Three reasons I won’t buy a Kindle. Yet.
Posted by John in General, Howto, Pop Culture, TechOK, so Apple’s iPad and upcoming foray into eBooks aside, let’s consider the Kindle. I’m an avid reader. I read practically anything, fiction and non-fiction both. I read just for fun…not just for school or for work. I’m also a published author. In short, I love books.
However, there are three reasons I won’t buy a Kindle. Or even any other eBook reader.
Reason #1: I have thousands of dollars invested in printed books. Some I no longer read, others I keep around for nostalgia and glance at occasionally, and others I refer to frequently. There is no way to convert this significant investment in printed books into some sort of eBook format. I feel this is a key flaw in the eBook business model which touts convenience. Sure, it is convenient, but only for books you buy after you buy the reader. For the thousands of dollars you already have invested, tough. What are your options then? Recycling? Sharing or trading? The point of a book is to have access to knowledge. Either you keep the physical copy around so you have it for later, or you get rid of it. If you get rid of it, you “lose” that knowledge.
Reason #2: There’s no option to get a book’s Kindle version later, for a discounted (or even free) price. Let’s say I want to buy a book, but the publisher hasn’t released it for the Kindle yet. No problem…as I pointed out above, if it is a book I want, I have no problem buying the hard copy, reading it, and storing it on my shelf. However, I’d probably be a lot more inclined to buy the book in the first place, especially for those books that are more “that sounds like a good read” vs. “I definitely want to read this” books, if I was offered a future Kindle version for a discounted price or better yet, free. Something like “Not available on Kindle, but buy now for $14.99 and we’ll ship if for free and when it does become available on the Kindle, you’ll get the Kindle version for just $1.99.”
Reason #3: This is more of a deficiency in Amazon’s web site than a problem with the Kindle. I have a fairly sizable wishlist with books as the overwhelming majority of items. Scrolling through my wish list, there’s absolutely no indication whatsoever whether any of the books are available on the Kindle. Why not? If I was looking through my wish list, and saw that 60% of the books were available on the Kindle, I might seriously consider buying one and getting the books that way. Further, there should be options on my wish list, like “Purchase all books from your wish list that are available on Kindle”. It is this type of library management that Amazon is lacking. Something like iTunes gets it, though. I can log in, and iTunes will tell me that X number of songs I purchased earlier are available at a higher bit rate and without DRM, with a “one-click” option to upgrade all of them. I don’t see this at Amazon.
The Kindle is a great idea. It just seems to me that Amazon is seriously missing some opportunities for better marketing tie-ins and web site integration with the product.
Just kidding. No, seriously….) Anyway, I’ve been reading as much as I can about studio design, acoustic room treatment, etc. I don’t really get all the math, but I don’t really have to, as there’s lots of people out there that can do the heavy lifting and distill it down to plain language for the rest of us. 
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