Go to the Borders website, click on ebooks at the top and do a search for the book Blind Fury by Lynda La Plante. In case you are lazy, click here.

Now here is the insanity. The online price for the paperback edition (including, get this, free delivery) is AUD$19.99. You’d think the ebook version would be cheaper, yes? If so, you’re an idiot!

The ebook version is AUD$22.95! No, this is not a misprint. I have sent them an email to check on the price and whether their pricing manager should be put in a loony bin.

With the paperback edition, there are costs involved in: typesetting, paper, ink, trees, storage and, of course, distribution. With the ebook edition, once the book has been typeset, there are no further costs.

I typeset books for publishers in Australia. I use InDesign and sometimes FrameMaker. Once a book has been typeset, from the same InDesign document, the book can be exported for print or pdf or as an epub all at the press of a few buttons.

So how the fuck does the ebook end up costing more than the printed book? Does this make sense to you? Can someone please tell me? Which idiots make up these prices?

WHAT THE FUCK IS THE MATTER WITH THESE DICKHEADS?

There, I have vented my anger. I feel much better now.

Background

On average, I read about 4 to 5 books a week (fiction and non-fiction), depending on my work load. Latest-release books retail between AUD$19.99 and AUD$32.99.

Hence buying physical books can be quite expensive and just as important, they take up a lot of room! I’m getting close to having about 2500 books and pretty soon I’ll have to seriously think about either getting rid of some of the books or the wife. Just kidding (though it’s an interesting thought, don’t you think?).

In order to cut down on costs and the storage problem, a few close friends and I buy books and then share them between us. My friend Kevin and I often visit Dirt Cheap Books in Collingwood and end up buying about 10 books each at … well … dirt cheap prices! But their selection is not the best. The last time we were there, 90 per cent of the titles were the same and in the same exact spot in the warehouse. In fact, I swear I recognised the same spider and its web from the last time I was there.

A favourite store of mine is QBD. There are only a few physical stores throughout Melbourne, the closest one to me being the Doncaster store. QBD always has books priced between $7.99 and $10.99 on its ‘specials’ tables. They are more current than the ones you would find at Dirt Cheap Books, but you don’t get to make friends with any spiders. QBD also has an online service that is great.

In my opinion, apart from the problems mentioned above, physical books are great. I love them. There is nothing like reading a great crime novel in bed before falling asleep. ‘Well, having sex before falling asleep is great,’ you say, but not when you have in your hot little hand the latest release from Lee Child and his macho character Jack Reacher. Or a Nelson Demille novel featuring that rascal John Corey.

Ebooks eliminate the storage problem and hopefully will cost less than buying the physical books. However, the sharing of ebooks might not be easy to do. With these thoughts in mind, the iPad was something I was looking forward to.

Note that I am a self-employed typesetter, setting books for a few publishers in Australia. Most typesetters use InDesign on the Mac platform, though some poor souls use it on a PC. Ninety nine percent of my typesetting is done on the Mac platform.

Let me tell you that once a book has been typeset in InDesign, you can distribute it in many different formats: for print, for web, for PDF and yes, you guessed it, in many ebook formats. It is for this reason that in my opinion, any ebook that costs almost the same as the physical book is a bloody rip off.

The iPad

An iPad is for the consumption of content, not the creation of it. That’s a fact, Jack! For me, most of the content I would consume would be in the form of ebooks.

Having placed my order as soon as the online store in Australia was updated to allow pre-orders on 10 May 2010, I waited with great anticipation for its delivery on 28 May. Apple did not disappoint. It arrived at about 2 pm in Melbourne on 28 May 2010. Yippeee!

I began to look for the perfect ebook app. I decide that the following criteria would guide my choice and any app that met most or all of the criteria would be the one that I would adopt for my ebooks purchases.

1. The app must give me access to an extensive range of ebooks.

2. Any ebook I buy must be available for a free download in case I lose my ebook file due to a hard disk crash or other calamity.

3. The price of the ebook must represent a saving over the price of the physical book.

4. The app should be available for the iPhone and iPad.

5. Getting the ebook file from one device to another should be easy.

6. If the app runs on a Mac, even better.

7. If the app runs on a Mac and a PC, much much better!

8. app should allow me to look up the definition of a word in a built-in dictionary.

9. The app should allow me to highlight a word or words.

10. The app should allow me to add bookmarks.

11. The app should allow me to add notes.

12. The app should allow me to search for a word or words throughout the book.

So let’s take a look at 3 ebook readers as at Monday 31 May 2010. There are many other reader apps available but I have chosen to discuss the iBooks app, the Borders app and the Kindle app. Keep in mind that this post is written from an Australian iTunes account holder’s point of view.

