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Physical Books Successfully Coexisting With Ebooks
An anonymous reader writes: When ebooks experienced their meteoric rise a few years ago, many were predicting the death of physical books. Early sales figures seemed to bear that out — ebooks kept getting more popular, and physical books were on the decline. But over the past couple of years, sales for both types leveled off. Rather than simple additive or deleterious effects, we're now seeing how technology has altered the literary landscape in more complex ways. Serials are returning, authors are able to more directly keep in contact with readers, and networks are developing to keep independent bookstores afloat. Libraries are being supplemented by companies who offer free access to ebooks at certain Wi-Fi hotspots. So, given that the changes so far have been less dramatic and more interesting than predicted, where do you think the ebook/physical-book situation will be in another 10 years?
where do you think the ebook/physical-book situation will be in another 10 years?
Exactly the same as today.
Physical book? What the hell is that? Do you mean an ebook you printed with your home printer?
... but if they ever made a Kindle with a scent cartridge that puffs out that "new book smell," I might be tempted to make the switch.
I didn't think there was room in my bag for both en e-reader and a book!
love is just extroverted narcissism
Especially when it comes to textbooks. I used to get complimentary teacher copies from publishers, and then you'd have to lug them around, bookmark them, etc. Now I get all of my textbooks via CourseSmart, which allows you to download them for free as long as you have a teacher account. It saves a ton of time, since I don't have to fill out forms and wait for a sales rep's approval., etc. Plus, if I want to find something in my book, cmd+f is much quicker than going to the index then flipping through pages.
When it comes to reading, I have a Kindle Paperwhite. I didn't want to get a Fire, because then it would probably get used more for social media, gaming & watching videos. I wanted to make sure it was used for it's intended purpose, instead of spending hours wasting time on other things. I haven't used it as much as I would like, but the battery life on that thing is pretty amazing.
There are times, however, when I just want to pick up a hard copy of a book. There's just something nostalgic about it.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
E-Books are rentable from the library. even the hardware is rentable, so aside from a slight learning curve and different constraints on the total number of titles i can check out, the disruption proposed by e-books is minimal. things like library reservations or intra-library requests are also processed much more quickly, given the nature of the book being digital.
Call me old fashioned, but there just isnt a valid replacement in my world for a physical book. If its a title i truly love, (hitchhikers guide, tolkien, etc...) I'll give sincere consideration to purchasing a copy for my personal bookshelf, but reaching for an e-reader on a rainy day still has no emotional context for me like a real book would. Ereaders are simultaneously more convenient and less convenient...leave one on a plane and its inexorably more expensive than buying a used copy online, but try taking your bookshelf with you everywhere you go. Theres no clear winner.
Good people go to bed earlier.
I still wear the digital watch I acquired in 1994 because it never breaks, is completely waterproof and has a battery that lasts for months. Working in tech, I like to go off the grid whenever I can and items that don't require any recharging and are hard to break, like a good paperback book, a dependable watch, and a leatherman, are what I prefer.
Same thing when I fly (minus the leatherman) - if you've ever been in a cheap plane with no chargers and you're delayed a few hours beyond the life of your cell and/or tablet battery, you'll learn to appreciate independently powered or no-power items like watches and books again.
Where space is limited - such as on a long vacation.
Where the book is really big and heavy.
But when there are diagrams/maps in a book, the ebooks fail miserably.
When I want to read in the tub, ebooks fail.
When I want something that can fit in my pants pocket, ebooks fail - but paperbacks deliver.
When I want to borrow/lend a book, ebooks make it too much trouble, but a paperback is easy.
When I want to throw a book in a backpack, paperback wins.
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It should also be no surprise that paper-based books are still in demand. Some people, like myself, prefer to read a paper-based book instead of an eBook.
Aside from the privacy concerns about eBooks (e.g., I don't want the publisher "looking over my shoulder" and taking notes of what pages I read more than once or what pages I skip) I just don't like the "feel"of eBooks as I read them. Not one eBook has duplicated the experience of reading a paper-based book for me. Reading an eBook is an entirely different experience, and that is why I think both will co-exist.
