Payday 12 July 2001

Pic of the day: This picture suffers from the usual blue distortion of photographing screens, but it should be good enough as proof of what I have done:

Buying an e-book

So, I'm like, tee hee. And then suddenly it's payday.

It all started a few days ago when I read some interesting article on the Net, about e-books. There was some study (in USA of course) about whether people would buy e-books. Oh yes, they would. But ... the books must be much cheaper than other books, and the e-book readers must be free. So basically, the answer was "Yes, but no". That's where I went "tee hee" because I thought people were stupid.

There are already free e-book readers, only they are programs on your PC, not separate devices. It's not like anyone is going to make stuff from metal and give it to you for free, what do you think? But if you buy a pocket PC with MicroSoft's Pocket PC Windows (like the Cassiopeia E-125 for instance, or the Compaq Ipaq), there is a free e-book reader in it. If you have another PC, you can download them from the same places that sell (or give away) e-books.

Yes, or give away. You see there are thousands of books whose copyright has expired, and quite a few of these are available, some from online bookstores and others from such places as University of Virginia. Admittedly, most of these books are boring. Who today wants to read about the oppression of the American negro (that's what some books say, negro, not "non pigment-challenged citizens") in the 19th century?? Or books for girls from the time when girls wore long skirts and no makeup and didn't watch anime and wanted to marry someday? Still, there are loads of Tarzan books and stuff like that. And Jules Verne, who incidentally is better in Norwegian translation than in English, but only the English is easily available. (As with most things on the Net.) And Shakespeare, which is probably best in English, since he more or less made his own English language.

So if you have a PC, you can have dozens of classics for free. Of course, you can read books for free at the library too. But we're talking Instant Gratification here, people. You download, you read. In a minute or two, without moving your ever growing backside from the soft chair, you can have the book you want. How cool is that?? And if you have a pocket PC (like my Cassie) or other reading device, you can have a small library in your hand. You can read them at the subway, your can read them on the bus. You can read them lying down and you can read them waking up... And unlike library books, you can colorize text with various markers and later you can jump directly to any text you have colorized. Or you can search for all instances of "anthropoid", which quickly gets boring if you read any Tarzan book. But I digress. The message is: Cool, cool!

So, I thought, how come you've never bought an e-book? Well, wasn't that obvious? Why pay for books when there are freebies to be had? But then are you any different from the other scaredy cats? Yeah, I have different tastes in literature. I don't buy many paper books any more either. Certainly not every month, but still every year. So, I decided that the next book I was going to buy would be an e-book. And today it was payday.

***

So I typed in www.barnesandnoble.com and clicked e-books. Then I continued to click around. I also downloaded free stuff (habits are hard to break) - this time it was Remnants: The Mayflower Project by K.A. Applegate. But eventually I found a book by Robert Silverberg. Not my favorite author, he's still one of those I've bought paper books by in the past. Not nearly all of them, but Son of Man was an interesting title. The concept of someone thrown into the remote future is something I have tentatively explored myself, so it looked like a good candidate.

So I clicked to add it to my shopping cart. I did not even have a shopping cart, but that's how they want us to think of it. So it cost like $6.50, but it's not like it wasn't payday. Incidentally I agree in principle that e-books should be cheaper than paper books, because of the lower costs of production and distribution. Really. Quite a bit cheaper. But I also accept that this is not a reasonable expectation at a time when you may sell perhaps 100 of an e-book during a year. It probably takes some work to convert it to e-book format. Not a heap of work, but I know that there is always some minor stuff when you convert from one format to another. At least if you want it to look good.

It's not like I planned to buy a whole stack of books. So I clicked on check-out, and the website took me through a couple forms with billing info. From what I gleaned, this is a one-time task. On your next buy, you just give your password and breeze through the check-out. Unlike most of the few other places I have tried to shop online, it accepted my Mastercard without blinking. It could be me that has finally found out how to write the number: Without spaces or punctuation. Anyway, it took no more time than standing in line at my usual book dealer. And then I could download it. Right there. Just like that. Almost.

If you use Internet Explorer, it should work without a hitch. In Opera, the DLL file it downloaded was just stored like that. I cut and pasted the address to Internet Explorer, which did it right: Somehow the dll file ended up producing an e-book personalized to my name. How sweet. I poured it over the serial cable to Cassie, my little sidekick. Isn't it wonderful how we have tamed the power of lightning, to move books at lightning speed from America to a small handheld device in Norway? And isn't it pitiful that I'll have to find some way to pay the tax myself?

Yes indeed: Books are subject to VAT, the infamous sales tax around here. The fact that e-books are neither goods nor services doesn't seem to deter the tax authorities. But there is no system in place to actually pay this tax. I have a vague feeling that paying the tax will probably take more time than buying the book did, and quite possibly also cost me more. It will most assuredly cost the province tax office more to process this unforeseen tax than what they get in the tax. Leaving us in the interesting situation that the state actually pays its bureaucracy to punish honest citizens, with no good coming of it for any of the parties involved. (Except possibly the Norwegian book shops, who get less competition.)

This, of course, supposes that I am a honest citizen, even when no good comes from it. I seem to have a choice between "chaotic good" or "lawful evil" here. Hmm ...

EDIT: Actually there was NOT tax on books. There is tax on almost everything, but there is an exception for books and newspapers. I did not know, or even know where to look.

***

The book, incidentally, isn't all that great. It sure wasn't boring, but ... I hope Silverberg wrote this under the influence of illegal drugs. Otherwise, the guy needs help. Badly. Think Pilgrim's Progress on acid.

But at least I lost my "buy an e-book" virginity. There are plenty of virginities left, though. Watch this space...