Paperback Writer
Apparently, the book industry had expected e-books to take off. They have now faced the fact that was apparent to most readers - e-books are not going to replace paper books anytime soon. My take on the reasons why.
- Books don't have batteries that run out in the middle of a really engrossing chapter.
- It's easier to read the type in a paper book than the type on a small LCD screen.
- You can curl up with a book, but not your computer monitor or laptop.
- Standards, standards, standards. Be they hardcover or paperback, books don't require you to have different types of technology to read different books. You only require your eyes and hands. e-Books came in competing formats, so you weren't guaranteed that you could read a given book on the format you owned.
- There's just something about the smell of a new book.
For the foreseeable future, books are here to stay.
Comments
I think the future is books on CD; lots of people who spend all day at their computers would much rather listen to books (like, no their commutes or something) than read them, particularly off the computer screen.
Posted by: Elayne Riggs | October 13, 2003 08:50 AM
I like to think of a book as CONTENT---and paper-between-covers or CD ROMs as delivery systems for said content.
Paper-between-covers is an excellent delivery system for Jane Austen, Tom Clancy, or Edward Said. CD ROM is a fantastic delivery system for large reference books like, for instance, the Oxford English Dictionary. In print it weighs 150 lbs, takes up 5 feet of shelf space, and is split into 20 volumes. On CD ROM it is easier to use, faster to look up words, can be cut-and-pasted into other documents, and doesn't result in the loss of a single tree.
Posted by: Don Myers | October 13, 2003 04:51 PM