Quote:
Originally Posted by pdurrant
Wow. Why?
I started buying ebooks many years ago (2003?) and I very rarely buy a print book. I can't imagine going back to print books myself.
The ebook sales figures (once you include independents and small publishers!) don't back up your anecdotal experience.
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There are lots of personal reasons for drifting back to print, and I suspect a lot of them are generational.
I grew up with physical books and never lost a love for sitting in my library and reading. Some people have a "cave" for TV or video, mine is for books (no TV allowed). I like to look at the books and recall, for example, when I first read a particular book to my grandchildren.
When the grandchildren come to visit, we play board games on the library carpet and when it is time to wind down, they run to the bookcase dedicated to books for them and pick out books for me to read to them (they are not yet old enough to read themselves).
When I sit in the library, I can glance at the book spines and recall content and even pull a couple off the shelves to search for an answer to a question.
I admit I like the tactile sensation of handling a physical book; ebooks are both ephemeral and impersonal. Hardcovers, which is primarily what I buy, are readily found on my bookshelves; ebooks become more difficult to find absent extensive cataloguing as the number of ebooks grow.
When I read a book I think one of my children will like, I can hand it to them. I don't have to give them my reader and they don't have to have a compatible reader or convert a de-DRMed ebook. When they finish the book, they can pass it on as well.
I prefer to own my books, not lease them.
There is something very impersonal about giving someone an ebook.
The list goes on. I understand that for the younger generations many of these reasons don't seem valid, but for me and my friends, they are. (We also subscribe to print newspapers and never read the daily news online. We prefer to get away from our computers, not have them attached to our hips.)
My friends give me similar reasons for their return to print.