What Will Become of the Paper Book? -- in the age of the Kindle?

[SeaKing]

What Will Become of the Paper Book?
How their design will evolve in the age of the Kindle.
By Michael Agresta|Posted Tuesday, May 8, 2012, at 6:30 AM ET
Slate




"The change has come more slowly to books than it came to music or to business correspondence, but by now it feels inevitable. The digital era is upon us. The Twilights and Freedoms of 2025 will be consumed primarily as e-books. In many ways, this is good news. Books will become cheaper and more easily accessible. Hypertext, embedded video, and other undreamt-of technologies will give rise to new poetic, rhetorical, and narrative possibilities. But a literary culture that has defined itself through paper books for centuries will surely feel the loss as they pass away.

In the past several years, we’ve all heard readers mourn the passing of the printed word. The elegy is familiar: I crave the smell of a well-worn book, the weight of it in my hands; all of my favorite books I discovered through loans from a friend, that minor but still-significant ritual of trust; I need to see it on my shelf after I’ve read it (and I don’t mind if others see it too); and what is a classic if not a book where I’m forced to rediscover my own embarrassing college-age marginalia?

Luddites can take comfort in the persistence of vinyl records, postcards, and photographic film. The paper book will likewise survive, but its place in the culture will change significantly. As it loses its traditional value as an efficient vessel for text, the paper book’s other qualities—from its role in literary history to its inimitable design possibilities to its potential for physical beauty—will take on more importance. The future is yet to be written,"

more:
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/d...ifferent_.html

I still like paperbacks for economical fiction. They don't take much room, and they are light. It is a shame that the paper in them isn't better, thinner and more durable. Maybe one day, that will change.
I won't toss my remaining old hardbound texts, but I will think about it more and more.

[Giggleton]

Books? nothing more nor less than what they have always been, simple economical containers for the transmission of memes. It is hard to say whether or not ereaders are more or less economical (meaning does the production and use of an ereader contribute more or less to the degradation of our ecosystem) But they are quite easier to use.

I scratched out the logo on my Kindle3 and painted over everything with a black permanent marker, it is quite beautiful.

[wyndslash]

i like my paperbacks just fine. they just take up so much -space- xD; ebooks is simply an alternative; i don't like the "my way or the highway" mentality some of these types of articles possess

[carpetmojo]

Doesn't he mean The Age of the E-reader ?

( The metal (some dodgy) plastic (some dodgy) glass and plastic (some dodgy) device reliant on a huge infrastructure of advanced technology and finance ?


And nothing much will happen to the "Paper Book" - it's a design icon as it is.

[rjmac]

I agree - they are alternatives. Somethings work better on paper.

[petrucci]

Printed music has resisted the change, much to my chagrin. One reason is that there is not a good e-reader for music. I would very much like such a device, however, it would be a shame for print to die out. There really is no alternative to Braille music and pop-up books.

[K. Molen]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

I scratched out the logo on my Kindle3 and painted over everything with a black permanent marker...

Why? Also, I'm curious what this looks like... mind posting a picture?

[Rob Lister]

Originally Posted by rjmac

I agree - they are alternatives. Somethings work better on paper.

True that...for now at least. I've always had a certain fascination and love for the well-bound, artfully-set, hardcover book. I have many bookcases filled to edges, in some cases overflowing to the floors around. The paperbacks, on the other hand, are relegated to cardboard boxes in closets; there's no emotional attachment to cheaply printed pulp, at least not after the initial read.

So the 'good read' paperback is on the way out; is already out, for me at least. I'll still pick them of at 25c at yard sales, but I'll never buy another full price.

[ProfCrash]

Why? You really need to ask that. Look at who did it. (eye roll)

Then again, I have a free lunch bag I got at a baseball game and I have done my best to hide the really awful beer logo that is on it. The bag is great but I despise the beer....

There will always be paper books. They will just be smaller in number and found in independent stores like records are today.

And when will the media figure out that I don't want videos and embeded crap in my books, I just want the book in an easily portable format.

[RainingLemur]

Originally Posted by Rob Lister

So the 'good read' paperback is on the way out; is already out, for me at least. I'll still pick them of at 25c at yard sales, but I'll never buy another full price.

