My oldest son is 19 and threatening to turn 20, but I'm not sure I'll allow that.\u00a0 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...\u00a0 Anyway, Zack\u00a0was the poster child for\u00a0someone who'd be the ideal ereader owner.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Zack is a sophomore at the University of Central Florida<\/a> (UCF) in Orlando.\u00a0 However, his home is in Myrtle Beach, SC<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0During the school year he travels a lot - sometimes by Amtrak<\/a> and sometimes by plane.\u00a0 By plane he'll have layovers between connecting flights and by train he's riding the rails for about 9 hours.\u00a0\u00a0And he's a reader\u00a0from way back.\u00a0 So on those long trips, books are how he passes the time.<\/p>\n Like I said, he's a reader, so books are also one of the ways (besides his computer generally,\u00a0World of Warcraft<\/a>, specifically and hopefully studying - at least occasionally) that he passes his time at home and in his dorm.\u00a0 He has 3 full bookcases\u00a0in his room at home and boxes more in his apartment\/dorm at UCF.\u00a0 Amongst the most important book to him are the bulkiest -\u00a0the Twilight <\/em>series<\/a>, all of 'em.\u00a0 Those are\u00a04 of the biggest, bulkiest books<\/a> on the planet - and Zack adores them.\u00a0 He\u00a0wants them with him at home, at his dorm, and traveling between the two.<\/p>\n Like I said,\u00a0he was the poster child for someone who needed an ereader. That would've been true\u00a0even if his Mom wasn't an indie author who\u00a0likes\u00a0her ereader -\u00a0although\u00a0it's only a beginner's model.\u00a0 I wanted better for my son.\u00a0 The ebook revolution\u00a0has\u00a0advanced 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.\u00a0 Which one would that be?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n (I didn't consider an iPad<\/a> because they're too expensive.\u00a0 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.)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Well, UCF's bookstore is run by Barnes & Noble<\/a>.\u00a0 Zack lives in dorms that share a wall with an on-campus B&N store.\u00a0 That made the Nook<\/a> a front - runner.\u00a0 Unlike the Kindle<\/a>, the Nook uses Epub<\/a> so Nooksters can buy ebooks at nearly every ebook store on the planet (except for Amazon<\/a>).\u00a0 And the Epub format means that the Nook (like\u00a0the Sony reader<\/a>) allows him to check out ebooks from public libraries.\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0Plus, I have a co-worker who adores her Nook and you can't beat a personal testimonial.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 My first thought was that Best Buy<\/a> was selling the wi-fi only version of the Nook for $99 as a \"Black Friday\" special.\u00a0 My Nook-owning co-worker\u00a0was planning to line up early at a Best Buy.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 So, I didn't get a Nook that way.<\/p>\n Amazon was running a \"Black Friday\" deal on their prior Kindle model.\u00a0 They were selling them for $89.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 And I wanted a \"real\" ereader for Zack.\u00a0\u00a0So, having been Facebooked<\/a> by my co-worker who advised she didn't get the Nook, I was online and waiting for the Kindle sale to go live.\u00a0 The second it went live, I hit the buy button.\u00a0 The controls churned but no Kindle went into my cart.\u00a0 I called and complained to customer service who admitted they were only selling\u00a0a tiny number of the devices for that price but\u00a0checked my story and said I should've gotten one.\u00a0 They told me to wait until the day\u00a0after Black Friday and then to order a Kindle and I'd get it for $89.00.\u00a0 Guess what?\u00a0 It turns out that AMAZON AIN'T ABOUT CUSTOMER SERVICE.\u00a0 When I put the item in my cart the next day, it didn't go in at the promised price.\u00a0 I emailed and was basically advised - forget about it.\u00a0 So I did.\u00a0<\/p>\n Then I heard that B&N was selling\u00a0some refurbished 3G\/Wi-Fi models at Buy.Com for $99.00.\u00a0 Eureka!\u00a0 (Even the new Color Nook is only Wi-Fi.\u00a0 My co-worker had one at the top of her Christmas list until she found that out.\u00a0 It got scratched from her list.)\u00a0 A 3G\/Wi-Fi Nook for $99 beat the pants off the Best Buy Wi Fi deal.\u00a0 But I didn't get one for days and days.\u00a0 I haunted that site.\u00a0 I can be a wee bit (a lot) obsessive though, and eventually it paid off.\u00a0 I logged on\u00a0at 7:30 am on a workday morning before most folks\u00a0had gotten into their office to\u00a0log into\u00a0Buy.Com<\/a>.\u00a0 And I got one.\u00a0 You go, B&N and Buy.Com!<\/p>\n So, on Christmas morning Zack opens his surprise.\u00a0 It mattered a lot less to him than the Starcraft II game<\/a> he'd asked for and immediately hauled off to play.\u00a0 I expected a little resistance because my son\u00a0is a stubborn kid and he loves his paperbacks.\u00a0 But I didn't expect the device to go completely ignored for days on end.\u00a0 He finally got around to activating it - after Mom pouted a lot and Dad told him he could give\u00a0Mom the ereader if he didn't want it.\u00a0 Them's fighting words to a teenager or young adult.<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0 He quickly spent the $50 gift card.\u00a0 Then Mom lobbied him to try some of the free ebooks, which included a lot of Sci-Fi\/Fantasy titles he'd love.\u00a0 But Zack resisted.\u00a0 He said he only wanted\u00a0books from author's he'd already read.\u00a0 (Huh???)\u00a0 I did get him to try the chess and he liked that.\u00a0 After a while he wandered in and admitted that the Nook might be useful in amusing him on trips.\u00a0<\/p>\n It took a while before he read his first book on the Nook.\u00a0 I'd cunningly bought him a leather cover, one of the ones that the Nook slips right into and feels like a book.\u00a0\u00a0 He enjoyed the read but found it \"different.\"\u00a0 It took a while for the device to\u00a0catch on.\u00a0 First, he had to decide on his own to log onto B&N and pick up a couple of those free ebooks.\u00a0 But even knowing that his reading choices had just hugely expanded\u00a0beyond the capacity of even a voracious reader to consume didn't make him appreciate the device.\u00a0 He admitted it would be convenient but that didn't do it either.\u00a0<\/p>\n You know what finally made Zack love his Nook?\u00a0 He remembered that Stephanie Meyer had written a \"novella\" that she'd put out free on her website. He'd downloaded it\u00a0but could only read it on his computer -- until now.\u00a0 He logged on and transferred the book over to his Nook.\u00a0 That one transfer did everything Mom hadn't been able to do.\u00a0 The unpublished Twilight Novella taught Zack to love his Nook.<\/p>\n I've heard\u00a0stories 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.\u00a0 That seemed pretty odd until I thought about it.\u00a0 Younger folk already did a fair amount of reading on their computers.\u00a0 Fan Fiction sites and other places had already broadened their reading choices.\u00a0 It was the older generation that had been held hostage by the NY Publishing Royals for so many years.\u00a0 Most of the over 2os\u00a0 folks don't do their reading at a computer and we wanted books that could go with us wherever we went.\u00a0\u00a0So, I think the ereader is catching on slower with the younger folks - but it is (finally) catching on.<\/p>\n It took Stephanie Meyer and an unpublished Twilight book to do it, but I finally brought the E-Revolution home.\u00a0<\/p>\n Viva La Revoluci\u00f3n!!!!!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My oldest son is 19 and threatening to turn 20, but I'm not sure I'll allow that.\u00a0 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...\u00a0 Anyway, ...continue reading \"Bringing the E-Revolution Home\"<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6,7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1404"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1404"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1404\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1411,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1404\/revisions\/1411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}