which I called, leaving a message saying "I've found your book, here's my number if you want to get it back", and never heard a word from the owner). This is all anecdotal, of course, but it illustrates the various and sundry ways books change hands and get into peoples' homes.

Having said that, I have downloaded scanlated manga and don't mind reading them on my laptop, but I still plan on ordering these titles so I can proudly display my terminal geekiness on a shelf in my home.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 2:06 PM on May 16, 2009

Print books are doomed, but not by the Kindle.
posted by DU at 2:19 PM on May 16, 2009

Print books are doomed, but not by the Kindle.

Of course they aren't doomed. There will always be a market for traditional print books. They may become a more expensive niche item but that isn't the same thing as being doomed.
posted by Justinian at 2:22 PM on May 16, 2009

Either way as long as there's a reasonably high barrier to access.
posted by nervousfritz at 2:34 PM on May 16, 2009 [2 favorites]

From day 1, "e-books" have been a licensing scam with a few dangling technological carrots (searchability, lighter weight). Ominous indeed, but I don't think there's much to worry about just yet. Publishers of academic journals have been trying to do something similar (eliminate the paper journal, control access to online articles and charge ridiculous access fees, etc), but so far it hasn't been working out as well as they'd hoped.
posted by Maximian at 2:34 PM on May 16, 2009 [1 favorite]

If this is so, about the only thing the Kindle has over the book is an easy way to make pirate copies.

And a $359 - $489 device required for reading. Books require no such additional expenditure.
posted by ericb at 2:36 PM on May 16, 2009

I just now realized my arbitrary percentages add up to 90% total. This isn't because I'm hopelessly bad at even the most basic math functions, no - it's because I'm being distracted by my neighbors who are all screaming in unison every couple minutes - the Eurovision results are being aired, apparently.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 2:39 PM on May 16, 2009

I can abuse a magazine or cheap paperback. That means get it wet, drop it, toss it across the room, leave it in the sun, use it to prop up a couch...

Or, like Jason Bourne, use a book or rolled-up magazine as impromptu killer weapons!
posted by ericb at 2:41 PM on May 16, 2009 [1 favorite]

a $359 - $489 device

That's a lot of books. Lovely, musty smelling, used, nicely bound books... /drool.
posted by sundri at 3:14 PM on May 16, 2009 [4 favorites]

I am a bit kinder disposed towards real bound books, rather than kindle, but where I think things like Kindle would totally kick ass is in the textbook area. Lord, it would have been nice to have all my textbooks in one handy package.
posted by edgeways at 3:21 PM on May 16, 2009

I don't know the tech but couldn't you have your own virtual bookplate on a Kindle?
posted by Dr.Pill at 3:22 PM on May 16, 2009

And yet, I just saw on Slashdot a few days ago that Amazon is already taking advantage of the Kindle's wireless internet to enforce at kill switch features on some books. Random House didn't like the text-to-speech feature on a few of its books, and disabled it on those books retroactively.

Kindle will not replace books until they stop doing things like that.
posted by JHarris at 3:25 PM on May 16, 2009 [1 favorite]

It's important to not that there's no quantitative evidence in the link to suggest that the kindle is increasing overall unit sales, regardless of format. Consider:

if a paper book sells 10,000 copies on Amazon, it will sell an additional 3,500 digital copies on the Kindle.

One possible reading of this is that the paper copy would have sold 13,500 units pre-kindle, but the kindle has cannibalized paper book sales by 35%. If such a reading is correct, and it seems reasonable, then the kindle is just re-shuffling existing sales into a new format. From what I can tell the price point for most kindle-format e-books is the same as it is in the old-fashioned paper edition (I do not have a kindle and did not research this extensively, but did look up a few titles on amazon, so please correct me if I'm wrong). Thus, publishers are not getting new sales or customers out of kindle; they're just re-shuffling formats and sales remain flat. This is not surprising if one considers that most people buying kindles are likely buying books they would have bought in paper pre-kindle.

