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By Joanna

image image Over the holidays, I had my first inkling that either the apocalypse is nigh, or e-books are finally entering the mainstream—my devoutly non-techie mother turned to me in the car one day and said, “Guess what I heard? I heard that over Christmas, Amazon sold more books for the thingies than they did for regular ones!”

No, it’s not perfect intelligence. It wasn’t so much “over Christmas” as “on actual Christmas day,” and she didn’t know what to call it beyond “Thingie.” But for someone whose net non-work computer experience is sending e-mails to my sister and playing Bookworm on Yahoo Games, the entry of anything Tech onto her radar is nothing short of extraordinary.

I did some delicate probing, and found that in Parentland, there is actually more going on than I thought. Stepdad had been expressing interest in e-books lately—he is arthritic and has trouble holding a book—and I have been pushing the idea of buying him a Kindle for a retirement present.

He has been interested, but is not ready yet. He has heard that Apple is coming out with a device and wants to wait and see what it looks like. And our subsequent discussion, with Mom involved too, yielded some interesting clues as to how an e-book revolution might play out among the older, often less techie crowd.

Issue 1: Is there interest?

If it’s even hitting the Mom-Radar, then, yes, I would say there is interest, and for good reason. Stepdad’s arthritic hands are just the tip of the iceberg—how about making the font bigger to help aging eyes, or having it read to you if even that doesn’t do the trick?

My parents are also part of the Snowbird crowd—retired Canadians who can’t hack the winters anymore and flee to Florida at first sign of snow. They are in their way there for three weeks in February, and hope to go for even longer next year when they are fully retired.

Stepdad liked the idea of being able to read as much as he wants without cluttering his luggage with actual books. And a self-contained device like the Kindle (no computer needed) is very suited for travelers who may not have access to a PC for downloading.

Mom was a little less enthusiastic. She says the condo development where they typically stay has a lending library of books and she can just read those if she runs out of her own material.

But when I explained to her very interested husband that he could read more than just books, she came around a little.

Both of them liked the idea that they could subscribe to their hometown newspaper from the comfort of Canada and have it wirelessly delivered to them every morning in Florida. Ain’t technology grand?

Issue 2: Why they aren’t buying yet

So what’s stopping Stepdad from going and buying a Kindle right now? Here is the issue that e-book sellers need to address if they want to sell to this market: a lack of retail presence. Stepdad is of a different generation, and for him, Amazon and eBay might as well have conjured up on Jupiter.

I had to teach him how to use an ATM machine at one point. So he can accept the magic of wireless newspaper delivery, and he can accept downloading books onto a tablet. But buying something over the Internet without seeing it and touching it first is going to be a problem.

That’s why the Apple device interests him—Apple has a retail store in two malls close to his home, so he can wait until the device comes out, then go and see it for himself. Amazon is going to have a hard time competing with that for people like him.

Issue 3: Smarter customers than we might think

A secondary issue is DRM and file compatibility, and that surprised me because I assumed that my parents would be basic users whose primary concern would be how easy it is to get the book without messing with a computer or complicated software. They would probably read it once, move on to another book and not really care about reading it again in twenty years and being able to bequeath it to their children.

So I was surprised at how astute their questions were for such non-techie people. Among their ruminations:

I mentioned that Indigo, our Canadian Barnes & Noble equivalent, was rumored to have a device on the horizon. Mom immediately asks ‘but will it work in Florida?’

  • Stepdad was very interested in the wireless newspaper delivery, and wanted to know what happened if my mother got a device as well. Could she share his newspaper?
  • Both of them assumed that if they both got Kindles, they could share the books between them. Publishers who say sharing is evil, take note. This is normal behavior.
  • Stepdad was interested in the text to speech function and asked how it worked. When I got to the part about ‘if the publisher allows it’ he was very confused. Why wouldn’t they allow it? It baffled him that anyone would care how he read the book.
  • The issue came up of what if Mom buys a Sony and stepdad buys a Kindle. No sharing books for you! Blank stares from both of them on that, and then Mom said, “That’s stupid. He is my husband!”

Conclusion

My suspicion is that by the time he is ready, I’ll have upgraded my device repertoire myself, so it may turn out he’ll have a real live Kindle before his eyes soon enough.

I adore my Sony, but I am finding I’m going to the gym more, and would love to have a device that could read to me while I am walking (I am not a huge music listener). And I may not use a dictionary when I read in English, but I do when I read in French, so the on-board dictionary attracts me.

The next few months, I’ll be busy with a course, and by the time it’s done, the dust will have settled on the Apple maybe-tablet, and whatever else is coming out of CES.

It’ll be the Kindle if nothing new catches my eye, but I’ll wait and see—and so will stepdad, I expect. He is definitely interested—and even Mom is catching on—but lack of retail access might be a deal-breaker for him.

 
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