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?

Comments

They can co-exist?

[avandesande]

I didn't think there was room in my bag for both en e-reader and a book!

Re:Physical book?

[Trepidity]

There's no need to use a home printer nowadays. With the rise of ecommerce, you can order a nicely preprinted copy online and have it delivered!

As a library patron, i dont see much change.

[nimbius]

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.

Physical books are better

[gurps_npc]

There are only a few cases when ebooks make sense.

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.

Wonderful DRM misfeatures

[Microlith]

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.

Re:No change

[Applehu Akbar]

The obvious first market for ebooks has been anything you read sequentially, like novels. Ebook adoption climbs a hill for works you need to jump around in. That grease-thumbed reference book you keep beside your workbench will be the physical book's last stand.

As the application interface improves for ebooks, some advantages of the medium will open up, such as the ability to search fast and to display complex, interactive charts. In a few years you will be able to have your reference ebook standing up on the workbench so that you can say, "Hey Siri! Play me the install sequence for the right front wheel motor starting from Step 4!"

While we wait for that halcyon day, can we at least have the Kindle app give us a straight count of 'pages left in chapter' rather than trying to compute some mythical reading time?

Re:It's almost like.....

[gfxguy]

You're being sarcastic, right? That's exactly what they're doing, and they are lying through their teeth when they claim it costs just as much to publish an e-book, and all the people supporting the companies by claiming it costs just as much because of editing are either lying or stupidly buying the nonsense the book companies are selling.

E-books are great for a lot of reasons - I have shelves of physical books at home that I have no idea what to do with; libraries don't want them (they have too many of these kinds of books that our kids are reading, they have enough); you can't sell them at garage sales (nobody buys them), you can't donate them to the school (they don't want to be overwhelmed with everybody's used books - they get enough). I can sell them to the used book store for credit, but now I have hundreds of dollars in credit and they have few things I want... I can't use the credit on new books.

E-books let me:

• Keep them forever and reread them years in the future without having to take up physical space.
• While looking up things in physical text books is easier, my kids have 2 or 3 really huge books that they carry around all day and have to bring home, so having the physical book at home and taking an e-book to school would be great.
• Take my whole library on vacation.
• Theoretically should never go out of print.

Physical books:

• Don't violate my rights to resell them.
• I don't get screwed if I somehow lose my Amazon or Barnes and Noble accounts.
• Are nice to hold while reading, and don't need batteries.
• Can be lent indefinitely to as many people as I want.
• Textbooks are easier to use this way; any reference book is easier to use this way, although reference books (where you look something up) should rather be turned into apps in the future that allow for easier searching.

As it is, with the absurd pricing of e-books, it often makes more sense to buy the physical book. The publishers are %#king 4$#holes.