The real long-term (i.e. generational) sales test for trade books as a popular medium, regardless of format, remains the competition they face, particularly among younger people, with DVDs, games, music, etc. All the bells and whistles in the world won't change the fact that reading usually requires more expenditure of mental effort than those other things do.
posted by ornate insect at 3:33 PM on May 16, 2009

I've noticed the Kindle price for most books is about the same as Amazon's mass-market paperback price for the same content. Paperbacks are less likely to be "kept forever", lent or given to friends, or end up in Used Book Stores rather than landfills. (And if you're planning a bookburning, they burn much better. Don't ask me how I know that.) Kindle does and will take more business away from the paperback book market than the hardback book market. I remain hopeful that there will be more competitive (and compatible, if not with Kindle, with each other) ebook reader devices made available in the very near future; otherwise it'll just be more proof of my Second Law of Business (Revised): A truly ‘free’ market is one where most competitors have been eliminated.
posted by wendell at 4:00 PM on May 16, 2009

Kindle will not replace books until they stop doing things like that.

Nor until you can load a wide variety of filetypes directly onto it without having to email them to Amazon and have them email them back. Ridiculous nonsense.
posted by rifflesby at 4:13 PM on May 16, 2009 [2 favorites]

I think books will always be about, but a Kindle - or any other Electronic Book Reader - that can properly handle PDFs would seriously marginalise printed versions of those documents.

I finishing an MBA and teaching part time at three Universities. For the last MBA case study I submitted, I had to plow through 67 PDFs and by that I mean (this is my, idiosyncratic working style) after selecting papers from Athens (an academic database containing electronic forms of finance journals) printing them out, reading at a high level to figure out which ones were relevant, highlighting key paragraphs / phrases that can be integrated into my work. Lots of paper.

For my teaching there are a few dozen classic, academic papers that I need to have on hand from time to time for reference purposes, and a larger number that are nice to have. I've ended up printing each three times and leaving a copy in my office at each of the Universities I'm associated with. Real waste.

I've been looking for an Electronic Book Reader and besides the Kindle it seems we've got:

• The Plastic Logic reader Pros - 8.5" x 11" form factor, very thin / Cons - Runs WinCE, but it is claimed this is invisible to the end user
• The eSlick Reader
Pros - Grey scale screen, running a form of Linux / Cons - only 128MB internal memory
• The Sony Reader
Pros - Its a Sony / Cons - Its a Sony
• The iRex Reader
Pros - 1024 x 1280 resolution, 16 scales of grey / Cons - 128MB internal memory, needs Windows on the host PC
• BEBOOK Reader
Pros - Very extensive list of file types supported (besides PDFs), long life battery / Cons - 512MB internal memory, no integrated web browser (not a killer for me)

All handle PDFs to some extent, some better than others. For my purposes a reader would have to offer a way to get PDFs onto it without charge, preferably wirelessly, as well as offering annotations, searching / indexing and some form of sharing documents with other readers or nearby Macs/PCs/etcs.

I've been looking at devices with interest but agree with comments upthread about durability; until a reader is available that can withstand a fair degree of physical abuse and harsh environmental conditions, it will be difficult to purchase at current price points.

And if it cost less than a netbook I'd grab one now. But it seems like I'm going to have to wait a few more years. Right now I'm using a low end netbook (Aspire One running UNR Linux) which, while not very durable, only cost a little more than a hundred pounds.
posted by Mutant at 4:14 PM on May 16, 2009 [5 favorites]

I like e-books.
I have the kindle reader that I downloaded for free on my Ipod, and have several introductory chapters of books I might want to buy, along with several ebooks I have bought.
I like being able to instantly have a book without going to a bookstore to buy it, or wait to have it delivered (as I purchase most things, including books, online).
Then again, I have horrified neighbors by clearing out my bookshelves when I move and just leaving piles of both hard and soft cover books for people to take.
I'm not a big collector of books, and there are very few books that I will reread, so why keep them? As trophies? I guess I always felt the words were the important bits, not so much the physical book itself.
Having several books stored on a device that weighs a few ounces is a dream for long flights, waiting in line or at the doctors office, or even in bed, where because it's backlit I don't need to have the reading light on and bothering the guy sleeping next to me.
The only downside I can see, and this might not actually be true, just an indicator of my lack of tech knowledge, is that you can't pass on books that you really, really, like to friends.
posted by newpotato at 4:19 PM on May 16, 2009

I've never used a highlighter in my life, but I made friends during the same four years as earning my undergraduate degree and, so I feel qualified to say : LOLZ !!!!!!!!!!!

