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How to get your girlfriend to read e-books (including maybe that freebie romance about the Spanish billionaire)
June 8, 2008 | 5:46 pm
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By David Rothman
Want to snuggle up with your girlfriend, but do a little multitasking? Maybe both read E, on separate machines? As promised, here are a few tips to interest GFs in e-books—with an invitation for you to add more pointers or to improve the ones below:
1. Zero in on your GF’s reading preferences. Check out romance sections at Manybooks.net and Feedbooks, source of the sexy edition of Anna Karenina shown here; and meanwhile I notice cookbooks at Manybooks and Project Gutenberg. I’ll play up romances simply because they’re popular among many women. No stereotyping! If your GF is into SF, then the Baen Free Library is a "must." But more on that Spanish billionaire later.
Don’t count on your GF getting excited about a public domain book just because E is a new medium for her. You might even have to reconcile yourself to buying some DRMed bestsellers. Love above tech, right? But ideally you can find non-encrypted alternatives in various genres from small publishers such as BooksForABuck.com, Twilight Times Books, Drollerie Press or Small Beer Press, in addition to Baen. Wowio‘s free ad-supported books are another possibility, even if I notice the site is rather light on romances despite some interesting cookbook possibilities, such as Culinary Confessions of the PTA Divas.
What’s more, hundreds of public libraries these days offer e-books via services such as Overdrive. They’re DRMed, but at least your GF won’t be stuck with a rental disguised as a purchase. For $100 or so a year, you can even buy your GF a library card letting her use the New York Public library’s e-book collection, including romances.
2. As for hardware, size counts—screen size, that is. Is she after something she can carry in her purse or a gizmo with a font large enough for her not to need glasses? Got any old PDAs or other gadgets you can share and let her try out at length? Or how about a mini laptop, a form factor that Ficbot, very much a female despite the name, likes? Also find out what your GF thinks about E Ink readers—in terms of screen traits and size and weight—compared to alternatives.
The other consideration is simplicity, which is what I like about the Kindle, with its toaster-easy downloading, even though K-DRMed books may not be keepers.
The Sony Reader isn’t as simple to use and has its own format and DRM challenges in many cases. One possibility is the James Patterson Women’s Murder Club bundle, combining some DRMed books with the Sony PRS-505. Just an example.
3. Mobipocket is probably the easiest of the major commercial e-book programs to use, while yBook might take the honors among the small guys. The aesthetics are the best by far. That’s what I’d start out Carly with if my GF/wife weren’t into E already. It’s free and runs on desktops, PDAs and even some cellphones.
4. If she’s really scared of e-books, think about disguising them as e-mails via the DailyLit service, which is now offering Spanish Billionaire Innocent Wife for free. Yes, DailyLit also can deliver free classics via e-mail.
I like DailyLit because the e-mail approach avoids DRM and eBabel problems and is a way for busy people to fit e-books into their lives without having to mess with the oft-tricky technology. Given the company’s skepticism toward DRM and its interest in the public domain, maybe there’ll even be some synergies with the TeleBlog at some point. No matter what, I’ll talk up all kinds of alternatives to DRM and eBabel.
5. Tell your GF about the Dear Jane site and others focused on romance authors, the wonderful Republic of Pemberley site for Jane Austen fans, and more. A good Googling could serve you well.
OK, this is hardly a comprehensive treatment of the topic. Add your own ideas!
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Comments:
I like this site, but I’m irritated with these “girlfriend” posts. 1) I am (was?) a regular reader who is female not male and unless you are assuming all your female readers are lesbians (doubt it, considering your stereotyped view of “girlfriend” reading), you are assuming male readers with the “girlfriend” shtick and 2) your choice of “girlfriend” reading is very stereotyped and a cutesy little “no sterotypes” disclaimer does not make the post not stereotyped. Why perpetuate the stereotyping, David? Surely you don’t think this is going to further your e-books cause or get you new readers? Might just lose you a few, including this one.
It goes both ways with women, I think. I don’t read romances, but I do read sci-fi
On the other hand, I just spent evening helping my aunt ‘fix’ her Word document, which actually turned out to be she did not know how to change the line spacing, turn off paragraph markers and cut/paste. And she is a highly intelligent professional who is in town to accept an award from the law society 
The fact is that the majority of book buyers these days are women. Perhaps a more appropriate title should be “how to persuade your boyfriend to read more”?
