How I learned to stop worrying and love the Kindle

Up until the end of this year, I have thought that the e-book readers looked very clumpy and counter-intuitive, but the latest Kindle had begun to tempt me.  It was smaller and more personal looking.  So what were my initial thoughts?

I unpacked the box and found it came with a lovely looking 'how to get started' booklet that had been printed on brown paper, very stylish, very Muji.  The initial screensaver was a beautiful photograph of a tree.  Everything about the packaging has been created to appeal to the traditional book reader.

The controls have taken me a little while to work out, they are not completely obvious, but they make sense once you've got the hang of them.  I accidentally bought a book while browsing the Kindle store, and not one I wanted to read.  BUT you have a seven day cancellation policy on e-books bought through Amazon, so that didn't prove to be a problem.  (I'm sure that is open to abuse, but even though I'm a quick reader, I've promised not to take advantage of this...)

I spent the next day browsing thousands and thousands of free books, to see what I could practice on, and downloaded about 8 classics.  Then I bought (deliberately this time) a book I've been meaning to read, which was on sale.  You can email over other documents, so I've tried that this morning with two pieces of work.

I can see this being a fantastic improvement on having to carry my laptop around for reading manuscripts.  It's only about two years ago that I got the majority of my work through the post, whereas now 99% of it arrives by email.  While this has saved me (and my poor long-suffering postman) an awful lot of time and effort, reading on screen still makes me more tired than reading off the page.  I'm very interested to see how reading work on the Kindle turns out.

And that's as far as I've got.  So far.  I still feel I'm teetering on the brink.  A literary agent I know has called me (in jest) a traitor for getting one.  Many technologically-minded friends have been asking me why it's taken so long.

My initial thoughts are that it will be a new way of reading, that the feel and heft of a book in my hands will probably still be my favourite approach, but that I could get used to this.  I'll let you know.

Have you got a Kindle?  Have you thought about your book being an e-book?

Cressida

(Editorial Consultant)

PS As I've been writing this, my first email has been rejected by the Kindle.  I am investigating further...