Return to blogging and ebooks
February 5th, 2012 § Leave a Comment
It’s been a month or so since my last post here and there are a couple of reasons for this: 1) I’ve had a little trouble with the blog recently (functional sorts of issues) and 2) I’ve been concentrating more on reading rather than writing. I’ll do my best to pop in more regularly to update what’s been happening with me and relate the latest news and things of interest that have come my way.
For now I’ll just post a link to a short article I read recently regarding ebooks and their costs in Quebec as opposed to the rest of Canada. Apparently, in Quebec ebooks are taxed at a rate of 9.5% provincially, whereas print books are exempt from such tax. Not something readers of digital books should be happy about and the article also mentions some concerns Kobo has about what it means for their customers. You can read all about it courtesy of The Quill & Quire here.
Although Budlovsky said the discrepancy “should be atrociously viewed by the Canadian
public,” Kobo isn’t ready to battle the Canadian government to change the tax laws.“We accept the law for what it is and feel that it should be changed but that is a long and bureaucratic process,” Budlovsky said. “We work in a … fast-moving industry where we need to stay ahead of the competition by working on things that are under ourcontrol.”
eBooks and Poetry
July 14th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
Thanks to Paul Vermeersch for pointing out this article on his website. Billy Collins and some other well known American poets weigh in on the match between poetry and the eBook. At this point in the eReader’s development, specific poetic elements, such as punctuation, line breaks, and spacing, cannot be accurately related. Often a poem viewed on a screen will appear completely different from its print counterpart.
“I found that even in a very small font that if the original line is beyond a certain length, they will take the extra word and have it flush left on the screen, so that instead of a three-line stanza you actually have a four-line stanza. And that screws everything up,” says Collins, a former U.S. poet laureate whose “Ballistics” came out in February.
When he adjusted the size to large print, his work was changed beyond recognition, a single line turning into three, “which is quite distressing,” he adds.
For myself, I think prose will work fine on an eReader, such as the Kobo, and my experience with the reader has been very positive. At the moment, I am attempting to read Simon Armitage’s Selected Poems on the eReader, only to find all lines double spaced and long lines continuing on into the next line without proper indentation. I can still read the text and get the main meaning from it, but I’m missing out on the nuances of the work. Also, as a matter of personal preference, it’s annoying to read a poem and have to infer how it is supposed to be presented rather than actually viewing it as it was meant to be seen. EReaders have a ways to go yet, it seems.
Kobo Check-in #1
May 29th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
The Kobo eReader comes in porcelain or black.
Current Kobo reading: Thus far I’ve been using the Kobo to read classics (because they are free and of interest to me at the moment) or to read some philosphical works for an upcoming writing project. Right now I’m reading Jane Austen’s Persuasion, The Golden Sayings of Epictetus, and The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.
Positive points to date: Thus far I’ve found the actual reading on the Kobo to be quite easy. By this I mean that since there is no backlight for the screen the experience is more like reading a book and less like reading a computer screen, therefore being easier on the eyes. It uses E-Ink technology to achieve this. Unlike some other eReaders, the Kobo design is supposedly more streamlined to focus on elements most important to readers. Instead of having wireless access or an available keypad, it uses simple navigation controls via a directional pad on the right and four additional buttons (“Home”, “Menu”, “Display”, and “Back”) placed on the left side. The device is very easy to use and one can figure out all the basics without having to consult a manual.
Negative points to date: When I started using the Kobo I was worried about the time it takes to change to the next page. Being a child of the computer age, I expected the page to change instantly, but instead there is a wait of about a second or so. This doesn’t sound like much, but as a reader engrossed in a book, it’s annoying to have to wait any amount of time in order to move along with a passage. I knew about this before buying the eReader (I’d tried it in the store), but wanted to see how it would play out in real reading situations. At first this was a big concern for me, but as I continued to read I learned to push the forward button a moment before reaching the very end of the page, much as when reading a print book I position a finger between the next leaves to turn the page faster without interruption.