I’m not offended by the post, but I did think it was interesting you’re assuming you have a lot of male readers
BF, Ficbot, Robert and Sara:
B: Thanks for caring even if you disagree with this particular post or some future ones, and I hope you hang around the TeleBlog. In the preview, I did note that male SOs could be included. But, yes, the emphasis was on female SOs, and here’s why.
Robert smartly did a survey of our readers and found that SF/speculative fiction was at the top, with a whopping 76 percent, in response to a question phrased this way: “You have an hour to kill in the fiction section of a bookstore or library. Which kind of books would you spend most of your time browsing through.” Romance/erotica was a mere 11 percent, a huge departure from mainstream reading trends.
Possible conclusions? If the survey drew a representative response, our readers tend overwhelmingly to prefer traditionally male genres. I’d love to expand the range of our visitors without alienating the SF fans, male and female. My present belief is that we indeed have a mostly male readership but that we attract brighter, more tech-hip female visitors than the average (which isn’t isn’t to disparage romance fans—just to note the the characteristics of the SF ones). At any rate, feel free to add other thoughts in terms of practical advice toward getting newbies into e-books.
Ficbot: Nice reply and entirely in character for you. Again, I suspect that the TeleBlog’s female readers simply happen to be brighter and more into SF and tech things than are women as a whole. Fine by me!
Robert: I wasn’t writing for book readers as a whole but rather for our readers. Privately you suggested I include more specifics. My idea, however, as noted, was to start the discussion and have people contribute their ideas. Advice can cover SOs of either gender, male or female. I suppose I instead could have headlined the article, “How to get newbies into e-books.” But I was thinking there were some special nuances when we involved SOs.
Sara: At least you know why I assumed a high male readership. By the way, I’d heartily recommend that readers interested in food and travel head for Ms. Adventures in Italy. What a great site you’ve put up! Typical Sara: “Most Italians are instinctively repulsed by peanut butter, labeling it as ‘grassissimo’ (very fat!) and ‘pesante’ (heavy/rich), and of course, they’re right.” Ah, the TeleBlog of cuisine—fearless! I’m not really a food person, but you made me want to read on. If the spirit ever moves you to write for the TeleBlog—maybe about e-cookbooks and the related topics—here’s a public invitation. You could still use the same content in your own blog. Reach me at dr NOSPAM teleread.com if interested, and no big deal if not.
OK, everyone, now back to the questions I’ve raised. Pass on your advice—if need be, just from a “how to convert newbies” perspective if that’s your own preferred way of handling the topic!
Thanks,
David
P.S. Yes, Carly’s big genre these days is romance—from Austen to modern. She does read some SF and is far, far more techie than the average female even though she is not a coder.
A correction, David. The Sony Reader is not more difficult to use than the Kindle — it simply has a different way of downloading books. Question: How difficult is the Kindle to use to download books in Europe? Or how about those places in the U.S. that do not have access to the Sprint network (which is a lot of places)?
I think you need to be careful when using such terms to describe precisely what is more difficult and why, but also note the shortcomings of the “simpler-to-use” system.
Of course, as to format, both the Kindle and the Sony use proprietary formats so there the should be little to no difference.
Thanks, Richard, but isn’t downloading part of “use”? Just my opinion. I’d welcome others’.
Europe doesn’t count as much as it would ordinarily. Remember—Amazon is promoting this as a U.S. product. Too bad the K-machine isn’t officially available everywhere, despite the problems I have with its DRM and eBabel!
Hey, nothing against Sony. I own a PRS-505. But guess what? Sony may well offer its own wireless model sooner or later.
As for formats, if Sony really wants to get a jump on Amazon, then it needs to assure us it will encourage retailers to use ePub rather than the BBeB proprietary format—preferably with social DRM rather than DRM as we’d usually think of it.
Thanks,
David
This is my first time stumbling across your site, and despite my male nickname, I am female — and was put off by the “girlfriend”/romance tack you’ve taken here. Perhaps your high male readership is ensured by posts such as this? No ill will intended, but I did think you’d want to be aware of the potential effect of your chosen theme.
Well, AF, feel free to tell us how to get reluctant men into E. We do have female readers AND contributors, by the way, and I hope you’ll be remain at least one of the former and meanwhile keep speaking up when we sin. Yes, if I had to do things over again, I’d phrase it something like, “How to get your SO into E.” That better?
Thanks,
David
John Mailer’s ebook is terrific. I actually AM a little bit of a luddite about ebooks, but this one was worth the price of the Kindle.