Future Of Paperbooks

[basschick]

while i do buy most of my books as ebooks, favorites tend to also get bought in paper versions. also i still prefer graphic novels in paper versions. i think a lot of people on this board also buy hard versions of their favorites, and i expect that while there will be less paper books in the future, they won't disappear.

[Nathan Campos]

I know, but the changes are just beginning.

The books will never die as our friend Bremen Cole has friend exemplified, the changes are slow and gradual. Just wait to see...

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Marcy

Books will never die out. They are different from music, because you don't need a device to use them.

Sure you do... you're using a bound collection of paper to store the words. I use a PDA. They are both "devices" used to store the words and allow you to read them. The big difference is, my one device can hold hundreds, even thousands, of books... your device holds exactly one book.

When you can memorize and recall literature, word for word, you won't need "devices." (But you still need something to get the words in your head...)

[Nathan Campos]

That's a good point!
Before I've got my Kindle, I read to books on my iPAQ Hx2 and Palm T|X, as I'm a mobile fan and a mobile developer, but now I read to books on my Kindle of course.

[Marcy]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Sure you do... you're using a bound collection of paper to store the words. I use a PDA. They are both "devices" used to store the words and allow you to read them. The big difference is, my one device can hold hundreds, even thousands, of books... your device holds exactly one book.

When you can memorize and recall literature, word for word, you won't need "devices." (But you still need something to get the words in your head...)

It's totally not the same. Your device requires electricity and technical know-how. If civilization collapsed your device would quickly be useless. Even assuming some sort of solar generator, it would only be good for a few years until the device gave out. Unless you could build a new one yourself, which I would find hard to believe.

The pbook requires nothing except the book. Assuming it's taken care of, once it's printed it's forever. It doesn't require electricity or maintenance. Anyone can use it with no instruction, and no access to electricity or fancy technical doo-dads. I have books that were my mother's when she was young that are still in perfect reading condition, 55-60 years later. There are still 20 complete copies of the Gutenberg Bible around and that's 450+ years old. There's no way my PRS-600 or Kindle is going to be around and working that long.

My point is not that it doesn't take some technology to print a book, but once you have the book it *never* obsoletes. You can always read it, without an upgrade or new device.

I'm clearly a fan of ebooks, considering that I own readers and belong to this forum. That doesn't mean I can't see the advantages of a pbook along with the disadvantages. I'm currently trying to replace my huge pbook library with an ebook one, but I do have a niggling fear in the back of the mind that one day I'll regret not have those pbooks anymore.

-Marcy

[Bremen Cole]

Originally Posted by Marcy

It's totally not the same. Your device requires electricity and technical know-how. If civilization collapsed your device would quickly be useless. Even assuming some sort of solar generator, it would only be good for a few years until the device gave out. Unless you could build a new one yourself, which I would find hard to believe.
-Marcy

Yes and if civilization collapsed your car would be useless, as well as just about everything else. But a bit more back to reality..... a simple house fire would destroy all your pbooks. I keep an offsite (safety deposit box.... $25 a year) back up of all my digital photos, mp3's and ebooks. So that same simple fire would be terrible, but I could recover many of the important items in my life. Anything paper (books and photos) decay and degrade. Digital can be reformatted to the next medium. So a hundred years from now when my grand kids look at pics of our family, or read a book I left them.... It does not matter what they use. Their computing devices (whatever they may me) will be able to reformat the data so they can use it. Where where your paperback be?

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

I never said printed books and e-books were "the same." I just pointed out that they are two delivery methods for the actual product, the literature.

I'll also point out that a printed book doesn't last forever, nor is it impervious from damage or wear. And while a PDA might wear out, the actual literature can be backed up, transferred to another storage device and read on something else.

And "technical know-how"? We're talking about a PDA, not a nuclear power plant... anyone who can be taught to drive a car or operate a coffeemaker can operate a PDA.

At any rate, we can discuss the supposed "downsides" to each format until the cows come home (and around here, we often do ). But the durability of either format is actually not the point here. Books are a product, a commodity, and the issue here is whether the old version of the commodity will still be sold when the new version of the commodity takes hold.

Based on the recent history of most printed media, I think it's safe to say that as printing costs go up and printers close their doors--as has been happening for the past two decades--printed books will become rarer and rarer, eventually reduced to "boutique" items suitable for gifts and display (and reflecting higher gift-type prices), but not for casual buying.

In the meantime, more books will become digitally produced, making them available to a wider audience. Even books we might not expect to go digital, like glossy-quality magazines and coffee-table books, will go digital as better display systems are introduced. It won't be a matter of aesthetics, it will be a matter of practicality... the infrastructure for printing and physically distributing books is already eroding. Digital is the only viable method for mass publishing for the future.

