That’s the title of an article in The Globe and Mail. There is a lot of truth in this. Now that my wife has a Kindle the Christmas tree no longer has a stack of paperback mysteries under it’s branches.
… In the olden days (a.k.a. last Christmas), if you really wanted to read a hardcover book but couldn’t justify the expense, all you needed to do was buy it for your partner for Christmas, then steal it back as soon as it had languished for the requisite six weeks on his night table. …
Book buying, by extension, has become an impersonal exchange. Soulless gift cards and instant e-certificates are, of course, the only option when there is no specific book object to wrap. But giving gift cards in a long-term relationship is depressing. It’s like saying, “Here’s 150 Amazon dollars. That’s how much I love you. Please adjust to reflect my portion of the mortgage payment.”
There’s a lot more in this very funny article by Leah MClaren.
My understanding is that a disproportionate percentage of book sales are made in the Christmas period. As we move toward a future of eDevices it seems to me that the eRetailers need to give this logistical issue MAJOR thinking. Normally I get some books for Christmas but now my family and friends know I don’t read paper books anymore. So how will they cope ? And it’s no use offering some kind of gift code .. because what does that look like under the tree ? pretty yuk is my guess.
But how cool would it be to have half-a-dozen books just show up on your ereader — with an electronic card that announces them — on Christmas morning?
I think the eTailers could come up with some sort of cool under-the-tree way to present ebook gifts, if they gave it a little thought. Rob’s idea of having the books ready to download on Xmas morning (or the day of your choice), and some type of gift card or box to represent the gift in a physical sense, would work (though it would also be a waste of paper… but apparently wastage is okay during the holidays).
If you think about it, the process of giving wrapped gifts and cramming stuff into stockings, etc, didn’t invent itself overnight. If this new product means we invent some new ways to gift them, so be it. Let the festivities begin!
The only problem with this is that often you receive books you will never read and they just sit around on your bookshelf for many years because if the person shows up to your house, they expect to see that book. If the book isn’t good enough to keep around, then it probably isn’t good enough to give for xmas.
Gift cards to eretailers are great in that it leaves you lots of choices. Maybe there is this ebook you want to read but thought it might be a bit pricey (ie non fiction ebooks) and you won’t feel guilty spending that gift card on the ebook now.
Bear in mind that the younger generations consider gifts on their e-devices to be “fun”. Some teen and pre-teens live to send cupcakes to their friends on Facebook, and as odd as that sounds to us dinosaurs–who remember what it was like to open a hardbound book on Christmas morning and spend hours reverently turning the pages–it is nonetheless happening.
Think about it: this weird phenomena also happened to CDs and cassette tapes, and yet many consumers–even us dinosaurs–have an iPod and use it just as easily as we did the ‘outdated’ medium(s). Once in awhile an entire industry shifts forward… but admittedly this is the first time in centuries that this has happened to the way we read. It may take some getting used to but once again the younger folks growing up using nifty devices as second nature already consider reading eNovels, eManga and eTextbooks to be ‘normal’, even ‘fun’.
A couple of ideas …. Download cover shots and print them out on a colour printer. Trim to size and then go to a used book store and grab appropriately sized books out of the 25 cent bin. Loosely scotch tape the printed covers over top of the used book title. Then give the assembled books together with the amazon card for the actual buying of the ebooks. Or, buy the used books and use amazon cards as bookmarks/frontplates along with a list of books the cards will buy on Amazon. NOTE: Wouldn’t hurt if the used books might actually be something the person might want to read. And if not, remember to donate them back to the used book store after Christmas. SOMEBODY might want to read them.
I hate gift certificates. Always smacks of saying, “I’m too busy to spend time shopping for you.” By taking the time to do the fake-around, it shows you that you are willing to give of the most precious thing any of us has, time. Getting somebody the books they want and spending the time to do it, never should be thought of as anything but what it is, a wonderful present.
Gary … you’re so classy ! LOL (just kidding !! )
You need to be very sure of someone’s tastes to buy them real books. For myself I’ve always been thrilled by gift certificates that meant I could spend happy hours browsing bookstores (high street or online). On the other hand I’ve received books and related items I’ve hated. Vaguely remembering I liked ‘thrillers’ someone once gave me a video of The Chain Saw Massacre, and I also received the life story of Jeffrey Dahmer.
Lwcas in our family over the last 30 or 40 years we have always given paper books. Sticking with someone’s tastes just helps them stay in their comfort zone. Being given a new book for Christmas pushes us to explore something new that we would not have explored otherwise. It was always easy to swap them around if the reader really hated them 🙂 ANOTHER limitation of the eBook 🙁