The E-Reader's Dillemma

I'm currently sitting in a nameless Big cORporate bood DEaleR'S cafe, sipping my coffee-flavored-coffee, and two thoughts just struck me.

First, my laptop screen is REALLY dirty, you don't realize how much dust these things pick up until you take them out of your man-cave and into the sunlight. Wow.

Second, I haven't actually bought a book here in a while. I'm a pretty voracious reader, and still splurge on the occasional hardcover from my favorite authors, although I usually get bargain books, used books and paperbacks. Lately however, I've been reading primarily on my Kindle, in particular a lot of classics from Chesterton, Dickens, Wells and others that I've picked up for free from Project Gutenberg and other web sites.

Now, I don't feel too bad for this particular book retailer. They'll be OK for now, and have hopped on the eReader bandwagon (must we use this initial-lowercase format for everything electronic? That's the last time I'm going to write it that way, I think a hyphen might be dignified, as in e-reader), but I started thinking about how this would effect smaller booksellers.

Now, I don't actually HAVE a local bookstore anymore, the nearest one that springs to mind is about 30 miles away (hi Rob!) and, although it's an excellent shop, it's a bit far for impulse shopping.

E-readers have a lot going for them in terms of portability, easy access, the ability to find and read free out-of-copyright classics, and the ability to find new authors and the ease of carrying multiple books. What they lack is the human touch of shopping with a knowledgeable bookseller and the chance to support local business. (For the most part, what you DON'T miss is the supposed tactile experience of reading a book. I've found from my experience, and from talking to others, that when you're reading, you're reading the STORY not the PAPER).

But how does the local bookshop, already struggling in the shadow of Big Lit, survive in the world of portable gadgetry, let alone during the Great Recession?

Of course, the best of the small bookstores already all have one thing in common. They're not really book stores. Oh yes, they sell books, but more than that they sell the Reading Experience. They have authors in to talk and sign autographs, they have story hours, book clubs and discussions, they give you paper cups of wine when you show up, all that. They become the center of a community of readers.

How to apply that to the e-reader experience? After all, most of the folks who buy Kindles and Nooks love to read, if they simply loved gadgets for their own sake, they'd have an iPad.

Well, there's the hardware business, for one, e-readers are expensive, but unfortunately they're mostly too proprietary to let the local shops carry them, but that could change. But people who carry e-readers also like to have nice little cases to protect their investment, and book lights, and all the swag you can clip onto the darn things. That might be a possibility.

I've also mentioned that when I really like an author, or think the book is worth hanging on to, I'll lay out the cash for the hardcover edition. I'll keep it on my shelf and re-read it from time to time. Now, I wouldn't say booksellers should focus exclusively on new-release hardcovers, but they definitely have a certain cachet even among e-reader users.

How about this? I tend to listen to my music digitally, but often what I'll do is buy the CD, then rip it to my computer to listen to on the go. Then I always know I have the CD on my shelf to go back to later. What if booksellers had "premium" books, that included a free digital download of the text in the purchase price. The nicely bound hard copy could sit on your coffee table or bookshelf, and the weightless digital copy could travel with your gadget. To take it one step further, what if there was a better way to notate page numbers on digital copies, so you could read at home in your book-book, and then find your place in the e-book on your lunch break?

I'm not really sure what the best way to go with all this is, but I don't think the increasing popularity of e-reading must or should spell the end of the local book shop. In my perfect world, there'd be a way it could actually be GOOD for them.

Ideas?

Can we fix it? Yes we can.

Let me apologize in advance if this rambles a bit, it's Monday morning, after all.

Two items struck me this week, first off this article on building passive homes in the New York Times (homes that use super-efficient insulation, sunlight and convection for low- or no-energy climate control) and the fact that the Maker Faire happened in NYC this past weekend (wish I could've afforded to go!).
Put these two items together in my mind and the thought process runs a bit like this:

-It's possible to build comfortable homes that use little or no outside energy
-There's a whole bunch of smart people dedicated to building and modding stuff themselves
-It's difficult and expensive to get materials to build passive homes in the US
-There's a whole community of people who like to build stuff for themselves
-It's possible to build low-or-no-power homes
-Why aren't there pre-fab/kit/whatever passive power homes all over the place?

The answer is that, of course, there are passive homes all over the place, just not usually in "modernized" areas. Brick, stone, earth and straw-insulated houses can be amazingly energy efficient, and homes built in caves or partially underground keep stable temperatures in a lot of conditions (and earn bonus points if they have round doors and a gardener named Sam).

But modern, high tech passive homes that meet urban building standards are almost unheard of in the US. Why?
Well, for one thing, the morass of zoning and codes required to build anything more complicated than a flower bed in most areas makes it hard to legally building anything novel, and two, because they can be more labor intensive, they're more expensive to build, and most contractors don't have experience in building them.

But, as the saying goes, if we can put a man on the moon, why can't we make affordable, super-efficient housing a common thing? What about combining passive homes with the concept of "tiny homes" to create low-cost, low-impact modular homes? Homes that could be built cheap and either by skilled labor or by DIY homeowners?

Materials are one issue, but if there's a demand for the building materials, somebody will sell them, and with enough demand, prices will get reasonable.

Another big obstacle I see is zoning legislation. How do you regulate non-conventional housing (well, for one, by making energy efficient housing conventional, but that's part of the long game), how about by getting a competent legal team to draft model housing laws that could sent to local governing bodies to help them adapt to the new process.

My Utopian ideal would be to have pedestrian friendly "cottage parks," which, like contemporary trailer parks with common sewage and water hookups (although those can probably be modernized as well), and dozens of modular, affordable, efficient homes that would provide the satisfaction and security of home ownership to the multitude of folks who can't even dream of it in this economy.

Yes, we'd have to get over the ideas of "I want a big house or no house" and "where am I going to put my stuff" but if you sell it right "better a small home as long as it's MY home" can win out. Plus, the added benefits of easy maintenance, the ability to customize and ridiculously low energy bills should appeal to those of modest means.