Some Great E-book Newspaper Questions

Mark Viquesney from MATEC Networks and the TechSpectives Blog posted some interesting questions in response to my blog post Electronic Newspapers Save Time, Money, Gasoline and Excess Calories. I decided to answer his questions with a new entry. His questions and my answers follow.

Question 1: Is the cost per year for a Kindle version of the paper cheaper than the normal paper?

On the newsstand the Boston Globe costs $2.50 for the Sunday edition and $.75 for the Monday-Saturday editions. In a 30 day month figure there are 4 Sundays per month and 26 other days. Doing a quick calculation:

(4 Sundays/month)*($2.50/Sunday) + (26 other days/month)*($.75/other day) = $29.50 per month

We also have to figure on the cost of mileage/wear and tear when I’m away on vacation and have to drive to pick up the paper. The federal travel reimbursement rate just went up to 58 cents per mile and it’s a 14 mile round trip to the store:

($.58/mile)*(14 miles/day) = $8.12 per day

In a 30 day month:

($8.12/day)*(30 days/month) = $243.60 per month

Adding things up for the month we’re looking at:

($29.50 per month for the paper) + ($243.60/month for gas and wear and tear on the car) = $273.10 per month buying the paper the old fashioned way.

The electronic version of the Globe for the Kindle sells for $9.99 per month and there is no driving required.

Question 2: How many pounds of paper have you saved by not buying papers?

I'm making a rough estimate here but let's figure the Monday-Saturday editions weigh .5 lbs and the Sunday editions weigh 2 lbs - I don't have printed edition papers here because I now get them electronically!

(.5 lbs/Non-Sunday copy)*(26 days) + (2 lbs/Sunday copy)*(4 days) = 21 lbs of newspaper per month that I am not consuming

Question 3: Would you buy a Kindle paper that was cheaper if it had the ads in it like a normal paper? Or would you rather just skip all the ads all the time and pay more up front?

I'm not a fan of ads so I don't miss them at all. $9.99 per month is reasonable for me so I would not be interested in a cheaper version with ads. If it was free - well - that would be pretty tempting!

Once I got used to the smaller screen, I find the reading experience much better on the Kindle. For example, I'm not starting an article on one page and being directed to another page to finish reading it. I've also got a built in dictionary if I get stuck on a word and I can highlight and export text if I find something interesting. And....... (this is my favorite) nothing gets thrown away. Daily copies are archived on my Kindle in a search-able format. Have you ever wanted to refer back to something you read in a paper maybe 2 weeks or a month ago? That paper is likely long gone and using newspaper websites commonly requires paying to access older content. I've got it all on my 10 ounce Kindle.

Thanks Mark V. for these great questions!

Electronic Newspapers Save Time, Money, Gasoline and Excess Calories

The past week I was out in North Truro on Cape Cod, MA. On the Cape I have my usual morning routine that, in the past, has involved getting up early, jumping in my car and driving 14 miles round trip to Provincetown for a newspaper and usually..... donuts!

This year, instead of driving for the paper (and donuts) I was waking wake up and downloading the Boston Globe to my Kindle. I currently subscribe to an electronic version of the Globe for $9.99 per month - I get an electronic copy of the paper 7 days a week without the ads. $9.99 is a pretty good deal for a full month of the Globe - just the Sunday edition costs $2.50. I also don't get stuck with stacks of read newspapers that I have to eventually bring to the dump (Truro Transfer Station).

In addition to the Globe I also like to read the Boston Herald - especially when it comes to reading about New England sports teams. On Friday the Celtics got to be too much for me - the Herald is not available electronically so...... i got in my car and drove to Provincetown to get the paper. Guess what else I got.

By Saturday morning I was back on the Kindle and off the donuts.

Do E-books Smell Like Burned Fuel?

BookExpo America ran their annual conference a couple of weeks ago in New York City with some interesting, and controversial, presentations and statements. Here's some highlights from various sources. Let's start with some industry eco-footprint stats from Business Week:

- 8.9 pounds of emissions per book.
- 30 million trees consumed per year by the industry.
- Recycled paper is now used for 13% of book pages.

