E-book revolution

I don't think paper and ink books will ever succumb to electronic works. There's just something about them....

I too have been really skeptical, and wholly unexcited, about this 'e-book revolution' that some claim will be the unraveling of books as we know it. It might be healthier for the environment, but it surely wouldn't do my eyes any good. And I personally enjoy the feel and smell of a book in my hands. I love technology, but books are one of the last few things that aren't completely digitized. I'd kind of like it to stay that way.

Though I do agree. We need to adapt and accept that e-books may very well become a replacement for ordinary books. One of the biggest failures of the music industry, I think, was their inability to adapt to an online market. We see how that ended up.

I think it is a fallacy to think the success of ebooks requires the failure of print books. Multiple formats can coexist in the market place like denim and business suits, organic and conventional etc.

I honestly don't understand why people think e-books are automatically better for the environment. Computer chips, plastic housings, electronic components etc. all take tremendous natural resources to design and build. Plus they're always going to be upgraded, which means more old electronic junk lying around (and it's not biodegradable).

I think e-books will co-exist nicely with print books. I recently read a story about music being released in both vinyl and CD/downloadable formats because they serve different purposes and also sound different. I can see books moving in the same direction.

For the record, I adore print books. No electronic gadget can match the sensual aspects of a real book.

veinglory said:

I think it is a fallacy to think the success of ebooks requires the failure of print books. Multiple formats can coexist in the market place like denim and business suits, organic and conventional etc.

Click to expand...

vinyl record, cassette, 8-track cartridge, CD, Betamax, VHS...

Leather, wool, denim, lycra, gortex
Wildlife, domesticated animal, pet
Raw meat, cooked meat, porridge, bread, lindt chocolate
Mural, canvas painting, art book, website
Play, movie, television, youtube
Spoken word, printed word, audiobook, ebook

Some become more dominant, the opthers need not always be extinct--in fact there can be a synergistic increase of all as in the advent of "fashion" where we all have more clothes than the typcal person would have a century ago.

while there are some things i would like about an e book (being able to carry hundreds of books in a less than one pound package) there are others i would hate. batteries dying, hard on eyes, no book smell. Cant show it so someone and say man look I read this monster! cant hit the annoying kid with a bag of them and lay him on his can.

and as i said on another e-book thing, people still write and value hand written books. (not many but i tell you they are out there) and if something that was replaced in the renesance is still around, then a printed book isn't going any where either.

and there is the bell, in the middle of my post.

veinglory said:

I think it is a fallacy to think the success of ebooks requires the failure of print books. Multiple formats can coexist in the market place like denim and business suits, organic and conventional etc.

Click to expand...

Like VHS and Betamax! (Aww. I see someone beat me to this joke.)

I'm just kidding with you. I don't think the success of e-books necessarily requires the end of print. Though that's certainly the way some people are beating the drum.

I'm ready for the eBook revolution, but I'm not about to pay £225 for a Sony Reader. I'd pay maybe £50. And I'd happily pay for each and every eBook just as I do for the many paper books I own.

I have a Sony Reader - I can't for the life of me see how anyone could find it hard on their eyes. There is no glare from the screen and the clarity of the LCD is incredible. If I do have a beef, it's the formatting in PDF when you increase the font size, it throws the whole format out of whack. Single spaces suddenly become double spaces. Paragraphs can go on for three pages, etc. So there is some negative stuff about it, not to mention the stupid insane price - still, it's a great way to read a book and if they get them down in price, people will buy them like crazy. I asked the Sony retailer here in Saskatoon (population 200,000) how the Sony Reader is selling, he said they are moving 4 or 5 readers each day.

Things to consider:

1. Ebooks are cheap, small and easy to get a hold of.
2. Readers allow you to listen to music watch movies and work on documents
3. The technology will get cheaper, better looking and smaller
4. Remember all those authors who couldn't get an agent or publisher. They don't need them anymore
5. The new generations want convenience not quality

I say these things because I don't think people really look at the trends enough. Someone brought up the death of the music industry. Yes the industry is dying but I see more and more people with underground music on their Ipods. I've also noticed that nano's and touch's sell pretty well. (FYI I work at a best buy in MI).

Looking at everything across the entire field of electronic media, it's all moving to centralization. What I mean is that within the next few years, the tv, mp3 player, computer and ereader will all be one device or one system. The storage is getting bigger and the technology is getting better. You say you don't know about readers but they are becoming more common. The only reason they aren't out en masse is because they are hard to find in a store.

