The thing about print and ebook is that I think Singaporeans would prefer the E-book. Cheaper mah! Also, it's lighter on the bag, and you can read it on the iPhone or some E-reader or your computer (that everyone seems to have nowadays).
Plus, i'm getting the feeling that books by big publishers lik Tor and Baen are frankly marketted to American readers. The american market seems to be more buy-consume-dispose than anything else - while Singapore's SFF community is smaller than that of the USA and UK (and Europe...) I think it just means that it's a good opportunity.
Of course, the problem with E-books is that printbook jackets mean that people can see you reading it on the bus, and want to go find it, in the bookstore, while not so on the E-book. On the other hand, there is the print-on-demand idea that works too; you'd think that with Singapore going the way it is, e-textbooks and all the like might well be much better than the current textbooks are.
And maybe it'd force the industry to make e-readers with MUCH better functions (editing highlighting etc) than right now, especially since I remember when I had to carry fucking nearly 10kilos of books to school in my sec school days. >.<
That and the library is apparently getting into the Ebook thing too. I'm all for E-books, because the overheads are cheaper, because a lot of books people buy are the read-once only, and they'd end up taking up space and killed trees, while if they were electronic, you could just delete them off the harddrive once you're done. You know? And if you really liked it, you could get the book in print... That's the future of publishing, I think.
Yeah, I think so too. You are also right on the fact that the American market seems buy-consume-dispose and that Singapore's SFF community is smaller (but we are here, damn it).
Btw, they are still carrying more than 10 kg of books now. :P
Man still? >.< I remember once in primary school, one of my teachers said that one day all we would need is a laptop to bring to school. no more of this textbook business!
>.<
Singapore's SFF community being smaller means that we have the potential to do something different, don't we? Since we don't have this giant market of buy-consume-dispose, we could just jump straight to the ebook thing. A lot of singaporeans are always happy to have the latest gadget anyway, arent they?
Nope, they are still bringing books to school, even though (for now) they keep most of the heavier ones in the class cupboard. The JC kids have it better. Their bags look lighter. :P
Yep, we do have the potential to do something different. Ebooks are weightless. Might appeal to the image-conscious Singaporean (who want to be seen with iphone, ipad and whatever).
Heh - my bag in JC looked lighter because we had notes we had to buy every week instead of textbooks. but in the end it turned out to have GIANT fucking amounts of paper - and that's not even including the TYS that we had to use, one for each subject.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2010-07-14 09:32 pm (UTC)Plus, i'm getting the feeling that books by big publishers lik Tor and Baen are frankly marketted to American readers. The american market seems to be more buy-consume-dispose than anything else - while Singapore's SFF community is smaller than that of the USA and UK (and Europe...) I think it just means that it's a good opportunity.
Of course, the problem with E-books is that printbook jackets mean that people can see you reading it on the bus, and want to go find it, in the bookstore, while not so on the E-book. On the other hand, there is the print-on-demand idea that works too; you'd think that with Singapore going the way it is, e-textbooks and all the like might well be much better than the current textbooks are.
And maybe it'd force the industry to make e-readers with MUCH better functions (editing highlighting etc) than right now, especially since I remember when I had to carry fucking nearly 10kilos of books to school in my sec school days. >.<
That and the library is apparently getting into the Ebook thing too. I'm all for E-books, because the overheads are cheaper, because a lot of books people buy are the read-once only, and they'd end up taking up space and killed trees, while if they were electronic, you could just delete them off the harddrive once you're done. You know? And if you really liked it, you could get the book in print... That's the future of publishing, I think.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-14 11:41 pm (UTC)Btw, they are still carrying more than 10 kg of books now. :P
no subject
Date: 2010-07-15 04:18 am (UTC)>.<
Singapore's SFF community being smaller means that we have the potential to do something different, don't we? Since we don't have this giant market of buy-consume-dispose, we could just jump straight to the ebook thing. A lot of singaporeans are always happy to have the latest gadget anyway, arent they?
no subject
Date: 2010-07-15 08:23 am (UTC)Nope, they are still bringing books to school, even though (for now) they keep most of the heavier ones in the class cupboard. The JC kids have it better. Their bags look lighter. :P
Yep, we do have the potential to do something different. Ebooks are weightless. Might appeal to the image-conscious Singaporean (who want to be seen with iphone, ipad and whatever).
no subject
Date: 2010-07-15 02:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-15 11:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-16 02:14 am (UTC)Because I was a lazy-fucker and tried to bring as little to school as possible.
And tried not to even buy the TYS if I could help it.