Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Books Vs. E-Readers



The debate of books vs. e-readers has raged among book geeks (bibliophiles) and techies for a long time. I like to think of myself as a book lover and a techie, so I thought I would share my two cents on the topic. 

From a techie point of view it’s a gadget and gadgets are always cool. It is nice to be able to read off an e-reader in the middle of the night, without having extra lights on. For us older techies (shut it) to be able to enlarge the text is so nice. I have glasses and I still struggle to read the text in books. 
The thing I like about books the most is being able to point to my vast collection of books on my books shelves. It’s just not impressive to point to an e-reader and say, “I have over a hundred books stored up.”
When it comes to graphic novels and manga I strongly recommend sticking with the books. I feel something is lost not being able to take in the entire page and then work your way around to each pane. Sometimes the e-readers show the entire page and then everything is too small to make out. Taking the time to zoom in and out on the frames really detracts from getting into the story.
Yes books are more expensive, but the prices for a novel on an e-reader, I feel are out of control. I personally have published my stories electronically and the only overhead you have for e-reader publishing is your time. Paying $10.00 for an electronic story is, in my opinion, robbery.
One of the big arguments books vs. e-readers is durability. Personally I think it’s a tie. Water and fire will do equal amounts of damage to both books and e-readers. You can drop your book and it will be fine. Falls don’t work out so great for e-readers. Now most e-readers back up your library to the cloud, so if you do lose your e-reader you can download the books again.
I don’t know if I solved anything here. I know a lot of you out there have strong feelings one way or the other. However, if I had to choose between books or an e-reader I would choose books. Yes, I’m old school that way.


Thanks to:
E-Reader ~ Z4N9@deviantart.com
Reading ~ Sachiko-Hime@deviantart.com
Library ~ Eudetenis@deviantart.com
Reading ~ JaneMere@deviantart.com

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