I can guarantee you that if Best Buy, WalMart and Target all start selling $199.99 Sony Readers and had the electronic bookstore to back them (thanks to google it looks like it might be coming soon) then it won't be long until paper starts getting thin. Especially with studies saying that that emissions from paper publishing outweigh what you get from reader and ebook creation.

If the reader prices keep dropping and the marketing comes next I don't doubt that one day I'll see one in my stores. And trust me, those things will sell so easy during holidays, back to school, on mother's day, father's day, grad presents....etc.

You need to understand it's not just your favorite books.

For a religious person: 2 - 3 versions of a bible or torah or koran...in your pocket.
All your favorite authors works...in your pocket.
All your favorite shows...in your pocket.
Netflix and Blockbuster streams...in your pocket.
Your favorite tunes...in your pocket.
Your novel, manga, biography...wip, guess where....in your pocket.
And you won't need Sprint, AT&T, Verizon or any other monthly service

All on one device. Can you do that with paper?


And one last thing I want to add...

Most of us grew up with books, bikes, action figures/dolls. A few grew up with computers. I have a 3 yr old and a 4 yr old. Both can use the computer better than their grandparents. The one's who will buy these ereaders are going to be our kids. They'll go to school and college and complain that all their textbooks for the semester will cost them $50 total and we'll shake our heads and tell them how much paper textbooks used to cost.

Even funnier....They will buy readers for us for mother's day, father's day, holidays, etc. They'll buy them for us because they know how much we like to read. They'll show us how to make the font larger so our eyes don't hurt. How we can hook them into our car stereos and let the book use its text to speech feature and read us the story while we drive. How to access the google book store from it because it just needs a wifi connection (and google has nationwide wifi). In short get used to it now or get used to it later. Sooner or later you will have to accept it.

The music industry did (mp3s). The movie industry did (blu-ray & imax). The automotive industry will (electronic & hybrid). Library's have (Wikipedia & google). The publishing industry will.

I love books and I don’t care in what way they come, but I couldn’t actually read them on my phone, my eyes just couldn't take that.

I love ebooks because they’re so easy to read on my 22 ins screen. When you have arthritis of the neck, hands and fingers, and you don’t have 20/20 vision, ebooks are a godsend and they were what I’d hoped for for many years. I also love reading film scripts on my PC too, which is something I would never go and look for via paper books.

But saying all that, I’ve always loved paper books and have shelves of them here. I buy digital books, yes, but I still buy paper books too, for instance, only this week I got a copy of ‘Falling angel’ by William Hjortsberg from Amazon.

Brutus, I’m really amused by your rant about music. If vinyl records and CDs etc, weren’t around, once the fans of singers/groups grew old and died, their music would just die too, what a loss to the world. I guess we should get rid of films too eh, then everyone can go to the theatre and catch them all on stage.

Just to throw in my two cents, Ebooks probably will become the way to go. Or more to the point, the way to go for new authors. I can see publishers giving new authors a chance if there is less of a cost to the if the book doesn't sell. Ebooks can be made for far less than print versions and I can totally see print versions being reserved for known authors who the publisher knows will sell.

Well, I have to say, I love my Kindle, and I'm reading more than I used to because eBooks are just so convenient and easy to read now. I'm reading five new books right now and I don't have to carry 2000 pages with me. Just one 1/2" device the size of a notepad (but the Kindle carries another 200 books/magazines/blog subscriptions/documents, etc. I have, including a few WIPs).

I think eBooks would go the way digital media is going: people will prefer to download their music and videos. They would only buy the DVDs/Blu-Rays if it's something they would keep: collector's items. Otherwise, there's absolutely no reason not to download digitally. Same with eBooks. There are books that are still better in hard copies (coffee table books, specialty books, etc.) but for fiction only, I can see the allure of cheap, portable, easy to read digital versions.

anne_marie said:

Ebooks can be made for far less than print versions and I can totally see print versions being reserved for known authors who the publisher knows will sell.

Click to expand...

Well, no, actually, not so much. All publishers save are the printing, warehouse and shipping costs. Those aren't the major costs of production.

And they have to pay for DRM, servers, and bandwidth--directly or via discounts to retailers.

I love reading on my Sony Reader, personally. I actually find it more comfortable than reading a paper book - I can adjust the text size however I want, I don't have to struggle with an unwieldy hardcover, the reader is lightweight, I can carry lots of books around with me at once, if I want to buy a book I don't have to drive to the store or wait for it to be shipped... I can respect people who prefer paper books, though. But I'm definitely an ebook convert.