There was a lot of discussion about increasing the use of recycled paper and cutting back on the number of trees consumed for book and then things shifted to electronic-books (e-books). Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos got some discussion going with a talk about the Kindle but, according to Yahoo News, his talk disappointed many attendees, who had hoped that he would announce some major news, but it did continue the ongoing discussion of the e-future.

Publisher Simon & Schuster did announce they would make thousands of additional titles available on the Kindle, including "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury. Bradbury, who was at the Expo, is quoted in the Yahoo News piece saying "There is no future for e-books because they are not books....... E-books smell like burned fuel."

Also according to Yahoo News, the industry is in transition - new annual releases keep increasing (more than 276,000, according to researchers R.R. Bowker), while the number of books purchased is expected to drop, according to a report by the Book Industry Study Group, an industry-supported organization. In addition, core American Booksellers Association (ABA) membership dropped to 1,524 as of this spring, 56 fewer than the year before, and booksellers filled less than half of the roughly 500 chairs set up for a meeting at the Expo.

I wonder what Guy Montag would have to say about all this!

Book Bags and the Sony Reader

I've been meaning to weigh my daughters book bags for a while now. I've got a 16 year old in 11th grade and a 12 year old in 7th grade and each lug a stuffed bag back and forth every day to school. Here's the weigh-in results:

11th grader

Book Bag Weight = 28 lbs
Her Weight = 105 lbs
===============
Book Bag to Weight Ratio (BBWR) = (28 lbs)/(105 lbs) = .267

7th Grader

Book Bag Weight = 24 lbs
Her Weight = 75 lbs
===============
Book Bag to Weight Ratio (BBWR) = (24 lbs)/(75 lbs) = .32

So my oldest is lugging a little over one-quarter of her weight around in her book bag and my youngest is lugging almost one-third of her weight!
In addition they are each commonly carrying one or two other books that won't fit in their bags, adding another 5-10 pounds along with a 5-6 pound violin..... imagine if they each played the tuba........

I'm not sure how you feel about this but to me it is unacceptable. We've tried talking each into roller bags but they are not very popular these days in the middle and high schools..... So - what can we do? Get our kids memberships to a local gym in the summer so they can build up their muscles for the school year? Perhaps chiropractor gift certificates for the holidays?

Sony has a better solution that I'm hoping catches on in the academic community. The Sony Reader is one-half inch thick e-book reader that weighs around 8 ounces. It holds about 80 books worth of content and has a rechargeable battery that lasts approximately 7,500 page turns. It has 64MB of internal memory and an additional memory card slot. The screen is very pleasant on the eyes, using a technology called e Ink® from E Ink Corporation. E Ink uses micro-capsules instead of the glowing LCD cells on computer screens that appear as black or white depending on the charge associated with page content. According to Sony:

"The result is a reading experience that’s similar to paper - high contrast, high resolution, viewable in direct sunlight and at a nearly 180-degree angle, and requiring no power to maintain the image."

It also displays Microsoft Word and PDF documents, blogs, newsfeeds, and JPEGs (just black and white) and plays unsecured MP3 and AAC audio files (like Mike Q and my podcasts !) through an external audio jack.

Here's an interesting video from NY1 News on the Sony Reader.


I've spent some time in the Sony Style Store playing with one and an impressed with the contrast - it has a nice text-on-paper feel that I don't get with other readers that use standard computer screens. It's small when compared to academic textbooks at 6.9” by 4.9” with a 6" screen and would probably not work well for textbooks with lots of illustrations - think biology or physics.

In it's current form factor, I think it would have limited use in the classroom but I'd love to give it a try. Sony appears to be directing marketing towards travelers at this time - I've seen a few ads in airports and airline magazines recently. Right now the cost is $279.99 and comes with 100 book's Classics titles.

In addition to Sony, there have been rumors Amazon has their own e-book reader in the works, the result of the purchase of mobipocket.com a couple of years ago.

I'd love to see these kinds of products directed towards the academic market so my kids could both lower their BBWR!

****
Read Show Notes and listen to Mike Q and my latest Podcast titled Micro-blogging linked here.
Podcasts also free on iTunes.
****