My thoughts exactly. Although, there have been a few times that I've purchased a paperback because it wasn't available in ebook form (yet).

[QuantumIguana]

I'm a Kindle owner, and I agree that "Kindle" and "e-reader" shouldn't be used interchangeably. The Kindle isn't the only e-reader out there.

I don't agree that people who like paper books are Luddites. If you're listening to music, you may well have difficulty telling whether you are listening to a CD, an MP3 or a vinyl record. The experiences are nearly an identical. A trained ear may be able to tell the difference, but most people don't have such trained ears. But when you're reading a book, it is obvious whether you are reading an e-books or a paper book. The experiences are different, and some people prefer one over the other.

I think the e-book market will grow, but will not completely displace paper books. There will be a market for paper books that is a considerably larger percentage than vinyl has of the music market. I'm not enthusiastic about the idea of "enhanced" books, the proposals tend to look more like movies than books.

[HappyMartin]

I love how everyone thinks that they have found the exception when it comes to digital technology upending their loved area of expertise or hobby. I did it with photography. I was sure digital would not take over from film. Fortunately I changed my point of view in 1994 and so I survived as a photographer.

I saw it with cinema photography, printing, design, music you name it. Now it is happening with books but apparently this will be the exception.

I remember the sales director for Southern Africa for Fuji film telling me digital would not take off in Africa as cameras would always be too expensive for the African market. Fifteen years later cell phones are everywhere and every one of them has a camera.

We will see

[QuantumIguana]

What exception? What rule is there that says that new technology always totally replaces previous technology. Film has advantages over digital in only a few specialized uses. In most cases, digital is clearly advantageous over film, you can take as many pictures as you want, you can see the results instantly. There ARE advantages to paper books. They require no technology to read them. They require no electricity to use. It does offer an experience that differs from e-books. Many people do prefer paper over e-books. That difference is greater than that between digital music and vinyl. Any situation where you want someone to read a book is one where paper books are advantageous, as it is easier to hand someone a paper book than it is to get them to put a book on their reader. Bibles and hymnals alone will keep the presses running. Another advantage is that if the book is damaged, you aren't out the cost of a reader. Children's are hard on books, this is one area where paper books have an advantage. It might be a better idea to let prisoners have paper books than handing them e-readers.

The electric guitar hasn't replaced the accoustic guitar. Synthesizers aren't likely to replace actual instruments, so it appears there really is no such rule. Previous technology only faces total replacement when the newer technology has overwhelming advantages. Recorded music and radio didn't replace live music. Movies didn't replace live theater. TV didn't replace movies. The VCR didn't replace movie theaters. Live music, live theater, movie theaters have advantages that keep them viable despite competition from newer technology.

The dead tree book isn't going anywhere soon. That said, I can see entire classes of books disappearing over the next two decades. Novels and certain types of non-fiction work well with electronic readers.

Here's are few thoughts:

Printed books have been around for centuries, so they are more of a cultural phenomena than a technological one. Technology is easy to change. Culture is not.

The media that have changed a lot technologically (e.g. recorded music) have always been technologically mediated. To stick to music, you will notice that the instruments haven't changed very much over the years. New ones come and go, but the old ones are mostly still there.

Print is still more convenient for certain types of books. That will change over time, but there are still big hurdles: resolution, battery life, etc. aren't so great for very visual texts.

Business practices have been slow to adapt. We are at two extremes at the moment in electronic print media: "free" (in either cost or liberty) and "non-free" (no cost benefit to electronic texts and a lot of our freedoms are gone).

Perception is an issue too. Print has a sense of permenance. Non-print does not. And there is good reason for that.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

I'm a Kindle owner, and I agree that "Kindle" and "e-reader" shouldn't be used interchangeably. The Kindle isn't the only e-reader out there.

True, but such misuse of brand names has happened before. Rollerblades and Xerox come to mind right off the bat. Both are brand names of products rather than the names of the things themselves, but rather than saying inline skates or photostatic copy people talk about their new rollerblades or getting a xerox even when the actual item being used is under another brand name. I can easily see the Kindle brand name being used as a general term for ereader in the same way.