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Tiny Books Fit in One Hand. Will They Change the Way We Read? (nytimes.com)
Several readers have shared a report about publishing industry's new gamble to drive people to buy physical copies of books: making the books much tinier. From the report: As a physical object and a feat of technology, the printed book is hard to improve upon. Apart from minor cosmetic tweaks, the form has barely evolved since the codex first arose as an appealing alternative to scrolls around 2,000 years ago. So when Julie Strauss-Gabel, the president and publisher of Dutton Books for Young Readers, discovered "dwarsliggers" -- tiny, pocket-size, horizontal flipbacks that have become a wildly popular print format in the Netherlands -- it felt like a revelation. "I saw it and I was like, boom," she said. "I started a mission to figure out how we could do that here." This month, Dutton, which is part of Penguin Random House, began releasing its first batch of mini books, with four reissued novels by the best-selling young-adult novelist John Green. The tiny editions are the size of a cellphone and no thicker than your thumb, with paper as thin as onion skin. They can be read with one hand -- the text flows horizontally, and you can flip the pages upward, like swiping a smartphone. It's a bold experiment that, if successful, could reshape the publishing landscape and perhaps even change the way people read. Next year, Penguin Young Readers plans to release more minis, and if readers find the format appealing, other publishers may follow suit.
Politician: "What good are tiny, one-hand books?"
Printer engineer: "Senator, in 20 years, you will be having an impulse to censor them."
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
This was done previous with Armed_Services_Editions, meant to provide compact books for soldiers in WWII.
An interesting idea but I don't see this enticing many people away from the traditional paperback form factor which is already a nice size.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'm from Holland and I've never even seen one.
The people claiming they are "wildly popular" are the people trying to sell them. So they have a self-interest in exaggerating.
I have a Dutch friend. I sent her a link to this story, and she said she has never seen one, or even heard of them before, although she also admits she would have no interest in the titles currently published in this format (mostly chick-fiction (trashy novels)).
Now back to my e-reader...
Indeed. I see no advantage of this format over etext, and several obvious disadvantages.