... don't require electricity and you don't have to worry about 'breaking' your book.
This is true with older books, from my experience with Amazon. Even when shipping is included, a used book can be had for under $10, while the Kindle version is often $10 or more...
It's almost like publishers are artificially keeping ebook prices high enough so that real books can compete.
Jenny Calendar: Honestly, what is it about them that bothers you so much?
Giles: The smell.
Jenny Calendar: Computers don't smell, Rupert.
Giles: I know. Smell is the most powerful trigger to the memory there is. A certain flower, or a-a whiff of smoke can bring up experiences long forgotten. Books smell musty and-and-and rich. The knowledge gained from a computer is a... it, uh, it has no-no texture, no-no context. It's-it's there and then it's gone. If it's to last, then-then the getting of knowledge should be, uh, tangible. It should be, um, smelly.
Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon what's the difference? All steal money from devs and control with walled gardens.
because no one can tell you're reading Dick and Jane, Mein Kampf, or the Koran.
When I can buy ebooks without respect to region, I'll hop on board. But as it stands, I can't buy books published outside my home country, and as we've seen in the past, if you take your ebooks outside the country and your reader goes on line (particularly the Kindle) it'll lock you out of your books.
On top of that, the ebooks cost more than the paperback.
Get back to me when obvious negatives aren't being piled on to ebooks.
The vast majority of avid readers I know love eBooks. Most of the luddites who drone on and on about the feel, smell, whatever, of physical books can't even tell you a book they've read in the past 6 months...
>> Serials are returning, authors are able to more directly keep in contact with readers
On reason for the uptick in serials is the lack of delay with e-books. I can read an already published serial, see how the first book is, then at 10PM, when I finish the first, immediately download the next in the series, starting to read it right away. Compare that to waiting for the bookstore to be open, finding it or placing an order, then waiting for them to receive it and picking it up from them. Two minutes versus one day versus a few weeks.
Sometimes a hardcopy is better; certainly it is easier to use alongside a keyboard when writing something; but as noted, the ability to have my whole library in the palm of my hand is a huge point in e-book's favor.
And the list of available works keeps growing, both in e-book formats like MOBI and EPUB, and also audio books as well. I think that pressure to compete will carry over to hardcopy as well, fording publishers to adapt to printing on-demand copies.
As far as keeping in contact with the author, it is generally easier if the author is e-book savvy. For a lot of earlier authors, email and other communication went to the publisher or assistant or secretary, and the authors didn't/couldn't respond quickly. Now, many of them do and can. E-books won't kill hardcopy; but it will prune the low-hangers that should be pruned, and clear the way for an improved publishing process in time, getting rid of some geographic restrictions on publishing and distribution, and improving the quality of editing and galley review.
- I can easily write in them or make notes in the margins
- I find flipping through and jumping back & forth between pages more intuitive than any ebook
- I can bookmark, tab, and divide them how I want
- Print is always better after long hours of study
And where are these numbers coming from?
Amazon, to the best of my knowledge, does not release ebook sales numbers. Amazon sells the majority of ebooks in America, though I've no idea whether that's true elsewhere. That alone means any sales numbers are suspect, at best. Yes, trade published might report their own sales, but that ignores all the indie-published books that make up a large fraction of those Amazon sells.
Personally, my main reason for buying print books in the last couple of years is quite simple: trade publishers keep releasing ebooks at a higher price than the paperback. So I buy the paperback instead.
Are art museums going to go out and replace all of their exhibits with HDPI IPS displays? No. The displays may be far more versatile but they also do not embody a work. They simply display it. A printed book both contains and embodies the contained text. That simple visceral realness of holding an artifact contributes not only to our willingness to step into the magic circle of the book but signals the beginning of a cultural ritual.
Reading is a form of magic that is wholly contained within our culture. Ebooks are yet another step in democratizing the cultural ritual and print on demand publication will provide the methodology to fully entrench these new pieces of culture within the canonic regalia. In ten years the significance of the printed word will not fade even as access becomes more and more trivial because they are canonic to the medium itself. They are inherently part of how we understand all written language in the same way that a live performance is inherently part of how we understand music (even principally electronic musicians engage in the ritual of live music).
