That’s not why I didn’t get one. I didn’t get one because the thing wasn’t compatible with an Apple computer.

Honestly. It’s not. You’re replacing the book – the ultimate cross-platform technology, requires no battery, durable, blah blah, and you’re going to begin by saying that you’re not interested in the custom of early-adopting, arts-scene, wealthier users? I cannot help but feel this is an error.

Well, apparently there are 3rd party apps to deal with that. Kinda.

So I’m gonna get one and see what it’s like. But I thought before I did that I would think about what I want it to be like.

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Basic features:

First things first: I do not want it to set fire to my thighs. I am at this moment writing on a laptop, with a copy of The Anti-Minimalist House and a folded blanket between me and the battery, and I can still feel the heat. This computer is a laptop only if you want to bake your upper legs and genitals into catsmeat.

Next, the battery has to last longer than I do. Running straight, without a break, it has to be able to go for probably 48 hours. Why? Because I need it to last through the longest journey imaginable. It has to get me to Australia on one tank.

The screen has to be readable, obviously – and when I looked at it in NYC, I was impressed by that. Although I thought the pages could ‘turn’ a bit more quickly. It’s not colour – fine, no doubt that will come – but it needs to be readable in the dark.

I think I’m going to leave any suggestion of making it multimedia or multipurpose. At that point I’m just asking for a wafer-thin tablet PC.

I should be able to drop it. Preferably, I should be able to drop it in water and dry it out, so I can read in the bath. Also, if I drop it in the bath, it should not cook me into catsmeat with its powerful battery. Not even a little.

Advanced features:

It intrigues me that Sony’s own website is using little animations to sell this thing. Classic, elegant images. It just suggests to me that they sort of know the thing needs to have character, but couldn’t figure out how. Maybe the startup screen should purr at you…. anyway… several more possibilities occur to me:

I should be able to search for phrases in my books.

I should be able to share passages with my friends, zapping them from one reader to another, linking to the book. Hey, that might mean people would buy more books! Yay!

I should be able to download books wirelessly.

I should be able to get the audiobook as part of the package, so I have the option of closing my eyes and listening for a while.

I should be able to trade my e-book reader in for a discount on the newest model, the way I can with my cellphone.

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So much of this is not going to be about what the consumer wants. It’s going to be about what’s convenient and profitable to the companies making readers and selling books. And it’s going to be about copyrights.

The book business model may have to change – but so may the e-book reader model. As I mentioned, I’d like to be able to trade my e-book reader in. It’s not hard to see why; the technology is going to take off. It’s going to get better and more versatile. And at the same time, it’s increasingly obvious that tech goodies need to be recycled. Win-win.

That throws up another interesting way of looking at e-books; something like the cellphone model (which Shai Agassi has adopted for his potentially revolutionary approach to electric cars) where rather than buying books outright you buy a subscription to a library. You can download and retain as many books as your reader can store for as long as you retain the sub. Or something. Point is, there may have to be a new deal here.

Which brings up the spectre which haunts this whole enterprise: copyright and DRM. We really have to get our heads around this before we go much further. Oh, and prices.

Digital Rights Management… everyone hates it, and most DRM seems to get cracked so fast I don’t see it’s going to be much of a help. Apple’s iTunes has just gone DRM-free. On the other hand, is there an argument that while you’re growing an industry, DRM is helpful? In other spheres, for example the national utilities markets of developing nations, there’s a lot to be said for protective regulation until the entities are big enough and bad enough to stand up for themselves… could we loose a cool e-book reader because or not having DRM? Or are we more likely to lose one because we do have DRM?

Thing is, books are smaller files, very copyable and transferable. What’s kept them from being reproduced and swapped massively is that it’s been no fun reading them on electronic devices… until now. If e-book readers take off, that’s going to change in a hurry. We need to be ready, as an industry, with a plan. Note how the RIAA and to a lesser extent the MPAA lost a lot of friends over this, spent a lot of money and didn’t necessarily help themselves. They key with this stuff always seems to be: the legitimate product has to be better and easier than the pirate one… and the pricing has to be fair. Repeat after me:

e-books must be substantially cheaper than physical books, or we will get cooked to catsmeat. Buying and reading an e-book has to be better than not-buying and reading one, or we will get cooked to catsmeat. Less fingerwagging and wailing, more “ain’t this cool”. Or we will get…etc. [Repeat until you feel it.]

Contracts may have to reflect new ways of doing business, and we as an industry can’t be scared of that. Writers will also have to make an extra-special effort not to get screwed.

(To be strictly fair, that’s a book about film. But it’s also about creatives dealing with large companies, and large publishers are, though still much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much… you have no idea how much, just so MUCH… friendlier to deal with than movie studios, still large companies. They still have legal departments and investors and economic imperatives. Get ready to have a – friendly but heartfelt – argument about this.)

Here’s something which I wondered about: should we be licensing books rather than selling them, as software companies do? I really ought to talk to my former-copyright lawyer missus before I post this, but she frankly has more important things to do now that she works in Human Rights. Not more important than talk to me, obviously. Just more important than spending ages wondering about how to re-parse text copyright deals in the era of digital files.

Thing is, people don’t understand copyright as a concept. They don’t really get that a book which has been published still belongs in some way to the author or the publisher. (Authors have a similar blindspot when it comes to ‘exhaustion of rights’…) They definitely don’t see how a book they have paid for has liens on it, and obligations such as “don’t duplicate this and pass it on”. They just haven’t ever wanted to duplicate a book enough that they’ve been prepared to scan it and scan it and scan it. But now they won’t have to.

It all needs to be clearer, and e-books mustn’t make it more complicated and more counter-intuitive. Above all, the legit e-book has to be better and easier than the rogue version. Did I say that already?

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Let’s talk briefly about the Kindle, although I’m sulking because it hasn’t come to the UK. Basically, it looks like a very interesting device. Well, actually, no, it looks horrible. It reminds me of 1985. But do you see how people are getting cosy with it? Taking it to the Taj Mahal and so on? This is an opportunity for an item which can be loved. People love books. They will, in time, also feel affection for their e-book readers. They will love the Kindle for being such an ugly duckling.

The Kindle brings up some curious possibilities. Books are distributed via a wireless network… which means you could update them later. The Gone-Away World: Director’s Cut! (I can’t think of anything worse – and I’d want to retain the original versions of my e-books, typos and all – but I know some writers who would be desperate to re-write in retrospect, and it might be amazing how they altered what they’d written years before…)

This also makes real reader-involvement possible, in the way that Late Fragment seems to allow you to explore a narrative film. I have reservations about interactive narratives – I think it puts a real burden on the reader/interactor to be as good with story as the writer, and that isn’t a small ask, or shouldn’t be – but the Myst-like quality of this, uncovering layers, would suit some writers very well.

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So here I am, off to buy a Sony Reader, and find out what the future holds…

And although Steve Jobs is ambivalent about it, I’m praying Apple will enter this market. Because Steve is, for once in his life, wrong. People do still read. They read all the time. The book – as a paper object – may be on its way out. Don’t count on it, though. It’s a very resilient format, and it’s been declared dead before. But either way, the novel and short story, the written fictional text… I really don’t think that’s in much trouble. And if we are, well… I know a thing or two about other narrative media..

Tally ho.