(Still Another) Are Books Dead?

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rugcat

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Articles predicting the death of print on paper are common.

Here's one from the Edinburgh international book festival this weekend. Writer Ewan Morrison not only takes that as a given, but takes it to the next level -- that ebooks are not a simple paradigm shift we must embrace, but that writing itself as a profession will shortly disappear. Not sure I buy it completely, but it makes a strong, if depressing case.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/aug/22/are-books-dead-ewan-morrison?CMP=twt_gu
 

Susan Coffin

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My home library is alive, well, and thriving with mostly hardcover (and some softcover) books. E books may be popular, but that does not mean paper print is on the way out.
 

AlishaS

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Huh. I'm only way out to the book store right now, my son "needs lots and lots of new books" And so I shall by them for him.
 

PorterStarrByrd

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I don't own a kindle, and never will, so I don't know if this is true or not.

Evidently the e-books, including those on library kindles, have a short shelf life of a year or less. After that they 'go away'.

If this is true, the same e-publishing that is supposed to be killing print, may also pump some life back into it.

I've been known to keep a book for over a year before I got around to reading it. When I find something I know that I'm going to like in a used book store, or when I am down in the states in ANY book store, I pick it up and put it in line.

Knowing it might disolve before then would definitely make me choose print rather than pick up a kindle that I COULD use up here.
 

eyeblink

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I doubt that ebooks will kill print books, the same way as paperbacks didn't kill hardbacks. The proportion of sales of each one will shift and I don't know how they will end up. For starters, what will book collectors do?
 

rugcat

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I doubt that ebooks will kill print books, the same way as paperbacks didn't kill hardbacks. The proportion of sales of each one will shift and I don't know how they will end up. For starters, what will book collectors do?
Except that Morrison's conjecture is that the new standard for digital media is free content, with content a commodity that drives ad sales. It's not just about ebooks vs print; it's about a whole new universe where the traditional writer who gets paid for work becomes an endangered species.

PorterStarrByrd said:
I don't own a kindle, and never will, so I don't know if this is true or not.
Yes, but you're of the generation that read books. You, my friend, like me, are a dinosaur, and where are they today?
 

Libbie

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When the photographic camera was invented, the art world bewailed the imminent death of the art of realistic portrait and landscape painting.

It didn't happen.
 

frimble3

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Except that Morrison's conjecture is that the new standard for digital media is free content, with content a commodity that drives ad sales.
And, as is so often the case, 'free content' is worth about what you paid for it.
If 'free content' was all that was needed, and writers willing to write for free, why aren't the fan fiction sites making their owners into billionaires?
It might make more writers, in that people will look at the stuff available for free and say what most writers say at some point "Heck, I could do that!"
It might be that fewer writers will make a living at writing, but there might be a lot more niche writers.
 

blacbird

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I've reached the point where I think books have always been dead. My perception that these objects exist is a delusion, a fig newton of my damaged psyche. Hahaha.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha . . .
]
cawcawcawcawcawcawcawcawcawcaw . . .
 

Alan_Often

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I work in the film industry and am one of the few people I meet on a day to day basis who actively attempts to avoid piracy of media. This isn't some high-minded judgement, but rather an understanding that the jobs of everyone in the major studios depend on a positive bottom line. Even those in the field seem unwilling to support the industry that provides their livelihood. Most people I work with laugh at the mere suggestion of paying to see a film in the theatres (which I do once or twice a week). Sure the prices are high for tickets, etc. but I just don't think I could come in and work knowing I was contributing to the death of my chosen field.

The idea that piracy is becoming an accepted conduit for media consumption is clear, and perhaps there needs to be a paradigm shift in all arts. At least with music and writing, independent artists have the opportunity to express themselves. There are such severe cost restrictions on producing for film that, should it ever reach the point where it is no longer supported as a business, the types of films we see will necessarily simplify (for better or worse).

I'm sorry to digress into a discussion about film, but, as it is my field of experience, I can look better at this situation through that filter. While we professional artists depend on a cash flow to sustain our careers, if everything burst tomorrow and there was no financial reason to produce art anymore, would we stop? I know that I didn't hang my childhood drawings on the fridge in exchange for any sort of monetary reward.

I write for the joy of storytelling. My dream is not to be published (though I would like to be), but to get my work into the minds of as many people as possible. If the river forks, I'll paddle with the current on its new course, in the hopes that it will eventually find a fresh path to the sea.
 
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Al Stevens

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When the photographic camera was invented, the art world bewailed the imminent death of the art of realistic portrait and landscape painting.

It didn't happen.
Not dead, but on the critical list. Coinciding with the development of photography was the evolution of less realism in paintings. Impressionism, and afterwards. Realism is still in practice, but it thrives mostly in commercial art, which kind of tracks along with the conclusions given in the subject article. The Norman Rockwells are in a minority, relics of an earlier time.
 

Libbie

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Iiiiinteresting, because just today I saw an exhibition of students who attend a local art academy which is focusing on a realism revival. It was great.

