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Old 06-10-2010, 12:39 PM   #1
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will e-books kill paper books?

I posted an article about this today. As an avid Kindle user, I can say I haven't picked up a paper book since October of last year. And I haven't missed them. But as I said in the article, I can't imagine taking my Kindle to the beach. What is the consensus here? Will paper media die?

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Old 06-10-2010, 01:26 PM   #2
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Never. Paper will exist even after people can download information straight into their brains.
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Old 06-10-2010, 01:36 PM   #3
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Maybe eventually. Maybe not even then.

Possibly after we have durable paper-quality displays for pennies, an eternal storage medium (not 8" floppies, then 5 1/4", then 3", the ZIP, then CD, then DVD, then Blu-Ray,...), and the format/DRM wars are mostly settled. In my lifetime? Seems dubious.

Keep in mind how long paper books have been around versus ANY digital medium. And how fragile most digital storage is compared to paper. Yeah, paper burns or floods but digital media hasn't proven to be especially robust, just easily copied.
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Old 06-10-2010, 01:49 PM   #4
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Paper won't die entirely, but it may eventually kill all/most mass market releases. What we may see is current hardcovers evolving into a higher quality/more elaborate collectors edition type release with ebooks making up the mass market release except for really popular authors who might also get a paper mass market release. It's quite a ways off though IMO.
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Old 06-10-2010, 01:51 PM   #5
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Amazon's Jeff Bezos:
http://www.newsweek.com/2009/12/20/t...ays-right.html

Quote:
Q: Do you think that the ink-on-paper book will eventually go away?

A: I do. I don't know how long it will take. You know, we love stories and we love narrative; we love to get lost in an author's world. That's not going to go away; that's going to thrive. But the physical book really has had a 500-year run. It's probably the most successful technology ever. It's hard to come up with things that have had a longer run. If Gutenberg were alive today, he would recognize the physical book and know how to operate it immediately. Given how much change there has been everywhere else, what's remarkable is how stable the book has been for so long. But no technology, not even one as elegant as the book, lasts forever.

Q: Do you still read books on paper?
A: Not if I can help it.
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Old 06-10-2010, 01:55 PM   #6
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Sony says it'll take 5 years for digital to overtake (not completely replace) print...
http://www.teleread.com/2010/06/03/s...ithin-5-years/
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Old 06-10-2010, 02:11 PM   #7
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I don't know how long it will take but I think there will be a point in the future where a limited number of books will actually make it to paper form. Those will be collector type books and hopefully of a much higher quality than today's current popular fiction books that lose their glue after 3 years. I really don't see much of a market for MMP in the long term. People who buy paper will want quality.

I also foresee the role of individual agents morphing. Rather than shopping a manuscript around to Publishing houses I think many of them will start to focus on connecting chosen authors with good editors, helping them format digital books, and then marketing the books to the public and providing the files directly to retailers. Branding will be done through Agency ... with the big names developing brands and reputations for finding the "Best Legal Thrillers" or the "Best Paranormal Romance" etc. The authors and their agencies will then split the commissions - largely cutting out the traditional publishers altogether.

In short .. there will be some agents who become the gatekeepers of what what we want to read, rather than traditional publishing houses.
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Old 06-10-2010, 02:23 PM   #8
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While I also rarely purchase paper anymore, individual anecdotes do not necessarily reflect or predict the actions of millions of people.

For example, ebooks are still a fairly small part of book sales -- 5% or so. Even with the recent explosive growth in ebooks, it's going to be a long time before it reaches parity with paper books.

Paper is still superior for many roles: Library use, art books, text books, nearly anything that needs to be marked up. It is also possible that as the industry does more and more digital versions, they may be able to make more books available in a print-on-demand format. On-site POD equipment may also drop in price enough to justify their use in small stores.

Also, for all the attention on digital, physical CD sales still make up the lion's share of sales and revenues. In 2009, CD's made up 80% of album sales, and digital was around 25% of total revenues. The overall CD sales declines, plus an increase in online purchases of CD's, have gotten to the point where retail outlets are getting killed -- but physical sales still continue and make up the majority of revenues.

Old habits die hard; and media attention and/or web forums do not necessarily reflect the economic realities.
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Old 06-10-2010, 03:00 PM   #9
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I read mostly paper books. I don't think they will go away any time soon - maybe when the prices of the e-readers come down under $100. That initial expense for an e-reader can be daunting to some people.

I would love to get an ipad, but can't justify spending $400-600 dollars on a luxury item at the moment. Even the Kindles are a bit pricey when you're watching your budget.
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Old 06-10-2010, 03:37 PM   #10
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Agree that there will always be paper books. But I think we will see in the next few years MMPBs being replaced by ebooks and large-format paperback replacing hardcover initial release for midlist books.

Last edited by MaggieScratch; 06-13-2010 at 02:04 AM.
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Old 06-10-2010, 03:49 PM   #11
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Depends on what kind of book. This is not a zero-sum type of situation. Mass market paperback will, as others have said, almost surely be supplanted. But things like children's picture books, cookbooks, art books etc. will probably have a paper market for a good long while.
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Old 06-10-2010, 06:09 PM   #12
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No.

MP3s haven't killed CDs have they?
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Old 06-10-2010, 08:18 PM   #13
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Considering how many of the books *I* read that aren't in ebook form (cookbooks, food related books), unless the technology improves -- a loooong time..
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Old 06-10-2010, 09:37 PM   #14
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Personally, I will never buy another paperback book if I can avoid it and would love to dispose of the few hundred "kicking around" the house.

I agree there is room for paper books: coffee table, picture, children's, etc. I just don't many of those.

But for mass paperbacks, or one off reads, I am delighted to have an e-reader.

It's even cost effective with a good ROI: net-net, for the stuff I've read since I bought a Kindle, I would have easily paid much more for the reading material had I shopped for paper copies at my local book shop and second hand dealer for classics.
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Old 06-10-2010, 10:16 PM   #15
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Someday -- sure. I'm 45 -- so perhaps in my lifetime. Consider that I spent $3,000 for my first computer about 20 years ago -- and my phone has far more computing power now. In the next 20 years I can't see why ebook technology will make paper books an expensive niche market.

At some point (well within 20 years) -- it will cease being economical to sell paper books as a mass market item. In 20 years we will no longer have a "non-technological" elderly population. 20 years from now, folks 65 yrs old will have grown up in the video age.

So yeah, the writing is on the wall for the mass market of paper books in developed countries. Not sure there's much of a mass market for paper books in the third world as it is.

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