Authors go on book tours and connect with their reader base in other ways but the single most defining ritual in the whole of literature has been the receipt of a book. As we go forward this will always be a landmark of success as well as an important if not centrally defining artifact of the medium.
Photography did not displace painting, it displaced the cultural focus on realism in painting. It displaced painting as a medium of simple depiction of the natural world and instead brought a greater implicit understanding of visual composition and other fundimntal principles of art into the every day culture. Likewise, I think that as ebooks become more and more accessible we will see /more/ veneration for the printed medium, perhaps in ways that were previously reserved only for bibliophiles.
The cultural acceptance of technology that is simultaneously legitimized as a medium for art and developed into a nearly risk free scratch pad for personal exploration has historically brought a wider and deeper appreciation. It happened once with the desktop publishing revolution and I believe as people begin to ask themselves /why/ they prefer the printed word over the ebook a deeper understanding of the artistry of the medium will develop.
I think it already has to a degree.
It is always comical to read the back-and-forths over topics like this. There are benefits and drawbacks of each medium, but arguing over which one is better is like arguing over which flavor of jam is superior.
An internal system operation returned the error "The operation completed successfully.".
Amazon can't remotely delete my paper book!
And paper books don't phone home to tell Amazon (or whoever) what I'm reading, which page I'm on, what notes I've made, what books I've downloaded...
(Don't know how I forgot about this in my previous post. I guess you take them for granted with paper books.)
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Your reasons are all good, but there's a few caveats for a lot of other people. My kids don't buy their textbooks in high school, so they aren't writing in the margins or making notes. They also have to carry them around ALL DAY (the lockers are not satisfactory), and my son's latest books are as big as the biggest physics books I had in college.
What I wish they could do is have them as e-books while in school and leave the huge, physical book at home. The school offers "online" textbooks, but the stupid school has a mixed message about using tablets in school, and doesn't even give them wifi access when they can (and no, I don't pay for cell access for their tablets). For the same reasons (mixed message on tablets) my daughter prefers a physical book even for regular reading, because she can carry it around and read it anywhere. My son is happy enough to leave the reading for home, so gets e-books.
But on the whole, text and reference books are simply different... again, a single e-reader is a damn site better than carrying around 2 or more huge textbooks, but for doing homework or something, having the physical book there is nice.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
In the four years I've had my Kindle, my purchases of physical books has plummeted to near-zero. I used to visit a bookstore at least once a week. Right now, I cannot remember the last time I was in one. Last weekend, my wife asked me if I wanted to go to the mall -- she said I could hit the bookstore and then wait for her in the food court. I didn't go.
Mine has over 300 right now.
Ebooks should be free with the purchase of the physical book.
Until eBooks reflect their true price considering lack of cost to distribute and print, I'm not sure how you can say they are 'coexisting'. eBooks often exceed the cost of their physical books.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
I just can't go back to bound books anymore. I now just dread the experience of reading a book along the bend of the page near the center. How could I put up with it for decades? Give me an ebook any day and I'll de-DRM it and save it in my virtual library that is always on me.
In other news, you can still buy buggy whips, dial-style telephones, and vinyl records, too.
Nostalgia and straight-up Luddite-like behavior are enough to keep almost anything going at some level -- no matter how low its actual utility as compared to more recent replacement tech may be.
Hell, I own a vacuum tube stereo system made by Scott in the 1950's -- my father bought it when it was new, it's been with the family ever since, and now it is mine. I'm really quite fond of it in the "I actually use it" sense, though considered in the light of my home theater system, it's neither particularly functional or particularly high quality (though in its day, it absolutely was The Shite.) Still, it glows in the dark in a most pleasing manner. :)
I keep it in my office and enjoy listening to it regularly. My physical book collection, however... several thousand volumes... in boxes in the basement. I am a total convert to e-books. Textbooks, fiction, reference material... all right in my pocket, 100% accessible 100% of the time in 100% of the places I go (unless I'm diving or swimming, but hey. And I could get a waterproof, good to X-depth case for my phone, and then... :)
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Yes, IMHO paper books are usually preferable, but ebooks have advantages since they:
- can be read in the dark (or poor lighting)
- can enlarge / change their font
- allow dictionary lookup of a word, effortlessly
- can share a bookmark across devices
- can be bought / downloaded instantly
- are usually cheaper than paper
- they don't destroy trees
- they don't cause my floors to sag under their weight
I expect to buy more of both indefinitely.
