Quote:
Originally Posted by Arios
.Is it necessary to always just copy paper books, rather than trying to create something new, more adapted to the "digital material"?
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For my own part; no. I don't think the digital book needs to mirror the state of the physical book that happened to be in vogue when digital books started becoming "mainstream." The ebook should be allowed to evolve the way its predecessor did.
Except for things that naturally lend themselves to a fixed layout (cookbooks, art books, etc), I believe the "layout" of the text (in a mainly narrative type work) is eventually going to be taken completely out of the hands of those who create the content (or the "book") and given to the reader/reader app.
Archetypal structures like body text, dialogue, letter, hand-written letter, newspaper clipping, map, ... etc will be loosely defined by the book, but will be presented in a manner decided by readers' preferences and their chosen reading devices/apps.
Things are just going to be quite contentious for a while, until content providers relinquish their deathgrip on "layout," that's all.