I can redouble that lolz based upon observations of professional people if you like. I might feel paper is vaguely threatened if the iRex iLiad had market share like the Kindle, but I'll continue to laugh at any ebook reader without markup & note taking.

As an aside, Amazon is frequently just plain evil. Why immoral asshole busy their shit? Abebooks is cheaper & better.
posted by jeffburdges at 4:26 PM on May 16, 2009

Free and unlimited wireless internet is the main reason to own a Kindle.

Granted, it's all through a horrible black and white web browser... but it's there.
posted by rokusan at 4:31 PM on May 16, 2009 [1 favorite]

I'm adding "not lending books to each other" to list of things wrong with damn kids today.
posted by Artw at 4:42 PM on May 16, 2009 [1 favorite]

Why immoral asshole busy their shit?

why indeed
posted by found missing at 4:52 PM on May 16, 2009 [12 favorites]

Electronics books are a great idea as far as portability, saving trees and saving space. And I think one day the acceptance and the technology will be there completely there and "electronic" will be the default instead of paper.

But to say this is happening now, because a few very well-off people in large cities in the 1st world, representing probably .00001% or so of the world's book-reading population, have bought a Kindle, is kinda silly.
posted by drjimmy11 at 5:40 PM on May 16, 2009 [1 favorite]

Electronics books are a great idea as far as portability, saving trees and saving space.

I wonder how many barrels of oil are burned to make a Kindle and generate electricity to power the Kindle and all the infrastructure needed to sell a library of Kindle books?
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 6:01 PM on May 16, 2009 [1 favorite]

And if it cost less than a netbook I'd grab one now. But it seems like I'm going to have to wait a few more years. Right now I'm using a low end netbook (Aspire One running UNR Linux) which, while not very durable, only cost a little more than a hundred pounds.

I think the ebook is already dead, at least conceptually, as it serves only reading() and annotation() and maybe browsing(), whereas the ideal device packs all the functions that are most needed in one device.

Take, for instance, the smartphone. These days one can get a GPS navigator, an internet terminal (wifi &/or HDSPA), a multimedia player, some decent storage (SD cards), a touchscreen and a telephone, all fitting in a small pocket.

What a smartphone lacks is a comfortable interface, as smartphones' screens are way too small for constant reading and handwriting, small qwerty is just unbearable pain and dear old pen notetaking is hardly bearable.

Smaller netbooks are the way to go. I currently own an Asus EEE, but I find myself carrying it only when I already know that I will be sitting in a library or somewhere outside the office. I don't routinly bring it with me as it only fits into winter clothing large pockets and forces me to bring a bag during summer, yet I would like to be able to bring something similar with me all day long, exactly like I do with the cellphone.

It seems my wishes are pretty popular, and some answer to this demand is slowly emerging, for instance with the korean Umid MBook.
posted by elpapacito at 6:41 PM on May 16, 2009

And more info on ultra mobile pcs here at umpcportal.com.
posted by elpapacito at 6:44 PM on May 16, 2009

I wonder how many barrels of oil are burned to make a Kindle and generate electricity to power the Kindle and all the infrastructure needed to sell a library of Kindle books?

Well, the kindle is pretty low power, it can go a week between recharges, or something like that.

I mean, why would you imagine that it takes more energy and oil to make a kindle then it does to make a physical book?


Smaller netbooks are the way to go. I currently own an Asus EEE, but I find myself carrying it only when I already know that I will be sitting in a library or somewhere outside the office. I don't routinly bring it with me as it only fits into winter clothing large pockets and forces me to bring a bag during summer, yet I would like to be able to bring something similar with me all day long, exactly like I do with the cellphone.

I don't know why they don't make netbooks in tablet format. On Newegg you can get an EeePC for $270 with a 9 inch screen with 7 hours of battery life. Or you can get a tablet that gets 2 hours of battery life (loaded up with 4 gigs of ram memory and a dual core processor). Why don't they make a cheap netbook with a hinge and touch screen?

I think in the future we'll see a wide range of different sizes. Hell we already do, it's just that none of 'em have for flipping the screen around!
posted by delmoi at 7:07 PM on May 16, 2009

jeffburdges: "I've never used a highlighter in my life, but I made friends during the same four years as earning my undergraduate degree and, so I feel qualified to say : LOLZ !!!!!!!!!!!