I published a couple of novels as e-books, because it seemed easier to stick with one format. Quite a few people asked for physical versions (some of the crankier responses were along the lines of "what, no *real* version of the book?"). Some were older relatives who don't have e-readers and didn't want to figure out how to get one running, but some were posting on a gaming forum and, while I don't know their ages, they were technical enough to play computer games, so presumably just preferred the physical book.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
"sales for both types leveled off"
Nonsense. That's only according to traditional publishing monitoring which, unreliable to begin with, only covers books with ISBN numbers from traditional publishers. There's a growing indie/self publishing world, focused primarily on e-books, sold primarily through Amazon, which makes little use of ISBNs, which traditional publishing monitoring is unable to see, quantify and report. Amazon knows the numbers, but isn't obligated or inclined to report them to the traditional publishing monitors... rather, only to authors who choose to publish via Amazon.
See the recent column by traditional publishing consultant/commentator Mike Shatzkin.
http://www.idealog.com/blog/the-publishing-world-is-changing-but-there-is-one-big-dog-that-has-not-yet-barked/
For an informed guess, derived from reviewing sales rankings on Amazon and numbers shared by some authors publishing via Amazon, see http://authorearnings.com
A good site that aggregates lots of articles and commentary regarding all this is http://www.thepassivevoice.com
Where will this all be in another 10 years?
E-books will dominate/outsell print... and books in any form will be fighting increasing competition from movies/tv/music, gaming, the Internet in general and who knows what else...
Big chain book stores will have retreated to major urban beltways, indie bookstores (previously clobbered by the big chains prior to Amazon's existence) will continue their resurgence and those of us out in flyover country will be back to shopping for paper books, when we want them, in local mom & pop indie book stores and on racks in drug/retail stores, much like back in the sixties and seventies before the explosion of the big book chains.
SpringfieldMH
Don't fight the natural course of technology, ebooks will soon take over physical books, just like robots will take over humans in menial labor tasks in the next 25 years.
I like to read crime and thriller novels, and used paper books are cheaper than ebooks. When I discover a new author I like, I go up on Amazon and do a search "a lot of (insert author's name)" I will generally get a number of hits, and order a stack of 10 or so for usually about $25, including shipping.
One of the possibilities that I've not seen seriously discussed is the way that academic libraries can be largely virtualised.
1) New books should be bought as an electronic copy and made available for temporary download as required by students. My uni has started to offer that; you get to hold it for only 24 hours
2) ALL books out of copyright should be digitised, packed up and stored securely off site. There is no need - apart from the aesthetics and wow factor - to have old books filling up space. OK - so wandering the publicly available bit of the library and seeing a book dated 1540 IS impressive... but most of them should go to a better place. There's a large room in the City Library filled with Parliamentary Reports. These are online... Meanwhile old stuff isn't available; I tracked down one British document I wanted from 1795; the AUSTRALIAN national library would let me have an electronic copy if I could offer an Australian address. The British Library would allow me electronic access if I went to their physical location. In the end I bought a physical copy online...
3) The remaining group are the books that are still in copyright and where a digitised version isn't legitimate. We're probably stuck with this for a period but it will be a declining problem - although in non-science subjects one that will probably persist longer than in sciences, where text books go out of date fairly rapidly.
For copyright libraries, digitisation should resolve their problem of an ever increasing volume of books; digitise and store in a salt mine. Everyone's a winner; far greater accessibility of the actual data and no problem of needing to recover them 99.999% of the time.
