Hearing the Future

Although many say that the Kindle 2 offers little advance over its predecessor, one totally new component is igniting plenty of controversy. Kindle 2's text-to-speech function—which converts text to a computerized voice, making it possible to listen to the text of a downloaded book—drew the ire of Authors Guild president Roy Blount Jr. in a Times op-ed, in which he claimed the function to be an infringement on sub rights for authors and a blow to the audiobook industry.

Now I admit that I'm not a techie. I don't text-message, I don't Facebook, I don't carry a BlackBerry, and I'm new to Twitter. I really don't want to be connected all the time. But I did just buy a Kindle 2, and I bought it for a very personal reason: I am visually impaired. As such, I am troubled by the Authors Guild position.

I am a book review editor, and, needless to say, visual impairment is not the most convenient disability for someone in my line of work. I use magnifiers to read and I need very bright light (incandescent only—no halogen or fluorescent). Thanks to technology both high and low, I've been able to continue doing the work I love.

I do face challenges, though. The print in some books is just too small, even with my magnifiers, and the quality of printing in many bound galleys is often execrable (I sometimes fear even my reviewers' eyes are overstrained). I have a closed-circuit TV (a large magnifier that projects enlarged text onto a computer monitor—at a cost of $2,500, thank you) that could help with both problems, but it's clumsy and uncomfortable for reading a book, and it won't fit in my tote bag.

Large-print books are one possible solution, and publishers are increasingly aware of the growing market among aging baby boomers (welcome to my world!). So when I decided, for the second time in my life, to have a go at George Eliot's Daniel Deronda, I thought I'd try reading it in a large-print edition. I went on Amazon, and there it was, from the prescient folks at ReadHowYouWant, who offer unabridged editions and who have a fine understanding of the fact that one size doesn't fit all visually impaired readers. Brilliantly, they offer a variety of fonts and font sizes. I was ready to Buy It Now—when I realized I was looking at only one of three volumes. Total price for all three: about $60.

After my large-print sticker shock, I realized an e-reader—a contraption I'd scorned since first hearing of it—might be the perfect solution. I could download an 800-page book, read it holding a lightweight device, and enlarge the text to a size I find comfortable. After playing with a Sony and a first edition Kindle, I opted for the Kindle—just in time to preorder the Kindle 2, which has the added attraction I did not expect. Thanks to the audio component, I can continue “reading” a book no matter what circumstances I find myself in.

The Authors Guild sees the TTS component as encroaching on audiobook sales and cutting into author royalties. But as any vision-impaired person knows, TTS is nothing new: I have it on my computer (another $600, thank you). If I chose to, I could download a book to my computer, turn on the screen-reader, and listen away. Why is the same function objectionable in an e-reader? Suppose I need to read an advance galley in digital form? There's no audio edition yet.

But I'm not just making an argument for the visually impaired. Why not extrapolate my situation to all readers—why shouldn't people be able to buy a book and then access it in whatever format is most comfortable or convenient at any given time? A book is a book is a book, whatever format it comes in. That's the new reality.

I realize the possible cost to both publishers and authors. And I understand as well that both publishers and authors make only a pittance (if that much) on Kindle e-books. But it doesn't matter which e-reader we're talking about—let it be a Sony or some device yet to come. With smart phones and similar tools, people—including book buyers—are coming to expect, and will soon demand, multifunctionality in all their tech toys. And without book buyers, we're all out of business.