Looking a gift book in the mouth
Yesterday, I posted about twelve free textbooks.
Free. Textbooks.
Woo-hoo, right? Textbooks can easily cost more than $100. They were on a variety of math and science topics.
So, you would think people would be doing a little book-reading jig, right? The “Bookworm Boogie”"? 
Well, there was a little problem. At least one of the books indicated it would be delivered in 2025.
That produced some snarky, cynical comments…not here, by the way, although a couple of people asked about it.
Yeah…how dare they give you something for free and then say you won’t get it for fifteen years!
That justifies being mad at them, right?
Um…not for me. I don’t get that reaction at all.
First, let’s say that it doesn’t get delivered until 2025. It would still be free. Somebody on my account might want to read it then. I think one of the oddest ideas is that, as a science book, it would be obsolete by then. I’m not saying you could use it in a classroom, necessarily, but a lot of science is the same as it was fifteen years ago. Some of it is the same as it was in Ancient Greece. I take my hat off to the textbook publishers! They’ve done a great job getting people to believe a science textbook will be worthless in fifteen years! No wonder high schools spend millions of dollars replacing them! Yes, yes, yes, new things develop, and you might want supplemental materials. No, it’s not just textbook makers who think this.
“I conceive of nothing in religion, science, or philosophy that is more than the proper thing to wear, for awhile.”
–Charles Fort
writing in Wild Talents (1932)
But if you aren’t a Fortean, much of the science in a textbook today will still be valuable to you in fifteen years.
What if they don’t deliver the book to you in 2025?
Wow, they would have tricked you into clicking a button…you’d feel like one of P.T. Barnum’s “suckers”, right? There you would be, perfectly happy on January 1st 2026, having had a wonderful New Year’s Eve the night before. You finally wake up feeling great (the problems of hangovers and over-tiredness having been solved). Your Kindle zips up to you, hovering in the air. You ask it what’s new.
There are some great books that have just fallen into the public domain…so you can get them free! Those are books first published in the USA in 1929…All Quiet on the Western Front, A Farewell to Arms, the Roman Hat Mystery (the first Ellery Queen novel)…
and then it hits you.
“Hey, that free textbook I ordered in 2010! It’s not here! What a rip! I am so bummed! No, you stupid Kindle, I don’t want to watch the Coconuts (one of the great Marx Brothers comedies) just because it’s free now! Synthesizing my favorite mocha-cocoa-instant health & exercise lattes is not going to do it! You failed me! Life is so unfair…”
I’m just kidding, of course…but my basic point is, why not order them? If you get it today, great. If it’s 2025, fine. If you don’t get it at all, oh well.
By the way, the 2025 statement was testable…I mention that since so many of these books are science. I ordered them all, and they all delivered just fine last night. It did take a while…these are big files. I had them sent to my Kindle for PC…I do that usually when it isn’t a book I want to read right away. I’d like it if I could specify a book should go right to the archives, but I suppose that makes it a bit harder for the licensing. In this case, though, I also figured that the computer would handle the downloads better than the Kindle.
You are perfectly welcome not to order a book because it might mistakenly say you won’t get it for fifteen years. There are plenty of options out there. For me, I think I might try listening to the Life Science book in the car…might be fun.
This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.
September 25, 2010 at 1:28 pm |
I wanted to say something about why oh why are people so snarky online… I know, I know, anonymity etc. But then I thought, maybe it’s an outlet. Maybe it keeps people from being snarky in person. Maybe it keeps them from kicking their dog. Probably not.
Your blog above alerted me about something to which I never paid any attention (contorted grammar?) – that I can send a book any registered computer or kindle or iphone or ipad (I’m fully integrated – if it’s shiny and apple makes it I buy it). I didn’t realize that. Thanks! Kathy
September 25, 2010 at 2:04 pm |
Thanks for writing, Kathy!
Unfortunately, I’m not sure that the “outlet” thing works very well. My understanding is that somebody who kicks a dog is more likely to kick a person, not less. Someone who is snarky on line, I would guess, is more likely to be snarky in person. Oh, there are some things where you can get tired of them. If you talk on the phone all day at work, you may be less likely to want to talk on the phone at home. But attitudes as opposed to actions? I don’t think you tend to wear those out.
There are a very few Kindle store books that can’t be sent to non-Kindle devices, but, generally, you can send a Kindle store book to any of the devices registered to your account. Those books will then be available to other devices registered to your account through the archives (called Content Manager on the Kindle 1). There is a limit on how many devices can simultaneously have the book, and that’s set per title by the publisher. The default number is six.
September 25, 2010 at 1:58 pm |
Well I left a comment in the other posting that I had ordered the Life Science book and it told me that I would have to wait until 9/9/25 for it. Well lo and behold it did show up when I checked my email this morning. I will enjoy reading it (and will probably order a few others) and am glad that I won’t be old and gray when I finally see it on my Kindle.
September 26, 2010 at 12:28 am |
I also received on 9/25 afternoon the book that was reportedly not available until 9/9/25. I was not happy to see the prospective delay in delivery when I ordered the book, but I was not angry either, just mildly disappointed. My second thought was that there might be a typogrgrapical error involved. Now I believe that there was: it is easy to shift 9/25 to 9/9/25, particularly with proramming that defaults and autocompletes date fields to current date values.
Regardless of the cause, we could obtain all 12 textbooks–rather than 11 out of 12–less than one day after most of us first heard about them! Are we smarter yet?
September 26, 2010 at 1:03 pm |
Thanks for writing again, K L!
The only way you know you are getting smarter is when you realize how much further there is to go.
As I like to say, “The more you know, the more you know there is to know.”
We also have to be careful about confusing knowledge and intelligence (or ignorance and a lack of it). It reminds me of AJ Jacob’s The Know-It-All, in which Jacobs details the experience of reading the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica. I’ve never done that, although I did read a dictionary cover to cover…
September 26, 2010 at 1:21 am |
I download all my books to the computer. I then add them to my Calibre library, thus having a backup and also off my Kindle until I want them. Books from Amazon go to the archives as well. Books from Baen, feedbooks, Gutenberg, etc don’t but then I don’t have to get them from the archive if it was not originally designated for the Kindle I am using at the time. At least I have them all in one place (unlike the archives) and can easily back them up to an external hard drive or the cloud if I wish.
Bufo, you need to proof read your output better. I somehow just don’t expect to see errors in a “real writer’s” output.
September 26, 2010 at 1:57 am |
Thanks for writing, Al!
The issue on proof-reading is often one of time. I could proof-read better…and reduce the number and timeliness of the posts. I do go back and update them, though. Remember that I do this on top of a family and a full-time job (sometimes more than ten hours a day).
What did you see in particular here? I always appreciate it when people let me know what to correct. I’ll double-check that particular one.
I’m not sure what makes a “real writer” in your opinion. If it’s having a copy editor and proof-reader, I’m not one of those…
September 26, 2010 at 2:04 am
I went through it and made one correction…I changed “indicates” to “indicated”.
What else did you see? I tend to be a pretty good proof-reader, although it is harder to proof-read one’s own work.
I do deliberately punctuate in a “chatty” style sometimes…that’s on purpose, to communicate emotion, and the slangy style that might fit the situation.
September 26, 2010 at 6:39 am |
I saw the 9/9/25 as well on the life science book. I donwloaded it anyway. (just hoping I would get it early). My thought was “they are free, I’m downloading anyway”.
BTW, I found that the company did a wonderful job with the figures. They are very readable.