eBooks – a conversion?

I do not have an eBook yet but being an avid reader, I have been closely watching the developments in that field. I try to keep up with the different types of eBooks and have even tried the Penguin app on my iTouch, but found the eye strain too unpleasant to even read the first page. Not a great user experience for me then. I have so far not been convinced of the need to part with my cash, and there are a few additional reasons for this.

First of all, I like books as objects. I like the actual physical sensation of holding a book in my hands, the whisper of paper when you turn the pages, the glossy covers, the fact I can read in the bath or at the beach without worrying about damaging an expensive electronic device. In addition I read a lot of books in English and French, as well as comics. Although the titles available are growing exponentially, there is a way to go before everything is available in eBook format. Lastly, the possibility that one day I will run out of power and won’t be able to read on a long journey is too awful to contemplate.

Yet there is a possibility that my mind is changing about eBooks.

Last week I found myself reading a book Negotiating with the Dead by Margaret Atwood, which was full of other authors quotations, footnotes and book titles, which were relegated to the back of the book to the notes section. Not wanting to interrupt the flow of reading, I thought I’d go through the notes later – which never happened. As a user experience, then, this left a lot to be desired. Now imagine an ideally connected world. If I had had this book in electronic format, I could have touched the footnote for it to appear on the screen; and maybe even clicked on a direct link to an online bookstore, what a great customer experience that could have been for me, and a chance for businesses to up-sell.

Granted, this implies eBook readers with touchscreens, wireless connectivity, and truly usable mobile enabled online bookstores – a far cry from the reality of 2010. But at least some of the newer eBooks seem to be moving towards touchscreen and WiFi. And while that particular title does not seem to be available as an eBook, millions of others are.

This particular case illustrates a very limited application, but the potential for interaction with the book itself suddenly seemed much more real than it had been up to this point. So perhaps I will go and look at those eBook readers again…