I'm a bit biased here, though, because I come from a family of professional artists and most of them are realists, or at least impressionists who are more of the Sargent persuasion than the Van Gogh persuasion. :)
 

Al Stevens

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Except that Morrison's conjecture is that the new standard for digital media is free content, with content a commodity that drives ad sales.
Nothing new there. That is exactly how broadcast radio and television have survived since their inception. The paradigm assumes that consumers select content of quality or, at least, content that appeals to them, and then their selections drive which content advertisers underwrite.
 

DeadlyAccurate

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I love my iPad2. I've only bought one print book since I got it (a compilation of comics for the webcomic, Order of the Stick), and I doubt I'll be buying many novels in print any more.

But even I don't expect ebooks to completely kill the print market. Records haven't disappeared. DVDs still exist. I mean, the automobile didn't even eliminate a use for horses.
 

benbradley

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I don't own a kindle, and never will, so I don't know if this is true or not.

Evidently the e-books, including those on library kindles, have a short shelf life of a year or less. After that they 'go away'.

If this is true, the same e-publishing that is supposed to be killing print, may also pump some life back into it.

I've been known to keep a book for over a year before I got around to reading it. When I find something I know that I'm going to like in a used book store, or when I am down in the states in ANY book store, I pick it up and put it in line.

Knowing it might disolve before then would definitely make me choose print rather than pick up a kindle that I COULD use up here.
I had to read your whole post to see what you meant by "go away." I hadn't heard that, though I know libraries buy a certain number of "borrows" for an ebook, and if a book's popularity goes to zero they won't bother to buy any more "borrows."

But yeah, the Kindle only holds a few books, but you supposedly have a "library" of the books you've bought on the cloud, and can supposedly download one to read any time you want, for as long as Amazon lets you do that.

Alternatively, there's a free Kindle reader program for the PC I've considered getting, then I could download any ebooks I buy and keep them on my computer forever, and not have to worry about Amazon being around or changing policies next year or next month, or even deleting it like they did with "1984."

But yes, whatever the details are, the ebook thing (and any possible digital rights management crap) is changing how we buy and handle books.
I love my iPad2. I've only bought one print book since I got it (a compilation of comics for the webcomic, Order of the Stick), and I doubt I'll be buying many novels in print any more.

But even I don't expect ebooks to completely kill the print market. Records haven't disappeared. DVDs still exist. I mean, the automobile didn't even eliminate a use for horses.
The automobile did kill off the buggy whip industry, though the Teamsters Union continued on.

LP's (or "vinyls" as the youngun's call them now!) have been made and sold continuously through the CD and MP3 era. I hear sales are even up in recent years as younger people discover the "good sound of vinyl" (which really is better than the hypercompressed and intentionally distorted (!) sound of CD's in recent decades). They're a tool of DJ's ("Turntablists") and the preferred medium of some audiophiles, but they disappeared from mainstream music stores not long after CD sales overtook them, and then disappeared from the consciousness of the public.

I don't see books disappearing from retail outlets quite so completely, but they WILL become harder to find.
 

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I've been known to keep a book for over a year before I got around to reading it. When I find something I know that I'm going to like in a used book store, or when I am down in the states in ANY book store, I pick it up and put it in line.

Knowing it might disolve before then would definitely make me choose print rather than pick up a kindle that I COULD use up here.

My dad bought a Kindle because he was tired of trying to find specific out-of-print books in used bookstores.

Mind you, he's not going to keep the book industry going - when I asked him how much he paid for books, he looked at me as if I was nuts. He doesn't plan to buy anything for his Kindle ever. What he reads is all out-of-print, out-of-copyright, and available for free on Project Gutenberg. They're not going anywhere, and if they did, he's already downloaded them to his computer anyway.

It wouldn't have occurred to me that a Kindle would be the gadget of choice for someone who thinks a modern book is something written after 1950 :)

Edit: Also, his eyesight isn't great, and he loves that he can increase the font size. That's something which might keep people buying electronic versions of books when they'd have had to give up buying paper ones which had become a struggle to read.
 
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shaldna

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death of books....end of the publishing industry....out with the old....the end is nigh...blah blah blah.

Heard it all before.

Been hearing it for years and it still hasn't happened so you'll understand if I don't hold my breath on this one.
 

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Free content is usually of a lower quality. There's a tradition of free fan fic that keeps it going, but even there, the stuff I read in zines 20 years ago was far and away superior to the 90% crap posted to the ff communities. It's been my experience that free content dampens the desire for free content, since it's often so bad. It makes people search out the good pro stuff.

As for writing for a living being a thing of the past, that's sheer nonsense. If anything, the writer's age has only begun. More of us will be able to make money from our work, just as other artists have done for ages, selling one-to-one. We'll just be in control of the output. Big market publishing is in danger perhaps but not writing.
 
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smcc360

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Sadly I find his argument largely persuasive. I'm not sure we're looking at the Death of the Book, but certainly we are looking at tougher times for everyone who isn't an 800lb Internet Gorilla.
 
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