Quote:
Originally Posted by kennyc
Or maybe digital publishing will just be a big bust and we'll go back to hardcopy only. And maybe encrypted hardcopy that requires special glasses to read or maybe......
|
I think there will always be a market for real books, just as there will always be a market for vinyl records. Ebooks will become basically just adverts for a deluxe hand signed print version made and sold by the writer with no corporate leech taking 90% of the proceeds. Even if they only sell 10% as many books, with 90% of their fans reading them for free, they would be no worse off than they are now.
But ebooks have been around for about 10 years now, and they are still only a tiny fraction of a percent of all books that are read. At this rate, it will be another 50 years or more before ebook piracy becomes as much of a drain on profit as used paperbacks are now. Plenty of time for anyone with a vested interest to come up with new ways of generating income from them.