Ever since I got my Google Nexus 7, I have taken up reading eBooks. Having just completed my tenth eBook, I want to reflect, briefly, on the experience. These ten eBooks constitute 1/8th of the books that I’ve logged on LibraryThing as having been read by me this past year. That is not an insubstantial portion. It is safe to say that I have incorporated eBooks into my normal reading habits. Does the experience of reading an eBook measure up?
First, I should note that all of the eBooks I have read have been downloaded from our local public library. Public libraries in Canada appear to have settled upon the OverDrive Media Console as their default. Thus I have been using the OverDrive app on my Nexus to facilitate my reading. OverDrive functions principally as a broker of eBooks to libraries and other institutions. The eBooks themselves are generated by the publishing houses. As I understand it, the publishing house licenses its material to libraries (or whomever) via the OverDrive intermediary. So my experience of these eBooks is in part due to the product generated by the publishing house and in part due to the environment through which I engage with that product, i.e. the Overdrive app.
There are any number of issues that arise with the above distribution model. But there are other people better placed to canvas and comment upon these. For my part, the only thing that impacts my reading experience is the artificial throttle on digital goods expressed through the “one-copy/one-user” lending model. Typically, for the kinds of books I read, the library will purchase a single licence. When a library patron signs out the eBook, that book becomes unavailable to other users for the full period that it has been borrowed. Our library uses a two-week standard borrowing period. After two-weeks the eBook you have downloaded to your device becomes inaccessible to you and is later deleted. There is no way, currently, to return a downloaded eBook early. In the event of twenty-five library patrons desiring the same eBook for which there is only one licence, there could easily be a one year wait for the last person on the list. I confess that I do not see the logic in that with regard to digital goods. Surely it would be more sensible to simply allow all twenty five patrons to download the book at the same time and just count the instances of its use. But, as noted, there are others more familiar with the licensing models and the economics of eBooks who are better placed to comment on this. I’m only interested here in my user experience.
Of the ten eBooks that I have read, seven different publishing houses are represented. The books range from current literary fiction best-sellers to short story collections and even non-fiction. The authors and their publishing houses are all either Canadian, American, or British, and the original language of each of the books is English. I’ll consider this a limited cross-section.
The Good Stuff:
I like the control I have over the font size. Numerous inexpensive editions of literary classics are published with such tiny font sizes that reading them can be a strain. With an appropriate font size, I can read in bed without my glasses. Admittedly that makes it rather tempting to fall asleep, but then that’s what I would do with a print book as well.
I suppose the next point goes along with the previous, both being aspects of the app through which I am engaging with these eBooks. I like the uniformity of the textual experience. On another day, maybe I wouldn’t count this as a separate point. But today it seems noteworthy.
I like the fact that these books do not occupy space on my bookshelves. Of course no library book is going to end up on my bookshelf permanently. So this isn’t unique to eBooks. But since the majority of what I read is dross (and this may hold true for other people as well), I like that I don’t even have the temptation to fill my shelves with such books. There is a downside to this as well. At least two of these ten eBooks are books that I would very gladly have on my bookshelf for a long, long time. That has something to do with the way I think about my bookshelves, I suppose. Or my vanity. And although it isn’t properly part of my user experience with eBooks, it does make me wonder whether, after having read such an eBook, I would be tempted to purchase a print edition. I don’t have an answer to that question yet.
The Not-so-Good Stuff:
What I like least about eBooks is the poor production value. At times it felt like I was reading a “pre-print” version of the text: typos, elided words, failure to correctly display accents. In some instances, chapters were not separated from each other. In others, blank pages appeared between some chapters. Just plain shoddy workmanship. I confess that I regularly thought to myself, “I’m glad I’m didn’t pay for this.” (But of course I did pay for it one way or another since the public library is supported by my taxes.) And that must be a huge stumbling block for the growth of eBooks, if my experience is even remotely typical. I certainly am not motivated to spend anything like the amount that retailers are demanding for eBooks. Not until I have some reason to think that I would be getting value for money.
Consider a contrasting eReading experience. I have a subscription to the electronic version of The New Yorker magazine. I access and read this magazine on my Nexus 7, just as I do with eBooks. But my experience of The New Yorker is fabulous: the text is clear and flexible, the photos are brilliant, the enhanced multi-media content is always appropriate and welcome, and the content is suitably proofed such that I’ve yet to come across simple errors. Why is my experience of this eMagazine so much better than my experience with any of the eBooks I have read?
I can only speculate here. My guess is that future magazine sales are more directly impacted by the user experience. Provide a poor user experience and your reader will simply not purchase your next issue. Worse, you might be losing that golden chalice of a subscription. So, I think, magazine publishers must be incredibly focused on creating a positive user experience. By contrast, I suspect, book publishers are not really worried about the user’s next purchase. It is the current sale that matters to them, and you’ve already bought the goods, so to speak. Your next eBook purchase might come from any publishing house and is more likely to be due to that book’s reviews and marketing than any previous user experience you’ve have with eBooks. So naturally eBook publishers are not motivated to take poor user experiences to heart.
I suppose that’s pretty thin in the way of explanation, so perhaps I’ll leave further speculation to others.
My experience with eBooks has not turned me off them. I will continue to read eBooks. I will continue to download them from our public library. But I can’t see myself purchasing any eBooks from retailers any time soon. Meanwhile, another issue of The New Yorker has just showed up on my device, so at least I have something to look forward to.