Installment One: We meet
Tattered Cover started selling Kobo ereaders in early December 2012 after Kobo partnered with the American Booksellers Association and offered access and support for the 3 million title catalog. I knew it was time to jump into the e-fray.
TC sells two models now: the Glo ($129.99) and the Mini ($79.99). We'll offer the Arc (pricing has not been finalized for this model as of yet) when it comes available to us (they say Spring 2013). I got the Glo, and paid for it by selling three boxes of books to our Used Books buyers. It was painful, but I mostly did it because I'm moving soon and I had to cull the herd. The guilt pangs to essentially exchange sturdy physical books for ebooks were intense, and I made to a promise to the universe that I would always love "real" books the most. The universe hasn't gotten back to me about all of that, but I feel like I'm covered just the same. lol
Just to give myself, and you, an idea of how light the Kobo Glo is, I borrowed the cafe's scale. 9.95 ounces. And that's with the sleep cover I bought for it--so I'm guessing the Kobo itself is about 7 ounces.
Just to see how easy it was to order and download a book , I purchased this book from my wish list. Because I'm a geek, I brought back a physical version of the book to see what it weighed--20.15 ounces. So twice as much as my Kobo+cover setup.
Downloading from the Kobo site was really fast and simple, much to my surprise --remember, I'm a techno-phobe, so I expected frustration and tears. I'm happy to say it was only smiles from me. And I like the fact that buying Kobo ebooks through the TC website generates revenue, which will help keep our bricks-and-mortar stores open and thriving.
But I didn't stop there. As a reviewer, I am able to get digital review copies from the publishers we work with. From one multi-pub site in about an hour and a half I chose, requested, and downloaded 17 of them for pubs coming out January through July (I'm not greedy, just a fast reader). I took this picture just to show you how that looks in physical advance reviewer copies. I couldn't weigh the whole stack because the scale I borrowed didn't go up that far. Consider that each copy weighs between 1 pound and maybe 2.5 pounds (they are almost always heavier than finished books--I've never understood that). Plus the saved trees. But mostly, I considered my aching shoulders from dragging around heavy books in my bag all the time.
That's enough for this time. Installment 2: The Learning Curve will be coming along soon.
--Jackie
Tattered Cover started selling Kobo ereaders in early December 2012 after Kobo partnered with the American Booksellers Association and offered access and support for the 3 million title catalog. I knew it was time to jump into the e-fray.
TC sells two models now: the Glo ($129.99) and the Mini ($79.99). We'll offer the Arc (pricing has not been finalized for this model as of yet) when it comes available to us (they say Spring 2013). I got the Glo, and paid for it by selling three boxes of books to our Used Books buyers. It was painful, but I mostly did it because I'm moving soon and I had to cull the herd. The guilt pangs to essentially exchange sturdy physical books for ebooks were intense, and I made to a promise to the universe that I would always love "real" books the most. The universe hasn't gotten back to me about all of that, but I feel like I'm covered just the same. lol
Just to give myself, and you, an idea of how light the Kobo Glo is, I borrowed the cafe's scale. 9.95 ounces. And that's with the sleep cover I bought for it--so I'm guessing the Kobo itself is about 7 ounces.
Just to see how easy it was to order and download a book , I purchased this book from my wish list. Because I'm a geek, I brought back a physical version of the book to see what it weighed--20.15 ounces. So twice as much as my Kobo+cover setup.
Downloading from the Kobo site was really fast and simple, much to my surprise --remember, I'm a techno-phobe, so I expected frustration and tears. I'm happy to say it was only smiles from me. And I like the fact that buying Kobo ebooks through the TC website generates revenue, which will help keep our bricks-and-mortar stores open and thriving.
But I didn't stop there. As a reviewer, I am able to get digital review copies from the publishers we work with. From one multi-pub site in about an hour and a half I chose, requested, and downloaded 17 of them for pubs coming out January through July (I'm not greedy, just a fast reader). I took this picture just to show you how that looks in physical advance reviewer copies. I couldn't weigh the whole stack because the scale I borrowed didn't go up that far. Consider that each copy weighs between 1 pound and maybe 2.5 pounds (they are almost always heavier than finished books--I've never understood that). Plus the saved trees. But mostly, I considered my aching shoulders from dragging around heavy books in my bag all the time.
That's enough for this time. Installment 2: The Learning Curve will be coming along soon.