I can redouble that lolz based upon observations of professional people if you like. I might feel paper is vaguely threatened if the iRex iLiad had market share like the Kindle, but I'll continue to laugh at any ebook reader without markup & note taking."

Actually, you can add annotation/markups on the kindle. It's slow and clunky, but it's there, and eventually it will get more streamlined.
posted by squarehead at 7:11 PM on May 16, 2009 [1 favorite]

I didn't really know about bookplates before this post, although I've seen them before. So, I guess I just never gave them any thought. Now I want to design one and tag all my books. Thanks for the post, wallstreet1929.
posted by squarehead at 7:42 PM on May 16, 2009

I'm an avid book reader, and book buyer. I like to own books. I like the feel of them, the smell of them, the touch of them under my fingers, their delicious "dogearedness" when I'm rereading them. I like to lend them, give them, receive them. I treat them well, with respect, as my parents taught me.

I never throw them out, and will only reluctantly donate unwanted titles to second hand bookshops; and then, only rarely. It really must be a stinker for me to give it away.

I buy books about books. I subscribe to and devour the New York Review of Books, the London Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement, Slightly Foxed, the Literary Review and read numerous other journals online (though reluctantly, as they aren't made of paper!).

And I will never, ever, EVER give this up for an electronic, plastic trinket that looks like a 1970's calculator gone wrong.

My babies, my friends, my books... for... for... for what? For this? THIS?!!

No. No thank you.
posted by Mephisto at 8:04 PM on May 16, 2009 [2 favorites]

Another eReader coming out soon: Cool Readers, US$249.
posted by harriet vane at 8:11 PM on May 16, 2009 [1 favorite]

I don't know anyone who owns a Kindle. I have never even seen one despite working on a ginormous university campus. Therefore, I don't believe this 35 percent crap.
posted by 3.2.3 at 8:34 PM on May 16, 2009 [1 favorite]

The bookplate of Cte. de Bony de Lavergne is upside down. (If I had a nickel for every time I've said that . . . )
posted by azaner at 8:37 PM on May 16, 2009

What a smartphone lacks is a comfortable interface, as smartphones' screens are way too small for constant reading and handwriting

Once we have built-in pico-projectors, I can see smartphones taking over from netbooks and laptops almost completely.
posted by fings at 9:13 PM on May 16, 2009

a Kindle - or any other Electronic Book Reader - that can properly handle PDFs would seriously marginalise printed versions of those documents.

The recently announced Kindle DX offers native PDF support. Pretty nice, but the price tag and the limited greyscale support is a turn-off.
posted by porn in the woods at 9:27 PM on May 16, 2009

I read books. No interest in Kindle. No interest in much television. Movies, I like, now and then.

I ran across a Sandburg poem yesterday in which he described the transient gold color of a leaf cluster just before it it blossoms into green.

I like the way Max Ernst blossomed into new ways of color-making in his last decades.

Kindle?

Kind of old for that, I guess.
posted by kozad at 10:36 PM on May 16, 2009 [2 favorites]

If I hear or read this opinion again, I'm gonna go postal. Kindle is NOT going to marginalize books, ever. Because books are books. And Kindle is prohibitively expensive. And if you lose it, you're fucked. You lose a book, buy another copy. And I know Kindle is less environment-friendly to build than a physical book, because I can make a fucking book with my own two hands without ever turning on the lights. You love technology? You want to marry it? Jump on it. Just don't smugly assert that the a high-dollar electronic device will ever marginalize books. Books are - shit. Too hard to explain- from binding and fonts and typeset and the way they smell, the way they're always there and you don't have to worry about whether or not they break or whether the dog stepped on their LCD...crap. Bad night to post a comment on something like this as I just ditched my asshole idiot redneck pseudo-boyfriend, but it's still pretty spot on.
posted by PuppyCat at 11:07 PM on May 16, 2009 [2 favorites]

Note that these are comparing sales figures for exclusively Amazon products (Kindle eBooks) with Amazon sales figures for a products sold by multiple other retailers (physical books). This skews the percentages a bit toward the dramatic. I'm guessing the ratio of total Kindle sales versus total physical book sales (for all retailers), would probably be closer to 1:10. Still quite impressive.
posted by nangua at 12:03 AM on May 17, 2009

To be honest, I'm not sure why this kind of marketing fluff from Amazon freaks people out so much - no, the Kindle isn't going to replace printed books. So why do people get so panicky about it, then? Why do you even take a PR release that seriously?