Criteria 1. The app must give me access to an extensive range of ebooks.

iBooks: I launched the iBooks app and low and behold, there’s hardly anything there. Well, there are heaps of free books there from the Project Gutenberg but nothing later than say, 2000 years ago! Ok, so I exaggerate a little. Remember, I live in Melbourne so all my comments relate to the Australian iTunes store content.

Hmm. No latest releases to be smelled anywhere! What to do? I really needed to get a feel for the pricing of these ebooks and their availability. I took a look at the USA iTunes store and sure enough there were heaps of books available (current titles and all) for about US$12.99 each. I am sure that the range of ebooks to choose from in Australia will grow as more publishers come to the party.

Borders: Quite an impressive range.

Kindle: This application surprised me. I have an Amazon account in the USA. I have often ordered DVDs from Amazon when the movies I wanted were not available in Australia.

When I launched this app, I thought I would be met with the dialogue box that says something along the lines of, ‘You’re in Australia you dickhead, so we can’t sell you anything’. This is the sort of message I get when I try to buy content from the USA iTunes store.

Imagine my surprise when I was able to pay for and receive my first Kindle book! I was shocked. Now for the big question: Were all titles available to me?

I started adding kindle titles to my Amazon wish list. It wasn’t long before one title I tried to add to my wish list threw up a warning that ‘This title cannot be purchased by residents in Australia’. Now Amazon claims that they have 540,000 titles in the Kindle format. So, if only 50% are available to buyers in Australia, I figure it will still gives me a huge range of books to choose from and allow me to go broke.

So a big thumbs up for Kindle.

Criteria 2. Any ebook I buy must be available for a free download in case I lose my ebook file due to a hard disk crash or other calamity.

iBooks: I am sure that this is the case for this app. If I have purchased an app for my iPhone and I have accidentally deleted it, the next time I click on the ‘Buy’ button, the iTunes store warns me that I have already purchased this app and asks whether I’d like to download it again for free. You’d have to be a moron to say NO. So I assume that this will still hold for ebooks.

Borders: Haven’t tested it. I think it would meet this criteria.

Kindle: Again, the Kindle app excels. Having purchased an ebook, it resides on the Amazon server. If I delete the ebook file from my device, the ebook gets put into an Archive area in my account on the Amazon server. So all the books not currently on my device can be seen in the Archive area. Hence I don’t need to keep a track of what I have bought. It’s always there for me to see.

But wait! There’s more. Let’s say I make the initial purchase on the iPad. Because I also have the Kindle app on my iPhone, I simply log into my account and presto! I can download the ebooks from my Archive area to my iPhone.

Criteria 3. The price of the ebook must represent a saving over the price of the physical book.

iBooks: Don’t know as yet.

Borders: I would say that in most cases, the price of the ebook represents a substantial saving over the price for the physical book. Although I saw a title that was on sale for AUD$29.99. This is highway robbery for the reasons given above.

Kindle: At the current exchange rate of US84 cents to one Australia dollar, yes.

Criteria 4. The app should be available for the iPhone and iPad.

iBooks: Currently not available for the iPhone. However, it is widely held that it will be when the iPhone OS gets updated to 4.0.

Borders: Yes.

Kindle: Yes. Amazing. Apple should take a good look at Amazon’s business model. I think the iBooks app should have been available for the iPhone, the Mac and the PC from Day 1. Not good enough Steve. You’re losing money here.

Criteria 5. Getting the ebook file from one device to another should be easy.

iBooks: This is achieved by syncing the iPad with iTunes.

Borders: This is achieved by syncing the iPad with iTunes.

Kindle: This is achieved by syncing with iTunes but also as described in Criteria 2 above.

Criteria 6. If the app runs on a Mac, even better.

iBooks: Currently this app does not run on a Mac although rumours suggest that it will in future. Unbelievable, yes? See comment above.

Borders: No.

Kindle: Yep, you guessed it. The Kindle gets another plus. It is available for the Mac. Go Kindle.

Criteria 7. If the app runs on a Mac and a PC, much, much better!

iBooks: At the moment, no. Not even a rumour that it will. But you never know.

Borders: No.

Kindle: FUCK YEAH! Unbelievable. It is freely available for both the Mac and the PC. It is also available for the Blackberry.

Criteria 8. The app should allow me to look up the definition of a word in a built-in dictionary.

iBooks: It does this and in a beautiful way. It is very well designed.

Boders: No.

Kindle: Not yet. According to its website, this is an upcoming feature. Click here to see a description of this app.

