John Scalzi enjoys e-reading

A few months ago, John Scalzi complained vociferously about the e-ARCs that some publishers try to send him. Frequently these ARCs would require him to jump through hoops—something that you really don’t want to do to the person you’re hoping will give a good review to your book.

But it turns out that Scalzi is a good deal warmer to the idea of e-reading in general. He posted recently to his blog about his experiences reading with the Nook that a friend gave him as a gift, and also with his iPad, iPod Touch, and Droid X smartphone.

Scalzi finds the Nook easier to read than the LCD handheld devices. He doesn’t have trouble with reading from a glowing screen, as when he views PDFs on his computer, but doesn’t like having a glowing screen that close to his eyes.

He also finds that e-book purchases are replacing the travel and book-replacement purposes for which he formerly used paperback books—he buys hardcovers of books he knows he is going to want to keep. He also finds that he is reading more with e-books than he did with paper books, because it is more convenient to have the books with him.

And Scalzi also points out that, in making impulse buying considerably easier than downloading, e-book vendors are making it less attractive to spend time finding pirate editions.

There is some interesting discussion in the comments following the article, as well. A number of people express their own positive experiences with e-books (though many of them complain about DRM).