I love reading, I love books, and intend always to have printed versions of the ones I love. I refuse to write a prose poem about how much I love them in some effort to prove my lit-cred, so you'll just have to take my word for it that I'm just as passionate about them as other people here.

But e-readers aren't *evil*, or even immoral, ffs, and as soon as a decent one (ie not a first-generation bleeding-edge version, something with actual features) is released in Australia I'm getting one. And if people want to act as if this is some kind of betrayal of the spirit of literature, fine, go ahead. But it seems like an over-reaction to me.
posted by harriet vane at 12:17 AM on May 17, 2009 [2 favorites]

yes kindles are neat, functional things which I may someday purchase, but collectors and thier collections will always be around.
posted by sundri at 5:32 AM on May 17, 2009

The Kindle will never replace books for me, because I buy books for the long-term, leather-bound, gold-accented, silk bookmarks sewn in, all that jazz, and mostly signed by the author. These books will be around in 100 years, and they'll probably still be in decent shape too. Their 'file format' will still be readable by bio-ocular devices (eyes) long after I have become maggot-food, and whoever inherits my collection will come to know me, to at least some degree, by the books I have chosen to accompany me through the decades, and by the care and respect that I have shown them.

E-books may eventually somewhat replace printed books for casual readers, but there will always be a significant number of people who will always prefer an actual book, for various reasons.
posted by jamstigator at 6:21 AM on May 17, 2009

Isn't everyone missing the unpleasant aspect of wireless Kindle-type devices - the ability to dynamically edit content on the fly and no real way of detecting if edits have been made ? Correct "historical errors" or quotes from politicians that have been "mis-heard". Or "no, we are not at war with Iraq. We have never been at war with Iraq. We are at war with Iran. We have always been at war with Iran".
posted by felch at 6:30 AM on May 17, 2009 [1 favorite]

The recently announced Kindle DX offers native PDF support.

What, you can take any PDF and it will display fine? I've yet to hear or see anything like that on an e-reader. Usually they require conversion to fit the screen size and other particulars - this is not trivial if it's a scanned book from Internet Archive for example - when I convert PDF's for printing on LuLu for example it takes my PC 12 to 24 hours to crunch it down.
posted by stbalbach at 6:45 AM on May 17, 2009

Isn't everyone missing the unpleasant aspect of wireless Kindle-type devices...

*cough*
posted by IndigoJones at 7:50 AM on May 17, 2009

Kindle is NOT going to marginalize books, ever

Some day books will be treated similar to LPs. Low volume, prized by a certain segment of the market, but ignored by most.

The current price of the Kindle is irrelevant. It is technology, which means its price will only go down, while it's capabilities will go up.
posted by smackfu at 10:08 AM on May 17, 2009

Good points all around. This seems an excessively large percentage until one puts the percentage into perspective that this is only Amazon sales and only regarding those products currently available through Kindle. Indeed, the greater majority of books in the world are not available nor sold for Kindle. It seems a very convenient appliance and I can think of a great many times I would have use for.

I am reminded also that this is a new product, largely price prohibitive for the greater majority of consumers, and like the CD or DVD will likely experience a surge in prices being new on the market before settling down in the long term.
posted by eatdonuts at 9:14 PM on May 17, 2009 [1 favorite]

For what it's worth, I adore my first-gen Kindle, have read tons of books I would have never gotten around to reading otherwise (and I'm a BIG reader in terms of pagecount-per-week, as well as an author)... if you don't like it, don't buy one. Sheesh. But I've found it very useful, so do many other people, and it is going to help those of us who write for niche-ier markets to make more money in the long run, so hey -- why not? If anything, the Kindle reader app for iPhone is probably causing a big jump in sales right now because more people have iPhones than Kindles...
posted by bitter-girl.com at 8:10 AM on May 18, 2009

I like bookplates.

Sometimes I find real gems when going htrough old books at my library. Makes me yearn for the day we get a scanner up in here.
posted by wowbobwow at 1:08 PM on May 19, 2009