There. It's done. I bought a Kindle.

Amazon wooed me, finally, with the right combination of wine and song: the graphite alternative to the original stark white, and the price decrease. Even sweeter (the lovely German chocolate at the end of the romantic dinner): I bought it on eBay for an even more palatable price.

As someone who has made her living in the print world for lo these many years, I feel compelled to offer some justification. Well, first, all of a sudden, electronic is the way of the book, and I just don't know enough about e-reading, e-publishing, and e-more.

Second, I love to read, and I like the sound of my own literary voice, so I've signed up with NetGalley to write book reviews (see one of my very early posts to this blog--my first attempt since 10th grade English class; Mrs. Youngs introduced them as the fearsome "critique"). This week I received my first approval from a publisher to review one of its books. I feel so important. Anyway, the point of this point is that some of the galleys made available for review are Kindle-kind.

How do I like it? Well, I really kind of like it. How's that for critique? I'm finding the biggest adjustment is the ergonomics of this new feat called reading. The Kindle is a bit narrow and thin to hold comfortably, missing that healthy two-page spread. So I end up flipping the thing and changing the view to broadside, but then I don't get the whole page in the frame. Still, so far, I manage. Its slight, whisper-thin weight still surprises me.

Has anyone, by the way, seen the prototype drawings of a new e-reader in development? It actually opens up like a book. Could be nice; could be disastrous.

I haven't dipped my toes into an e-book far enough yet to see if its soul carries me away from these mundane concerns. I can only hope.

Comments

  1. PerleAugust 1, 2010 at 1:12 PM

    Does NetGalley pay for the book reviews? I review books from time to time, but for pay.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Joyce DunneAugust 1, 2010 at 5:18 PM

    Great to hear from you, Perle. Looking forward to checking out your blog.

    NetGalley doesn't pay for book reviews. The only thing I've seen by way of compensation is a publisher offering a copy of the published book to the first few people to submit a review through NetGalley. But the service comes with some inherent perks: gaining experience writing reviews, potentially establishing a connection with publishers, getting early exposure to new books coming out on a topic, etc. (that's what I'm coming away with at this point, anyway).

    I'd be interested to hear how you got into paid reviewing, if you'd care to share. In the meantime, thanks for stopping by!

    ReplyDelete

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