My Sony Reader Diary: Prologue

So this is what happened.  An email pinged up in my inbox from a nice chap called Huw.  Obviously I didn't know he was a nice chap when the email arrived but by the time I had finished reading it he was my new best friend.

Hello Scott, it said (and I am paraphrasing here), I work for a digital advertising agency called i-level.  We are working with the launch of the Sony Reader.  We are keen to get prominent people in the literary blogosphere to try it out and let their readers know how they get on.  Can I send you one?  By the way, Noah and the Whale are great.

Yes you bloody well can Huw, was my response.

A couple of days later he mailed back.

Hello again Scott (see, we are best mates now).  I am just getting ready to send the Reader over and wanted to load it up with a book for you.  Do you want to take a look at the list of available books over at waterstones.com and let me know which one you want?

Yes I bloody well do Huw.  Thanks for asking.

And this is where I hit my first small hurdle.  There are an impressive number of books available on the website, and quite a range of genres.  Many of you will probably click through and take a look for yourselves.  If you do you may very well spot the problem.

There are some great books, both old classics and new titles, available.  I wasn't going to bother with a classic as many are available free online.  I also didn't want to have any book that was already in my collection.  So I was looking for something reasonably new that I didn't own and that I was likely to want to read as soon as the Reader turned up.

It took me a while. 

I went straight to fiction where the bestselling title was a Charles Dickens novel in French.  I had to wade through several pages before I found one I was interested in.  My mistake was going to the bestsellers listing.  The Reader has only been available since the weekend.  An eBook probably only needs to sell one copy to be in the top ten.  A couple of sales would skew the whole thing massively.

There are also loads of books I have never heard of, most with terrible covers that look like they were created by a five-year-old using Paint Box on a computer.  I am guessing these are the legion of self-published eBooks that proliferate the web.  Some of them may be wonderful, but I would suggest that most are not.

None of which is meant as criticism.  I just want to be honest about my experience.  There were many gems available, it was just hard to find them on the Waterstone's site.  I was tempted by Persepolis, the idea of reading a graphic novel on an electronic reader was very appealing, but I have already read it.  I was also, shock horror, debating as to whether or not to plump for the new Salman Rushdie novel.  The excerpt I read in The Times was actually quite enjoyable.  But no, painful flashbacks of Midnight's Children stopped me making that choice.

In the end I chose Lust, Caution by Eileen Chang.  I saw the movie last week and found it interesting but painfully long.  It is based on a short story from this collection and I suspect I may find the shorter form more to my taste.  My Reader should arrive with the book pre-loaded on to it.  It is all rather exciting.

To be fair, I popped back to the Waterstone's site today and found the bestseller list completely transformed with many more interesting books on there.  It probably changes drastically every day at the moment and may take a while to settle down.

So, I am extremely excited to be given the chance to check out the Sony Reader.  I would like to think I am fairly open-minded about it.  I will be very honest about my experiences with it.  As a publisher I am curious as to how I can make best use of it.  As a writer I am intrigued by the idea of seeing my books in that form.  As a reader I am yet to be convinced that this is the future.

But let's see if that changes once I have it in my hands.

Comments

[Caroline]

I'll be interested to read what you think about it, because at the moment I really 'want' one but will 'never' buy one for a number of reasons.

[Joseph Devon]

"We are keen to get prominent people in the literary blogosphere to try it out and let their readers know how they get on."
So...what...they're hoping you know such people?

[Scott Pack]

Shh, don't let on that only 3 people read this - I might not get my Reader!

[Jon Evans]

The Reader is nice and all, but the Kindle (I finally got my mitts on a friend's copy the other day) is *awesome*.

[Joseph Devon]

Jon's right. We need comparison and contrastionism. Any chance we could scare you up a Kindle as well?

[DOT]

I am soo jealous. I am also quietly pleased that you too appear to have had difficulty with Rushdie's Midnight Children. I still feel guilty abandoning it unread years ago, especially now that it has been elected the the Booker of Bookers.

[John Self]

I think I might be getting one too, though as Huw also assured me that I was his new best friend, I must publicly ask him: How long has this been going on, Huw?? The hint was probably in the way he left out the word 'prominent' in his initial email to me. I'm also slightly concerned that he might be a confidence trickster who even now is on his way to the Bahamas with my life savings. It was OK to give him my sort code and date of birth, wasn't it?

I have to say though that I had no difficulty in choosing a title for preloading, only having to go to page 2 on the bestsellers list. I will be reviewing the book I chose in the usual way, which usually for me involves commenting on the format etc so that ties in with the Sony Reader thing nicely. I am unconvinced about eReaders so we shall see. If I can be won over anyone can.

Anyway look forward to seeing what you make of Lust, Caution. Yes, the film was much too long, but it's rather impressive that Chang gets it all into 40-odd pages. Here are my thoughts for what they're worth.

http://theasylum.wordpress.com/2007/11/11/eileen-chang-lust-caution/

[Marie Phillips]

I search my soul and there isn't an atom of it that wants an e-reader. I'll be interested to see if your experience changes my mind.

[Scott Pack]

DOT - you might also like this piece I wrote for The Times a couple of months back.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article4311398.ece

Jon and Joseph - I would happily compare the Kindle and the Reader but I suspect that would be one blag too far.

Mr Self - Clearly Huw knows his onions if he has included you as well. I do think it is quite a brave move as we might all slate the thing. We are very excited about the post delivery today.

Marie - I think it is fair to say that I would never have considered a Reader if I wasn't being sent one for free. I do admit to being most intrigued now I know it is coming though.

[Lee]

Well, I know what you yourself think of MORTAL GHOST, but some of your readers might like to browse the Feedbooks site, where lots of free ebooks are available in multiple eformats. The people who run it are making a big effort to facilitate ereader use and are very open to suggestions and criticism:

http://www.feedbooks.com

And they will soon be serialising my new novel CORVUS specifically for ereaders.

[Eve]

Say it's not true! Huw and I have been the best of chums all week and only this morning I took delivery of his friendship token, a gorgeous new Sony e-reader complete with my choice of book. And I thought I was his one and only...

Looking forward to seeing what everyone else thinks of it. I've had to hire a function hall to be able to fully open out the instructions ;)