They cost as much as a notebook PC here, and the range is woefully small. I won’t be getting one any time in the near future; that’s the price one pays for living in an island paradise.

There’s no backlight and it reads just like paper. You can adjust the font and the font-size to your liking. It’s really cool.

As well, let’s ignore my reluctance to accept a backlit screen as a substitute for the sensuous pleasures of a book - the gentle sound of a turned page scraping against its neighbour; the gentle scent of paper, new or old; the satisfying wedging of a thumb opposing the spine to keep the book splayed open.

I can’t help but think that e-books must be the direction of publishing; it’s no good ignoring the technology and forcing people to stay with paper. I mean, I love LP’s. I miss the twelve-inch-square artwork, the liner notes, the joy of finding that rare album you’ve been hoping to find for years, even the pizzamaker-like flip of the record to play Side 2.

But, even though I feel ripped off when I download music - and both glad and disappointed that it’s so damn easy to get anything - there’s no disputing this is progress, and it’s basically for the best. e-books will be the same eventually, once the delivery mechanism is sorted out and the devices achieve critical mass in terms of ownership saturation.

But let’s keep a bookshelf. And I’m setting up the turntable again.

Now if eReader technology takes off and people start reading more and, of greater fiscal importance, buying more, I think electronic books would prove much cheaper to produce in the long haul. And it could regain some ground lost to video games and visual media for reading-as-pastime, which would be great for the industry, but even greater for our culture. They’ve proven that reading stimulates parts of the brain that visual images just don’t.

Right now, from what I’ve learned, things are teetering on a fulcrum. Say a certain book in hardbound is expected to sell 100,000 copies. If 25,000 or even 50,000 of those people buy electronic copies for their shiny new eReaders instead of the hardbound, but the book still sells its expected 100,000, it’s no good for the publishers. If however, the ‘neato’ factor and a reduced price makes many more than the expected 100,000 shell out their $10 instead of $25, then it’s worth it.

Hopefully, I’m not trampling the information I’ve been given with a great big, lumbering lack of understanding. Stand by. I shall try to find out.

You state that you have been convinced that ebooks are not substantially cheaper to produce than printed versions but did not go into any detail as to why.

This would be a great topic to explore in more depth.

I still don’t believe that the costs to prep ebooks need to be anywhere close to printing and distributing hardcovers and paperbacks. That is not to say that the way publishers are doing it now does not make it almost as expensive… or, actually, it may be the way they do their cost accounting slight of hand magic that makes it expensive on paper.

But why are they making it so expensive? Where are the major costs in prepping a text file for the Kindle or Nook or the super-great must-have Apple iPad?

For a text-based novel, without any special graphic issues incorporated in the body of the work, the costs, including labor, should be well south of $10K.

The cost of producing one digital file, reproduced and resold over and over again cannot even compare to the cost of producing a physical book. In fact, the concept of applying a per copy cost to ebooks is faulty. Are they serious in suggesting that each digital copy cost them $20 or $25 or $30 to produce? This is absurd.

If the cost o copy a digital book file matches the cost of producing a traditional book, the industry is doing it wrong.

Maybe I am missing something here - so it would be great to explore it further.

“I helped my mother-in-law set up her new Kindle and it’s very nice, but I actually find the Nook’s organization more intuitive.”

In addition, I’ve also said that navigation is easier on the Nook, because the joystick on the Kindle easily slips instead of depresses when you try to select something. Don’t like it.

As for the second bit, I’m hoping to recruit a recap from someone in the know, but it turns out that the majority of the publishers’ money is spent on paying the author, paying the editor, and promotion. Beyond that, now instead of paper, press, and shipping, the publishers pay for e-formatting, proprietary coding, and anti-piracy measures. Comes out to nearly a draw.

And personally, I still have trouble understanding why something digital, meaning it doesn’t exist except as electrons, would still be as expensive as a paperback, which requires materials (paper, binding), and the physical act of printing, storage, etc.