Saturday, March 1, 2014

A senior's take on E-Books

At 67 I am officially a senior. A tech savvy senior, I have been writing code for 40 years and have been an IS administrator.  I resisted the Kindle and e-books until recently however.  About a year ago there was a book I wanted to read that was only available as an e-book  so I put the Kindle app on my PC.  Reading it on my PC was not easy but it was better than not reading it at all.  When I moved a few months ago I had to move boxes of books accumulated over the years so when I got my tablet I downloaded the Kindle app and got a couple of books.  The tablet was much better than the PC - it was possible to read in bed once again.  It seemed to be an acceptable way to read a book and for books not yet out in paperback much cheaper and a lot lighter than a hardback.  So this old fart made the leap and I purchased the Amazon Kindle Paper White.  Much smaller and you can carry it around and read much like you would a paperback.  As an aging hippie the fact that I can adjust the font size is also a plus.  This 67 year old is sold - better late than never.  I just purchased 3 New York Times best sellers for what I would have paid for 1 hardcover.

Over at the American Conservative Daniel McCarthy wonders if e-books have peaked.  He sites an article by Nicholas Carr who observes a "flattening of e-book sales."   It's not always clear if this is a decline of  the sale of readers like Kindle or a decline of book sales.  My thought is Amazon and others should target the new seniors, more tech savvy.  Seniors read a lot, like to save money and the font thing should be a real selling point.

Originally posted at The Moderate Voice