Opinion of Nook and other ebooks vs 'real' books

Funnily enough, I've just got a tablet for my birthday - for the main purpose of reading ebooks (it's an early present admittedly). I've been a bit lukewarm so far towards ebooks to be honest - I prefer the feel of paper between my fingers. I also tend to read when I'm in the bath and if I drop the book in it at least I won't electrocute myself! Or ruin an expensive toy.

On the other hand, they're a space saver when it comes to the bookshelves!

I still don't have any of e-readers or tablets, though, I've been considering them for a while, for most obvious reasons:
- space saving in the house
- space saving in the luggage
- and probably the most important, price of e-books compared to real books
- and I should also add that e-books are much easier to purchase, no need to go from shop to shop, they don't get sold out, they don't get lost in postage

Reasons against:
- like you I prefer feeling of the real book
- if your e-reader breaks what happens? you definitely lose everything temporarily , but is it stored anywhere what you have? I know with iPad you still keep your stuff on iCloud or iLibrary or something.
- you need to remember to charge the batteries and on 9+h long flight from Australia to pretty much anywhere, this can be a problem

You have a lot of good points there Siren and I understand your reasoning behind every one, but I so want to cry at the way technology is just taking over everything. I LOVE books! I love the space they take up in the house and I love getting new bookcases and filling them up. I love looking at and through my books and of course I love reading them. Martin if I were to read in the bath, I'd get out freezing and all crinkly because when I do read I tend to read for hours on end. Pex and I have talked about it and we agree that ebooks are handy for flights and stuff like that, but it really distresses me that people don't seem to care about real books anymore. We no longer have any bookshops in our local shopping centre and it is a big shopping centre not just a small one. We have to go to the City (Sydney) or further south in order to look in a bookshop now. To me books are like toys. Books and stationary. When I buy them I flick through them and sit them all around me so I can overview them. Yes I know it's very geeky, but what can I say? My all time dream was to own a bookshop. I can see things going the way of medieval times where those who have 'a library' are considered wealthy and different because from what I can see, people just aren't buying books much anymore

In the States, paperbacks are $8. There are only a few series I feel I need to own the hardback version. I do also have a number of hardbacks from The Science Fiction Book Club, which generally run $9 to $16, depending on how new it is.

Barnes and Noble want to charge me the same $8 as I'd pay for the paperback - and I really can't see how they can justify that cost. Real books require a large building with machines to print, cut, stack, bind, cover and pack books (which means raw materials like paper, ink, string, glue, backing materials whether hardcover or softcover, and cardboard and more ink and packing labels for the boxes). Don't forget computers to keep track of employees and production. Then they need semitrucks, drivers and diesel fuel to move the books to a store. That's more real estate. At the store, there are shelves and computers and people and advertising (posters on the wall and sale signs, etc) to pay for. Don't forget both types of buildings need electricity, water, heating/air conditioning and things like bathrooms and breakrooms and employee parking lots and janitors. They need an HR department to hire all the employees, managers to yell at people and tally up reports, an advertising sales force to plan their advertising compaigns and a budget for the advertising on tv, radio, internet and billboards (if they still bother). They also need some employee benefits and people to run those. Since it's a book publishing company, there are editors, proofreaders and copy setup individuals and possibly "talent scouts" so they can have new books to print. Throw in executives and executive secretaries, too. Then add in the programmers and systems design and support personnel, servers and possibly a mainframe, software programs to handle various parts of the functionality and also web access - and that's NOT for selling ebooks! It's just to have the internet presence required of any major company in this day and age.

Discount the last set of things (programmers, etc). Remove the real estate and costs associated with it, the people, the raw resources, the trucking costs and some of the managers and HR department personnel. Now pay for some more programmers and servers, and sell ebooks instead. CHA-CHING!!!!

Oh, and don't forget there are those pesking stockholders to pay, no matter what. Guess who's getting our money?

Okay, so there would also be some increase in real estate and building costs for the place they keep their computers and programmers.  I know programmers get paid better than print operators and sales clerks and truck drivers, but it's not enough to balance out.  I think a server or a mainframe would cost about the same as a printing press.  Those things are high-quality, or else you can't print thousands of books a day on them. 


 Sheesh, I went on a bit, didn't I? 

Well if 1BP is worth A$2 then you're still getting your books cheaper than we are. Books here cost at least $20 and that's for paperbacks. If you want hardcover then you need to be looking at at least $30, usually more. There's not a lot of things I want or need so I don't mind spending the spare money I get on books.