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<title>Amazon Kindle — 12 months on | eRambler</title>
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<div class="h1"><a href="../../">eRambler</a></div>
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<div class="lead">Jez Cope's blog on becoming a research technologist</div>
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<h1 class="post-title p-name">Amazon Kindle — 12 months on</h1>
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<a class="u-url" href="http://erambler.co.uk/blog/kindle-12-months-on/">Monday 2 January 2012</a>
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Tagged with
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<li class="p-category"><span class="tag">Amazon</span></li>
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<li class="p-category"><span class="tag">Kindle</span></li>
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<li class="p-category"><span class="tag">eBooks</span></li>
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<li class="p-category"><span class="tag">Gadgets</span></li>
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<p><a id="post-image" class="alignright" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/43602175@N06/4070018686/" title="Amazon Kindle PDF by goXunuReviews, on Flickr"><img src="https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2605/4070018686_b8febdd20a_m.jpg" width="185" height="240" alt="Amazon Kindle PDF"></a><br>
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I’ve now had my <a href="http://amazon.com/kindle">Kindle</a> for just over 12 months — it<br>
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was last year’s Christmas gift from my wonderful wife — and I can quite<br>
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honestly say that it’s completely changed the way I read.</p>
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<p>I’ve always been a keen reader, but sometimes found it difficult to find time<br>
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to read while also having a book available. I also tended only to buy books one<br>
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at a time when I was in a physical bookshop. As a consequence, most of my<br>
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reading happened at home, either in bed or in the bath, and I would get through<br>
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books at around one a month.</p>
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<p>Since getting my Kindle (well, since first getting the Kindle app for iPhone 14<br>
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months ago) I have read 45 books. I never used to read non-fiction books, but<br>
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have just finished my third of the last few months. My decision on what to read<br>
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next would generally wait until I’d finished my last book, but now I have 14<br>
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books waiting to be read and about another 20 on an Amazon wishlist waiting to<br>
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be purchased.</p>
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<p>What’s caused this change? As you might guess, it’s a combination of several<br>
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things. Compared to a paper book, my Kindle weighs almost nothing, so I can<br>
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slip it in a bag or a pocket. I can hold it in one hand while drinking tea, or<br>
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lie on my back and read, both of which I found too tiring to do with paper<br>
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books.</p>
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<p>I also have iPhone and desktop Kindle apps, which are always in sync. I always<br>
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have my current book with me, so I have many more opportunities to read.</p>
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<p>When I finish a book, I can immediately start the next, whether I have one<br>
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already lined up or I need to go online and buy one. I’ve basically turned into<br>
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a chain-reader, going from book to book without pause.</p>
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<p>Irritatingly, the prices do not reflect the near-zero marginal cost of<br>
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distributing digital content — if you shift content in the volume that Amazon<br>
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can, your income is almost pure profit.</p>
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<p>However, digital books are still cheaper than the print editions. The<br>
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difference for popular fiction is pretty small, but I appreciate it<br>
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nonetheless. For specialist non-fiction, on the other hand, where low volumes<br>
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make print copies prohibitively expensive, digital editions come at a<br>
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significant discount — often half price or better in my experience.</p>
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<p>I actually wrote the entire first draft of this post without mentioning either<br>
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screen quality or battery life. Both are so good that it didn’t even occur to<br>
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me to mention them.</p>
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<p>There are downsides too. Because I’m locked into Amazon’s infrastructure, I<br>
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can’t lend books to friends or family (this feature <em>still</em> hasn’t been enabled<br>
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outside the US). I also can’t donate books to charity shops once I’ve finished<br>
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them.</p>
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<p>Both of these facts still make me uneasy, and I’m not sure that I want all my<br>
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books to be controlled by a single company for the rest of my life. And I<br>
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haven’t even started on the problem of how many books I need to read on Kindle<br>
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to break even on the carbon footprint, or even whether that’s possible.</p>
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<p>That said, my pragmatic side is winning at the moment. Reading on Kindle just<br>
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works, and it seems to suit my lifestyle much better than books made of dead<br>
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tree.</p>
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<p>I know a lot of people have been given Kindles this Christmas, so I’d love to<br>
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know if any of my readers have thoughts on this.</p>
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