Travel

This past weekend found myself and Mr. Moore making an unexpected and last-minute trip down to Texas.

We spent about 24 hours (spread out over two days) on air travel, including multiple remarkably long layovers.

During that time, I came to the conclusion that if I traveled regularly (even twice a year) I would own an eReader. No questions, hesitations, or qualms.

Entertainment

We took several things to armor ourselves against the expected time delays – things which took up a great deal of room in our carry-on baggage.

Some items got used not at all (airports are, surprisingly, terrible places to try and plot stories or do networking homework).

Additionally, I brought along a single book (Patricia C. Wrede is rapidly becoming a favorite author), my laptop, and Bones (my iTouch).

Laptop

The laptop was only used at our destination. Even then, all we used her for was to check email, listen to music, and watch a few youtube videos (Dara Ó Briain, you absolutely crack me up. <3).

It was awfully heavy for such a tiny use, and I was constantly afraid it would break or be stolen. (Athena is my only computer, and she has all my writing. I DO have frequent backups to an external hard drive, but STILL).

The Book

The single paperback book didn’t take up TOO much space, but I still managed to squish and fold some of the pages, lose my place, and shove it in five or six different places trying to find a good home for it.

Also, I finished it just after our first flight, which meant I was carrying around a finished book all weekend. Oddly enough, it seemed to take up MORE space after I read it. *winks*

Bones

Bones was the highlight of the weekend.

Not only did we use him to listen to music (poor Athena, she’s just too bulky for easy music sharing), but we also played apps on him (Scramble supplied LOADS of entertainment for everyone in arm’s reach) and I had multiple eBooks* ready to read from three different eReader apps (Stanza, iBooks, and Kindle).

Furthermore, I pasted our itinerary on him and used him for note-keeping throughout the weekend.

Best of all, he took up far less space than any other entertainment item we brought.

eReaders

Looking around me, I saw many, MANY passengers with Kindles and other eReaders.

There’s no denying that the traveling masses have begun to embrace eReaders for their portability and convenience.

And I have to admit, if I traveled more often, I wouldn’t hesitate to snag one. Based on my experience on this trip, it would likely be an iPad. I could still use the other apps that proved to be so entertaining and useful this weekend, but on a larger screen. It would be easier to read eBooks, and easier for my friends to join in the app games with me.

I would have replaced most (if not all) of my other entertainment options with a single product.

That’s pretty sweet.

Why Not Now

If I’m so enamored of the eReader, why do I still not have one?

1) Cost of eReaders

eReaders are much more affordable than they used to be, but they’re still expensive and my current lifestyle doesn’t NEED one. I drive to work, don’t travel often, and spend most of my time at home, where I have my laptop. I have to balance cost with need. Even in my geeky inner heart, I know I don’t need one yet. (And my geeky heart has its sights set on the iPad, which is the most expensive of the eReader options)

2) Cost of Books

eBooks CAN be much cheaper than paper books … but the prices are still pretty steep for a girl who refers to Barnes and Noble as Full-Priced Bookstore. I DO like that most places let me preview a few chapters before I buy – that alone relieves a great deal of concern I have for wasting money on books I might not like.

3) DRM

One of my favorite benefits of paper books is my ability to share them with friends. The Nook has some capabilities built in, but I’d like to see both GIVING and SHARING of eBooks become a common feature. And yes, my expectation is that if I share a book with a friend, I don’t have a copy to read any more. I purchased one copy and if I loan it, I no longer have a copy. But maybe it has a “Property of Tami Moore” on it, along with a settable loan time which would remind the borrower to return the book. That would be awesome … and is totally unrealistic in an age where publishers are so terrified of people stealing eBooks that we have trouble moving our eBooks from device to computer.

I’m not going to go into a long, drawn-out speech on DRM. Many others have, and with more eloquency than I can muster. I point only to iTunes and beg for sanity.

4) Format Wars

Currently, I am afraid that if I buy a book on the Kindle and then later choose to purchase an iPad, I will LOSE all of my eBooks. I feel absolutely zero certainty that my purchase will be transferrable, that it will be readable by other eReaders, and that it won’t be lost forever if my eReader goes kaput.

If I spend $10 on an eBook, I want to KNOW that it is the only time I will be required to spend money to buy that eBook. If I want another copy or another version, that’s different.

Your Opinions

Do any of you have eReaders? What are your thoughts on them? Have things changed for you in the past year or so?

* For the curious, the eBooks I read were His Majesty’s Dragon, by Naomi Novik (Fun read and a superbly well-realized idea for battling a-dragon-back. Fans of historical fiction and battle will find this interesting, indeed.) and Call of the Wild (which is an old, old favorite and STILL makes me cry *sniffle*)

The Graveyard Book

On the recommendation of Iris Harper, I snagged a copy of Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book from the library. I managed to forget exactly what she said about the book, except a vague understanding that she enjoyed it and it wasn’t terribly long.

Book Summary

The Graveyard Book is a YA novel, with a few illustrations peppered in to keep it visually interesting.

