Google EBook Store?!

(My post for last week! I have tried to upload this three or four times in the last few days so apologies for the delay!)

Ok, so I admit I am an owner of a Kindle! But I am a student afterall, and I buy printed books whenever I can! But there is also no shame in owning a reader or ebooks so long as you enjoy reading.  Right?

The UK launch of the Google store has my feelings split on. Not only on what the store itself is, but on the whole market of ebooks themselves. On the one hand it is a sign that the book industry is moving itself into a more technologically enhanced way of distribution. Books in ebook form are far more accessible to everyone with an internet connection. But, on the other hand, with bookshop after bookshop closing down or struggling against powerhouses like Amazon and supermarkets selling books cheaply, it makes me sad to think that we might end up with no bookshops at all, someday. I shudder to think of that day should it come.

I admit that it has been a long time since I last went into a bookshop, browsed around, and picked up a book that I found interesting, and bought it. No book recommendations on my computer screen steered me to consider a select group of titles based on my previous purchase, no having to search for a book if such titles did not tickle my fancy, and no option of buying it as an ebook. I used to enter bookshops just for the sake of being surrounded by books. It was comforting, especially if I was having a bad day, I could simply walk into a bookshop and shut out the outside world as soon as the doors closed behind me. So simple. Not anymore. I miss those days when bookshops were actually quiet, full of people browsing, reading, and browsing some more, but always, always quiet. I miss the days when I would travel to the huge Waterstones in Picadilly and walk around for what would feel like miles, looking for a book that I could just sit and read for a little while before taking it home. Somewhere down the line I stopped doing that, perhaps James Daunt is right to scrap the 3-for-2 offer that has for so long been the Waterstones staple offer. It was not until I read an article in which he spoke about his plans for Waterstones as the new Managing Director of the chain that I realised I stopped visiting Waterstones so much because he was right: I did not even remember that there were other books in the store that were not part of the promotion. Eventually, I realised this promotion was little different to Amazon's recommendations. It had made the literary world, a world that is in fact ripe with endless possibilities, so much smaller.

So then maybe this is why so many people are taking to reading ebooks rather than print books. Afterall, the internet also provides us with this notion of endless possibilities, a world that is literally at our fingertips. Perhaps this is what we get out of ebooks, the idea that literature has once again become endless and vast (and, of course, at our trusty fingertips). I don't know about you but this makes me both happy and sad at the same time, because I do not experience the same comfort when I click buy on my Kindle. It is not the same. It is a simple need to buy, and that is all.

The Google store has had many big name publishers already sign with them such as, Hachette, Penguin, and Random House, proving that publishers are working quickly to keep up with the growing market for ebooks. This is, at least, comforting news, to know that publishers are moving to associate their names with the new big thing. They are paying attention and making the necessary moves to stay current, to not get swallowed by the ever-growing powerhouses that are Google and Amazon. It is also encouraging to see that Google are appearing to make an effort to support independent booksellers who can, if they wish, affiliate themselves to the store or direct customers to the store, in return for a commission, (demonstrating that they too are paying attention).

It does, however, look like the battle between Amazon and Google continues, with each side doing launching something bigger and better, it seems, every few months. Amazon, for example, having launched a new Kindle Touch in the US, (and an £89 Kindle in the UK), will also be launching the new Kindle Fire next month, a tablet that offers, apps, videos, games, books in colour, and some kind of new browsing element. All of this begs the question: what exactly is different about this to an iPad? Granted, I have not tried the Kindle Fire or the Google store out for myself so my point probably holds little weight, but I can ask the question: when does it stop? I wander, will there come a time when the technology is more important than the actual book? Already, the Kindle Fire offers apps, and videos, and games, all things that ultimately distract from the joy of reading, no? So then, to what extent is technology making our experience of reading better? And to what extent is reading going to become important once again to our future generations?