(The following rant and whine will be of no interest to anyone who isn’t a voracious reader of books and consumer of printed material. If that’s you, move along. There’s nothing to see here. However, if you do love to read, read on...)
So we got screwed again. Canadians are once again being ignored like ugly wallflowers at the high school dance.
Yesterday, Amazon announced that the Kindle—the e-reader that’s to book fans what the iPod is to music fans—will be available more than a hundred countries around the world.
When I first read this, I actually let out a whoop of joy.
As you can see from this picture, my wife and I have contributed mightily to the health of the publishing industry. And this is only a fraction of the books we have in the house.
There are so many, that our book collection has become a real estate issue. Part of the reason we moved into this house five years ago is because my music collection and my wife’s personal bibliotheque could no longer be contained in the old place.
Imagine replacing all that with their digital equivalent.
Going on vacation is a nightmare. Because our trips involve (a) long flights; (b) free time on the beach or the deck; or (c) my wife’s insistence on buying nothing but hardcover books, we have to devote an entire suitcase to reading material. There was a time in Thailand when I had to pay $230 in excess baggage charges on one of those little Asian airlines just so we could get our books from Bangkok to the beach in the south.
I’ve written four books myself, all of which, sadly, are now out of print. The prospect of being able to resurrect them digitally (and perhaps even update them) is something that I’ve long wanted to do. But given how the publishing industry works, it would have to a binary resurrection and not a physical one.
The other prospect of the Kindle is the idea of being able to download things other than books, specifically newspapers and magazines. The idea of being able to save some trees instead of having 17 newspapers delivered to my door every week is intoxicating. No more trips to the bookstore to see if my UK music mags are in? Brilliant! Bring it on!
So it’s no surprise that both of us have long wished for some kind of electronic reader. Sure, Sony has one available in Canada, but after the Kindle came out, that would be like getting a music player that’s not an iPod. And besides, we already do lots of business with Amazon.ca and Amazon.com in order to feed both our reading and music habits.
But guess what? Canada is NOT on the list of countries that will get the Kindle. Huh?
Countries run by murderous, corrupt and censorship-happy regimes like Zimbabwe, Cambodia and Myanmar are okay to get the Kindle. Burundi, Liberia, Mongolia, Rwanda and East Timor—people with seats at the back of the UN—are getting Kindles. Mayotte, Wallis and Futuna and Kirabati–places even the IOC has never heard of!—get Kindles. Where the f**k is Nuie? And why do they get Kindles before Canada?
Although169 countries are on the Kindle list, Canada is not one of them. We’re off limits. For now, anyway.
Instead, Canada is part of a list of non-Kindle countries that includes—are your ready for this?—Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, the Palestinian Territories, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Turkmenistan and Yemen.
China is also on this list, although given their attitude towards copyright, that’s understandable. But then so is Singapore. And New Zealand.
If you love to read and you haven’t shouted out a big Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, it’s probably because you’re speechless.
So who’s to blame? Someone has to take the heat for this screw-up. Is it Amazon? Is it the Canadian publishing industry? The Copyright Board?
Or is it the wireless companies?
The Kindle downloads material through cell phone networks, specifically those that work on the 3G standard. That would make Rogers and Fido the only two Canadian sources for Kindle downloads. But then again, Bell and Telus announced this week that their networks have been upgraded to 3G and will be ready to go live net month. That’s how they could announce that they’ll be offering iPhones before Christmas.
With more options to choose when it comes to Canadian partners, could this mean that Amazon is taking their time to see which company they’ll work with? Could this newly discovered (and long overdue) competition for 3G customers be working against Canadians—at least temporarily—when it comes to our Kindle jones?
Maybe. But why couldn’t have things been worked out in advance? Just tell us that the Kindle is coming but not until November 1. Or whenever.
We will get access to this technology at some point. It’s just that the idea of the Congo and Greenland getting Kindles before us is embarrassing and humiliating.