Finally beginning to understand what people mean when they talk about the touch and feel of a physical book. Why people think the Kindle or Sony Reader cannot replace physical books.
It’s important for eReader companies to understand this and address it -
- The Olswang survey says that over 50% of people love holding a real book and don’t want to give it up.
- It’s the #1 reason holding people back from buying an eReader.
- It’s not very well understood.
This post will talk about why the bond to paper books is so strong.
Years and years of holding and loving books
This is worth acknowledging before we get into the level of the senses.
Association of Books with Reading
Most of us have been reading for a long time -
- The physical book was the channel and all the value got linked to it.
- All our love for reading is tied up with physical books.
- The joy of reading gets associated to the smell, the touch and the feel of a physical book.
This is definitely one element of people’s love for ‘real books’.
Familiarity and Liking
- We tend to like and even over-value things we are familiar with.
- If we like something, we are very, very resistant to changes in it.
Books were reading and we are very familiar with reading in the form of physical books.
We liked books and are comfortable with books and it bothers us, and perhaps even scares us, that we might have to give them up.
The line between physical books and the reading experience
There is a line between loving the sensation of holding a book and associating the experience of reading with physical books.
We’re not quite sure where that line exists.
Basically, our love for books is split between -
- Our love of reading.
- Our love of physical books.
Let’s investigate all the benefits a physical book provides.
What benefits does a Physical Book Provide?
The Book is a physical real object and we can hold it
One of the biggest benefits of a physical book is the solidness – it’s something you can hold and feel.
- We like to have something we can hold in our hands.
- There is a very real ‘feeling of touching the material of a book’.
- It’s an object – it occupies space.
As opposed to an ebook, which is just invisible bits, a physical book is an object and an object we are used to holding and valuing.
The Senses and Layering of Sensory Experiences
Consider the senses that get activated by a book -
- The smell talks of the book’s freshness or its antiquity.
- The touch of the cover, of the paper and the book’s weight are all tangible things.
- The type setting and font type and the illustrations paint a picture.
- There are so many hints of the book’s secrets.
Plus they all get activated at the same time -
- It’s not some sequential, boring process.
- You get the touch and the smell and the feel and the visual delight of the book at the same time.
A Book’s Uniqueness and Character
Each physical book has -
- A unique cover.
- It’s own cover design.
- A choice of material for the book.
- Different paper.
- Different fonts and typesetting.
- A smell based on age and material.
And so many other things that make up its character and set it apart from every other book.
Yes, there are books that fail to do this. However, a lot of publishers and authors do set their physical books apart.
Where does that leave eReaders?
There are three parts to the equation -
- Love of reading.
- Love of Physical Books.
- Benefits eReaders have over Physical Books.
While eReaders have done a good job of providing a good reading experience (good battery life, great screen, etc.) and of pushing benefits physical books can’t match (huge storage, portability, text to speech, etc.) they are completely missing one crucial fact -
- Physical books don’t disappear into the background straightaway.
- Actually, books set the stage - They involve the senses and help create a unique experience and they keep the senses involved.
- The physicalness of the book makes it easier to get lost in the book and stay lost.
That’s something that’s completely missing from eReaders.
Whether it’s on the Kindle or on the iPhone or on the Sony Reader Touch – ebooks just don’t pull you in the way physical books do.
- There is no smell that tells you how long this book has travelled.
- There is no unique crinkle in the paper and no oddity in the print style.
- There are no cover images and every book has the same cover and its devoid of character.
Basically, every ebook has the same story behind it. They’re all clones – all with the touch and feel and smell of a 1-year-old Kindle 2.
Amazon need to fix this to pull in the 50% of people addicted to physical books.
Filed under: books Tagged: | kindle vs book, the love of books
For some people and some books, there’s also the appreciation of books as aesthetic objects. This is why we have book collectors and rare book dealers. The difference between a first edition of “A Farewell to Arms” and the version for the Kindle is, for some, as great as the difference between a Van Gogh original and its image on a Web page.
The other differences can be overcome, at least in some ways. I love my Kindle, but I get weary of the sameness of Kindle books — the same font, the same organization, the same layout. It’s like driving through a subdivision where all the houses are identical. Hopefully some e-book publishers or designers will add a touch of whimsy to their productions.
I disagree about the physicality of a book vs. a kindle. Frequently when reading with my kindle, I experience being so deep in the book that I reach to turn the page as if it is a “real” book. STILL wish there was a way to do that without the stupid click.
But another thing missing without a physical book – and I think this is huge – is that you can’t share it with others. I read The Help recently on my kindle, and I can’t share the book with anybody. I have to purchase another copy and give it to them. That’s a real stumbling block for me. I want to hand it to them, and can’t. Reading isn’t just betwen me and the book, it is also between me and others I want to share the book with.
