Bringing the E-Revolution Home

My oldest son is 19 and threatening to turn 20, but I'm not sure I'll allow that.  I'd like to send both my kids backwards towards infancy if I could. Anyway, he thinks he'll be 20 in March, but I'm rooting for him to turn 18 again... then 17 then 16, then 15 then...  Anyway, Zack was the poster child for someone who'd be the ideal ereader owner. 

Zack is a sophomore at the University of Central Florida (UCF) in Orlando.  However, his home is in Myrtle Beach, SC.  During the school year he travels a lot - sometimes by Amtrak and sometimes by plane.  By plane he'll have layovers between connecting flights and by train he's riding the rails for about 9 hours.  And he's a reader from way back.  So on those long trips, books are how he passes the time.

Like I said, he's a reader, so books are also one of the ways (besides his computer generally, World of Warcraft, specifically and hopefully studying - at least occasionally) that he passes his time at home and in his dorm.  He has 3 full bookcases in his room at home and boxes more in his apartment/dorm at UCF.  Amongst the most important book to him are the bulkiest - the Twilight series, all of 'em.  Those are 4 of the biggest, bulkiest books on the planet - and Zack adores them.  He wants them with him at home, at his dorm, and traveling between the two.

Like I said, he was the poster child for someone who needed an ereader. That would've been true even if his Mom wasn't an indie author who likes her ereader - although it's only a beginner's model.  I wanted better for my son.  The ebook revolution has advanced and my son, the National Merit Scholar studying engineering on a full scholarship, well, he should have the best - or at least, the best for him out of the variety of full-fledged "real" ereaders.  Which one would that be?

(I didn't consider an iPad because they're too expensive.  There may be an app that will use Epub books for the iPad and if there's not now, I'm sure there will be soon. But, like I said, iPads cost too much.)    

Well, UCF's bookstore is run by Barnes & Noble.  Zack lives in dorms that share a wall with an on-campus B&N store.  That made the Nook a front - runner.  Unlike the Kindle, the Nook uses Epub so Nooksters can buy ebooks at nearly every ebook store on the planet (except for Amazon).  And the Epub format means that the Nook (like the Sony reader) allows him to check out ebooks from public libraries.  The Nook model with 3G and Wi-Fi also has a web browsing function, and it comes with 2 built in games - chess and sudoku - both of which he enjoys.  Plus, I have a co-worker who adores her Nook and you can't beat a personal testimonial.  All of it made the Nook the best choice for Zack's ereader. Now I only had to make the purchase fit into the family budget, which was no small task.  My first thought was that Best Buy was selling the wi-fi only version of the Nook for $99 as a "Black Friday" special.  My Nook-owning co-worker was planning to line up early at a Best Buy.  She did, but it turned out that the $99 Nook was one of those "false hook" specials stores advertise for items they don't stock in quantity.  A store employee passing out "numbers" for the most sought-after items told my co-worker that the store only had 9 Nooks in stock for that price.  So, I didn't get a Nook that way.

Amazon was running a "Black Friday" deal on their prior Kindle model.  They were selling them for $89.  Although Kindle can't do the library, doesn't do Epub, and doesn't run Zack's bookstore - it was a "real" ereader with an online, wireless buy function, web browsing, etc.  And I wanted a "real" ereader for Zack.  So, having been Facebooked by my co-worker who advised she didn't get the Nook, I was online and waiting for the Kindle sale to go live.  The second it went live, I hit the buy button.  The controls churned but no Kindle went into my cart.  I called and complained to customer service who admitted they were only selling a tiny number of the devices for that price but checked my story and said I should've gotten one.  They told me to wait until the day after Black Friday and then to order a Kindle and I'd get it for $89.00.  Guess what?  It turns out that AMAZON AIN'T ABOUT CUSTOMER SERVICE.  When I put the item in my cart the next day, it didn't go in at the promised price.  I emailed and was basically advised - forget about it.  So I did. 

Then I heard that B&N was selling some refurbished 3G/Wi-Fi models at Buy.Com for $99.00.  Eureka!  (Even the new Color Nook is only Wi-Fi.  My co-worker had one at the top of her Christmas list until she found that out.  It got scratched from her list.)  A 3G/Wi-Fi Nook for $99 beat the pants off the Best Buy Wi Fi deal.  But I didn't get one for days and days.  I haunted that site.  I can be a wee bit (a lot) obsessive though, and eventually it paid off.  I logged on at 7:30 am on a workday morning before most folks had gotten into their office to log into Buy.Com.  And I got one.  You go, B&N and Buy.Com!

So, on Christmas morning Zack opens his surprise.  It mattered a lot less to him than the Starcraft II game he'd asked for and immediately hauled off to play.  I expected a little resistance because my son is a stubborn kid and he loves his paperbacks.  But I didn't expect the device to go completely ignored for days on end.  He finally got around to activating it - after Mom pouted a lot and Dad told him he could give Mom the ereader if he didn't want it.  Them's fighting words to a teenager or young adult.

Well, Zack logged onto B&N and promptly bought the full Twilight series and was amazed to get all 4 books for only $37.00.  He quickly spent the $50 gift card.  Then Mom lobbied him to try some of the free ebooks, which included a lot of Sci-Fi/Fantasy titles he'd love.  But Zack resisted.  He said he only wanted books from author's he'd already read.  (Huh???)  I did get him to try the chess and he liked that.  After a while he wandered in and admitted that the Nook might be useful in amusing him on trips. 

It took a while before he read his first book on the Nook.  I'd cunningly bought him a leather cover, one of the ones that the Nook slips right into and feels like a book.   He enjoyed the read but found it "different."  It took a while for the device to catch on.  First, he had to decide on his own to log onto B&N and pick up a couple of those free ebooks.  But even knowing that his reading choices had just hugely expanded beyond the capacity of even a voracious reader to consume didn't make him appreciate the device.  He admitted it would be convenient but that didn't do it either. 

You know what finally made Zack love his Nook?  He remembered that Stephanie Meyer had written a "novella" that she'd put out free on her website. He'd downloaded it but could only read it on his computer -- until now.  He logged on and transferred the book over to his Nook.  That one transfer did everything Mom hadn't been able to do.  The unpublished Twilight Novella taught Zack to love his Nook.

I've heard stories from folks at the DTP forum about how the ebook revolution had caught on first with the older folk and that it hadn't yet become big with the younger generation.  That seemed pretty odd until I thought about it.  Younger folk already did a fair amount of reading on their computers.  Fan Fiction sites and other places had already broadened their reading choices.  It was the older generation that had been held hostage by the NY Publishing Royals for so many years.  Most of the over 2os  folks don't do their reading at a computer and we wanted books that could go with us wherever we went.  So, I think the ereader is catching on slower with the younger folks - but it is (finally) catching on.

It took Stephanie Meyer and an unpublished Twilight book to do it, but I finally brought the E-Revolution home. 

Viva La Revolución!!!!!