[GoblinWriter]

I do half of my reading in the hot tub, so I better stick to paperbacks for that (is it possible to electrocute oneself with an e-reader? hmm). I'm mostly buying an e-reader for road trips. Long live paper books.

[Marcy]

This discussion has clearly meandered from the original point, which was the ebooks are going to make pbooks obsolete. This is the point I disagree about for all the points above.

A PDA may seem a small expenditure to you. However for many people it is a significant one -- they can get pbooks free from the library or for an extremely nominal fee at the used bookstore or the school book fairs. And the PDA or whatever technical doo-dad you chose to read your books on will have to be replaced every couple of years, since consumer electronics aren't really built to last.

Once I have my pbook it's good for life without any additional investment. I don't need to worry about my delivery device breaking down and getting a new one. Plus I can easily lend it out to other people, without them needing any special equipment to read it. We can trade books without worrying about formatting, DRM or being accused of piracy.

I *love* ebooks. I'm still awed by my reader with 900+ books on it. But I don't believe they will ever obsolete pbooks. At least not in my lifetime.

-Marcy

[Solitaire1]

I think pbooks and ebooks will co-exist, with each having its niche, with plenty of overlap.

Where I think ebooks will become dominant:

- Temporary reading, such as newspapers and magazines, I can see a significant move to ebooks.

- Flexible-text books, where the most important thing is the text itself, while the text's formatting can be flexible and easily modified without affecting the book itself.

- Books in the public domain.

Where I think pbooks will remain dominant:

- Long-term books, especially books where the way they appear is of importance (such as books given as gifts).

- Type of books where the current limitations of ereaders is a factor, such as very large books with full color pictures.

[lene1949]

I buy paper books from the Folio Society.... Their quality is excellent, and I love the look on them on my shelves... The ones I buy are most history and reference books... I'm very selective in what I buy, both in content and the visual on my shelves.

I started reading ebooks in 2004, and before then I had so many book shelves with second hand books or paperbacks it was a mess. They had taken over my house. Apart from that, every time I moved, I had more boxes with books, than anything else... and they were heavy.

I do think in the future, probably a few generations away, the electronic display will take over... I just can't see it going any other way...

[neilmarr]

I really can see a time when the ebook replaces paperbacks, newspapers, magazines and other 'disposable' forms of publication. At that point, though, I can also imagine beautiful harback books becoming a profit-making luxury item for publishers/printers catering to a specialist and collector market. Neil

[Blue Tyson]

Originally Posted by GoblinWriter

I do half of my reading in the hot tub, so I better stick to paperbacks for that (is it possible to electrocute oneself with an e-reader? hmm). I'm mostly buying an e-reader for road trips. Long live paper books.

If you are dumb enough to have it plugged in to a wall socket, sure.

Otherwise you'd have to be running it off a hell of a battery!

[Nathan Campos]

Originally Posted by Solitaire1

I think pbooks and ebooks will co-exist, with each having its niche, with plenty of overlap.

Where I think ebooks will become dominant:

- Temporary reading, such as newspapers and magazines, I can see a significant move to ebooks.

- Flexible-text books, where the most important thing is the text itself, while the text's formatting can be flexible and easily modified without affecting the book itself.

- Books in the public domain.

Where I think pbooks will remain dominant:

- Long-term books, especially books where the way they appear is of importance (such as books given as gifts).

- Type of books where the current limitations of ereaders is a factor, such as very large books with full color pictures.

That's a very nice list, that all is true!

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Marcy

A PDA may seem a small expenditure to you. However for many people it is a significant one -- they can get pbooks free from the library or for an extremely nominal fee at the used bookstore or the school book fairs. And the PDA or whatever technical doo-dad you chose to read your books on will have to be replaced every couple of years, since consumer electronics aren't really built to last.

Many libraries are currently experimenting with or already introducing loanable e-book readers at the library, allowing those with limited incomes to borrow a reader and e-books to read, also free of charge.

My PDA may need to be replaced every so often... but as I pointed out, if you have your e-books on a separate storage medium, you can transfer them to another device with ease. These are not good reasons to denigrate the "technical doo-dads," they are minor points, easily addressed.

The realistic economics of printed books, however, are not so easily addressed. What do you propose to do about the diminishing print capacity of the world, and the need to leave trees standing to benefit the ecology, while the human population climbs closer to seven billion, making it harder and harder to get those books into the hands of those who want or need them?