The protagonist is a young boy by the name of Nobody Owens. While still in diapers, young Nobody’s parents and sister are all murdered by “the man Jack” and Nobody (or “Bod”) escapes to be raised by ghosts and a mysterious person named Silas who one presumes is a vampire.

The book is more a loose collection of short stories than a single novel. Bod ages slightly for each adventure/chapter in the book until finally reaching the culmination, wherein he confronts the man Jack.

Style

The writing style has an older flavor – a cadence and way of choosing words that has largely been lost to modern novels. This made for a pleasurable and interesting reading experience – but it meant that I was always conscious of the fact that I was reading a book. My typical goal when reading a novel is to lose myself in the story. Clever or conspicuous writing pulls the reader away from the story. That doesn’t make it BAD writing, it simply achieves a different sort of writing goal.

The Nitty Gritty

My favorite aspect of the book was the worldbuilding – the amusing little asides and anecdotes about what it might be like to be raised by the ghosts of people from wildly different eras.

Although I did not dislike the main characters, I never felt truly connected to them. The supporting (primarily ghost) cast were all amusing, but mostly flat.

The growing peril of the story being told was largely undermined by the episodic feel of the chapters, so I wasn’t reading to find out how it all turned out or to be assured that Bod would get revenge. I wondered about these things, but I was not gripped by them.

Instead, I continued reading and enjoyed the reading because the way Bod saw the world was so unique and well-envisioned that I wanted to find out how he learned to read, or how he interacted with normal people, or how normal people reacted to him. I wanted to see him get advice from a long-dead (and self-important) poet or learn constellations from an odd woman who made him eat salads. I wanted to read about ghosts and vampires who debated the logistics of a banana as food for a child.

Kipling

In a stunning display of just how remarkably narrow-minded I can be when I’m reading a book, I did not draw the very obvious parallels to Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book until reading the acknowledgements at the end.

The writing style, the “Boy Raised By Animals/Ghosts”, the types of adventures, the layout of the book, the title – all of these things and more were clearly inspired by The Jungle Book.

The Graveyard Book manages to pay homage to that classic without feeling like a rewrite or a copy. It stands well on its own, and (for those of us who read the original Jungle Book) its relationship with the other book only makes it more interesting.

Recommendation

I recommend reading the book, ESPECIALLY if you’ve read the Jungle Book and remember it with fondness. Even without that association, I felt it was more than worth the trip to the library and the time spent reading it, though I don’t think I’ll be purchasing a copy.

I enjoyed it and it wasn’t terribly long.

=]

Readers Vs Writers

Tons of great reviews exist on the web to help answer the question, “Do I, as a reader, want a digital eReader?”

What about the question, “Do I, as a writer, want a digital eReader?”

Why would a writer have an interest in an eReader?

The first and foremost act of a writer is to write, which cannot be comfortably done on the current generation of eReaders. By its very definition, the eReader is for reading, not for writing. It neither markets itself nor implies that it can double as a word processor for projects the size of a novel.

Editing

However, writers do more than write. We edit, we revise, we format.

Getting Our Writing On The eReader

Although the battle of the eBook file format has still not come to a conclusion, most eReaders will accept file types such as .txt, .pdf, .doc, or .rtf. These are all relatively common file conversions for writers – we can get our manuscripts or snippets in these formats with relative ease.

Bottom line – we can put our manuscripts on an eReader, and we can take an eReader with us anywhere we go (although I’d skip the water park, if I were you).

Write – Anywhere!

Are there any other writers in the audience who’ve had to print out and lug around heavy stacks of chapters if they wanted to get some editing done away from home? Anyone else who doesn’t carry their laptop with them everywhere they go? Anyone else who would like to see their book as their readers will see it? (I can attest that having my manuscript nestled in between bestselling authors on my eReader is very much a squeeful moment. It makes the writing feel more REAL.)

The eReader allows the writer waiting in line at the Post office, grocery store, or DMV to whip out their most recent manuscript and look at it with fresh eyes.  It allows the writer to show a revamped chapter to a friend and get their opinion on it without having to print out another copy, or send yet another word doc through email.

With unprecedented ease, the eReader allows the writer to carry their work with them, wherever they go.

Most e-readers (the Sony PRS-700, iPod Touch, and iPad are confirmed) allow you to add notes and bookmarks to your eBooks.  “Too passive, use more aggressive verbs” or “purple prose gone WILD. Tame it down a bit!” Notes are usually stored centrally, so you can come back to them later from the main menu when you’re sitting at your desk and ready to incorporate those notes into your manuscript.

Reading

You can also use the eReader to read (shocking, right?). Research textbooks, dictionaries, thesauruses – all available at your fingertips without the accompanying weight of pages. As if that weren’t enough, the eReader also encourages you to keep up to date on the latest bestsellers in your genre by making it oh-so-easy to cart around those books in a small, convenient package.

(If you’re lucky, the person holding the purse-strings in your household will actually buy that last line as a valid business expense.)

Summary

Although eReaders are typically marketed at readers (and with good reason), they provide a significant value to writers as well.

The reader in me thinks the eReader is cool, convenient, fun, and handy. The writer in me sees the benefit of being able to access my manuscript anywhere, any time.