There’s a lot ot the sharing – you’re right. People really like the sharing feature on the Nook even though it’s so limited. If someone could get a ‘share with two friends’ feature that would really take off.
Re the 50% who’d never want e-reading: why do people think in the either/or mode when there is no reason on earth physical books and e-books can’t co-exist very well? Why must one strive to be be something it isn’t to attract the other folks?
I love physical books and I keep buying them for the information I need, beautiful illustrations sometimes, and for a bit of transporting. My Kindle gives me direct contact with the mind of the author without the distraction of how they might attract us with the cover or the look of the page, the fonts..
As for sharing a good book, we can help the author and buy a copy or gift certificate toward the book. It’s not all about us being good guys. But we don’t need to squander or few $ either. I keep the Kindle 1 now because if I like something I read, I can loan the Kindle out.
very good point – we can have both.
As i read this over a second time, I can’t help but think, Switch11/Abhi, the exploring, poetic analyst…
Thanks today for keeping us up to date with so much, in a unique way.
thanks
You make a good point when you say books “paint a picture” and there is a lot to say about the visual experience.
I wanted a Kindle since the moment I saw one because of the concept of simplifying and unifying my library BUT I was horrified the day they released “Kindle for PC” and downloaded some sample books for the following reason:
You see, commercials gave me this idea of e-books being a high quality, complete finished product, fully digitalized, unlike the pirate PDFs you can find in the interwebs. The reality is that in many, many editions pictures are terribly rendered (There are many examples but I remember Amy Tan’s “The Hundred Secret Senses” e-book cover), symbols separating paragraphs are blurry (For example the cute leafs in “A Treasury of Old-Fashioned Christmas” have grey background). I don’t know what will happen when they release color e-readers… Maybe they will offer updated editions for a price.
This was a big dealbreaker for me because, to me, these flaws cheapen the product greatly. If they want me to give up the pleasure of perusing physical books then they must at least equal the visual experience.
I’ve always thought that one way the Kindle and other eReaders can help to duplicate the “real book” experience is by using a wide variety of fonts. I believe the “Topaz” format for the Kindle offers embedded fonts, but I’ve never seen it used in practice. Instead, every eBook has exactly the same serifed font, exactly the same kerning, tracking, etc. There is no typography at all.
Let each eBook have its own fonts. Bring in drop caps, designed first characters, in-line chapter illustrations (like the sketches you’ll see in many Dickens editions). In short, allow the page design of each book to live on the eReader.
Ideally, I’d like to see that exact same font and page design (minus, of course, the actual page breakdown and pagination itself) from a book’s physical version duplicated or mimicked in it’s eBook version. Technically, this doesn’t seem like it should be very hard. And for indie publishers and authors, what a great opportunity this would be to stand out from the crowd!
good point. Hopefully it’s in the works.
some time ago, a blogger said that he heard exactly the same arguments from people who were unwilling to move from vinyl to cd; and (i think) from cd to mp3.
also, OF COURSE printed books are wonderful. cloth-covered boards; a hand-worked case-binding; stitched quires; rag paper; hand-worked headbands, actual typography…
oh. oops, i almost forgot. except in very special circumstances, printing is moving toward all print-on-demand, much of it ‘perfect’-bound cr@p, these days. i have a hardcover (paper-covered boards, glued binding, glued-in fake headbands for pretend quality) whose back broke on the second reading. once books are *that* mass-produced, and *that* badly made — and are just print-on-demand anyway, i’d *rather* have the electronic version.
I’m a reader not a book lover. But I do feel a difference between reading my Kindle in it’s cover and without. With the cover feels more ‘bookish’ there is a left and right hand side even if I’m only reading one side.
I’ve had my kindle over 18 months and have used it for almost all my book reading. I now find I notice page turns on paper but don’t see the page flash on the kindle anymore. I’m over 50 and not being able to change the font size when I’m tired is a pain.
One thing that I haven’t seen really mentioned or discussed is something that I find myself doing fairly frequently with my physical books – flipping back a few pages to verify something I read and just want to be sure of in context.
Super simple with a REAL book, not so simple at all with an ebook.
The ability to flip back 5 or 20 pages in paper in a couple of seconds to find exactly where you read something, and then going directly back to where you were just does not translate to an ebook well.
(Speaking of translating – what about the 3600+ real books that I already own? I certainly do NOT intend to go bankrupt trying to duplicate them in electrons… I paid in full for them once, not again.)
Tom
Very valid points. There really needs to be a flip back 10 pages and 25 pages option.
The problem of translating paper books into ebooks – well, there’s no easy solution for that.