Why are you flinging away your time on such useless things air max Pas Cher . Do you know? The balcony is upstairs not with balconies on each floor. The clock ticked away the time. How quickly time passed ten minutes, I have learnedby heart that our teacher told us to recite it, I had a yarn with my mother last night, I clean forgot about recite it. When I have learned this poem by heart, Right on time and get ready for school, but I had a feeling that I had forgotten something, yes, it is my puma shoes, if without puma shoes I will walk for school in bare feet; make a laughing-stock of my friends, I run onto the balcony, I browsing around the balcony, all type of shoes are on but without my puma shoes, what happened The puma shoes should be flatted on to dry by my mother, how ever did my mother forget it? Is it A series of short, sharp sounds, saw my wet puma shoes always place on the ground; I adjourned to the drawing room my mother sat astride the chair and crossed his knees speak highly on the phone, couldn control myself, and Ishouted to my mother, that's outrageous! You forget to flat dry nike tn my puma shoes, sob, what shall I do next? The second lesson today is P.E. when my mother hear my voice and say goodbye on the phone, and then she was rapt in wonder, she faltered out that I am so sorry, my baby, I clean forgot about it ,forgot it.
They fall.
I love physical books. They will always co-exist for many reasons, especially visual and sheer pleasure. However, the bump in the road for ebook growth is I think a bump and they will dominate more in the US than they are right now. And in fact in terms of best-sellers, especially new releases in genres like mystery and sci-fi and romance, ebooks are in fact accounting for a majority of sales. (It appears! Amazon's numbers are not divulged so you have to work backwards.) When a new book comes out, ebooks are cheaper than the hardcover. I think it's only a matter of time that once a title hits paperback, the ebook price will come down to the same or lower. (And most of the money for books and CDs and BluRays is not about the physical product, but the worth of the entertainment.) Actually, it makes no sense any more to wait for paperback. I wish they'd just make a title available in any format you want (just as movies come out on DVD, BluRay and digital.)
1. Ebook prices have seen a short-term rise (due to the anti-trust suit and agreements made in settlement with gov) and should come back down since it's dumb to make them that expensive.
2. Ebook sales slowed in part, I think, because people stopped buying the far superior e-readers like Kindle and Nook and started doing their reading on tablets and phones. This is a far less enjoyable experience for many reasons (interruptions from the device, eyestrain, etc.) and so suddenly many people who never had an ereader felt like they preferred a physical copy. To a tablet or your phone? Yes. To an ereader? No. But that boat has sailed.
3. Ebooks are close to a majority or an actual majority in unit sales (not dollar gross) for many popular genres and most best-sellers.
4. Ebooks are so easy to buy. Even next day delivery of a physical book or going to a bookstore (when it's open) can't compete with hearing about a book at 2 in the morning and starting to read it ten seconds later. This will inexorably take away market share from physical books.
5. If a book is remotely big, ebooks are a no-brainer, especially for city folk who actually lug the book around rather than putting it in their car. I just got volume three of Mark Twain's autobiography and it's almost intimidating in size. I would never read a book of that bulk in a physical format ever again. Truly. Just a pain in the ass.
6. You always have ebooks with you. Always. Via ereader or tablet or phone. Not true of physical books.
7. And if one takes a world-wide perspective, ebooks will completely dominate and very soon. Billions of people have smartphones. Many countries and billions of people are poorly served if at all by a physical bookstore. Shipping books (which are heavy) is prohibitively expensive. But now publishers can reach a massive new audience worldwide that couldn't buy ANY books on a practical level. Now they can buy any book with a tap on their phone. Once payment methods are worked out (these people don't have credit cards), you'll see a worldwide explosion in sales of ebooks that will dwarf what has come before. For them, physical books are not an option and will seem foolishly unnecessary and vulnerable to the elements.
I used to own every book I ever read. Wish I still did. But in a digital world, carting around my own personal CD of this album and personal DVD of that movie and personal paperback of the new Kim Stanley Robinson seems silly. A library with my absolute favorites? I'm old school enough to want that very much. But for most folk in the future, I'm sure a blog listing their favorites will suffice.
Why are ebooks more expensive than paperbacks?