Criteria 9. The app should allow me to highlight a word or words.

iBooks: Yes. It enters the highlighted word or words in the Bookmarks section which you access by pressing the Contents button and then the Bookmarks button.

Borders: NO.

Kindle: Absolutely.

Criteria 10. The app should allow me to add bookmarks

iBooks: Yes.

Borders: Yes.

Kindle: Yes.

Criteria 11. The app should allow me to add notes

iBooks: No.

Borders: No.

Kindle: Yes. And every time I use what Amazon calls Whispersync, my notes get synced across all the devices that have the same book loaded. Brilliant!

Furthermore, whispersync tells me where I was in the book the last time I was reading it, across all my devices. What does this mean?

Let’s say than I am reading XYZ on my iPad and I exit the app while I am on page 200. I now open the same book XYZ on my iPhone, where I left off on page 156. I get a warning that I was on page 200 on the iPad and would I like to go to that page on my iPhone. Fuck a duck! Is this brilliant or what? Well done Amazon!

Criteria 12. The app should allow me to search for a word or words throughout the book.

iBooks: Yes. The results are presented in a beautiful way as only Apple designers can.

Borders: Forget it. No.

Kindle: Currently no. But it is an upcoming feature. See link above.

Conclusion

I hope that this post helps you make your own choice as to what ebooks app suits you. Please let me know of any inaccuracies in this post and as always, feel free to comment.

Police arrest the Times Square bomb suspect in less time than it takes Sting to climax. Aired 4 May 2010. Duration 05:58.

Mike Bloomberg holds a press conference to provide details about a T-shirt vendor and NYPD horse. Aired Monday 3 May 2010. Duration 04:59.

Aired Monday 3 May 2010. Duration: 08:39.

Wyatt Cenac tries to think of who’d want to kill New Orleans as an oil spill heads towards the coast.

Aired Wednesday 28 April 2010. Duration: 8:10.

The Daily Show’s Best Apple Moments: Microsoft was supposed to be the evil one, but now Apple is busting down doors in Palo Alto, while Bill Gates rids the world of mosquitoes.

One morning, he confronts his mum and says, ‘Mummy, every night I hear you and daddy making noises and when I look in your bedroom you’re bouncing up and down on him.’

His mum is taken by surprise and says, ‘Oh … well … ahh … well … I’m bouncing on his stomach because he’s fat and that makes him thin again.’

The boy says, ‘Well, that won’t work mum!

‘Why?’ asks the mother.

‘Because the lady next door comes by after you leave each day and blows him back up!’

‘Well, why don’t you dump the bastard?’ her friend asks.

The wife replies, ‘Oh, I plan to do that, but first I want to lost another 4 kilos.’

She starts crying and then asks, ‘How can you do this, Jimmy? How can you just walk out? The first year we were together, you caught pneumonia and almost died! Who sat by your bed and nursed you back to health? Me!’

Jimmy doesn’t say a word. He hangs his head.

‘And when you lost half your family in the terrible car crash,’ Katherine continues, ‘who kept you going and kept your spirits up? Me!’

Not a word out of Jim.

‘And when our kids grew up and ran away from home,’ Katherine says, ‘who sat with you and comforted you? Me!’

Jimmy still has his head down, shuffling his feet.

‘And when you lost everything last year in the fire at the store, who stayed at your side the whole time? Me! How could you leave me, Jimmy? You’ve been through everything with me.’

Finally, Jimmy replies, ‘That’s the problem, Katherine! You’re just fucking bad luck!’

‘Everyone knows,’ the mother lectured him, ‘that from time to time, young children will urinate in a pool.’

‘Oh really?’ yelled the lifeguard. ‘From the diving board?’

A mother-in-law visits her son-in-law before leaving for a trip. They are sipping coffee and chatting.

Suddenly, the mother-in-law looks at the clock and jumps off her chair exclaiming, ‘My god! It’s already three pm. I’m about to miss my train!’

She begins to put her clothes on in a hurry. At this moment, the son-in- law’s daughter runs up to her and before he can do anything she announces, ‘Don’t hurry, granny! Daddy moved the clock two hours ahead!’

There are two sides to every divorce: yours and the shithead’s.

Mum: ‘It’s so nice to see you so quiet while your daddy naps.’

Son: ‘I’m just waiting for his cigarette to burn his fingers.’

The Daily Show - A History Lesson: History is written by the team of hand-picked historians that the winner keeps hidden away in an underground bunker.

Michael Lewis discusses the small handful of investors who bet against subprime mortgages. Duration 06:35.

Duration 03:38.

New York experiences a snowstorm, Australia heats up, and it’s getting dark everywhere. Aired 02/10/2010. Duration 07:47.