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Is this the end for books?

Will

Will

Active Member
Interesting article in the Guardian here regarding the Kindle and ebooks, and their effect on the printed book.

Given a few of the threads cropping up on here I thought a few of us might get a kick from it.
 
I'm not sure he mentioned price.

Irrespective of all other considerations, it is the lower price for Kindle books that causes me to buy the Kindle version when I am only going to read the book once.

If it dies or gets lost, no problem. :cool:
 
I've come to a place with regards to e-readers. The question being, what will e-readers take the place of physical books. Honestly. As long as there are books, I'm good. I'm realize that we are going through a transformation.

I'm wondering if the first combustion engine automobile purchasers lamented the effect on horse and buggy. Probably. Probably many refused the "new fangled" horse-less buggys. But everything changes. I'm thinking that pulp and binding books may well be for the fortunate who have the physical space for them. I have limited space and the physical books I collect have to be ones that my family deems as "special." But, I'm very glad to have the digital books at my beck and call that I'm not sure if I want to dedicate precious bookshelf space to.

Be joyful of the abundance of reading material we all have, e-reader or paper/leather form.
 
Zolipara said:
I'll buy an e-reader when they stop printing books.
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I have no animosity towards e-readers; I'll probably buy one eventually. At the moment, I rarely buy books at all. Interlibrary loan enables me to preview books I might want to purchase, and allows me to read books I'd only read once without shelling out money I don't have to spare. I have a houseful of readers too; no way I can buy every book we'd possibly want to read. As long as free libraries exist and I have the option of requesting materials from other free libraries, I don't absolutely need an e-reader.
 
Nope, not the end of books for quite some time because there's still a large portion of the world who love the feel of a classic book. Also, books still feel more "real"
 
E-readers are convenient. he screen looks like a book paper. Almost no difference. It's small but can store hundreds of books. E-books are cheaper this is why people buy more e-books novadays.I'm glad people started reading more.
 
The price of e-books is strange. I don't know if there's much standardization. People complain about amazon's prices being not enough of a discount compared to the paperback.
 
I love my Kindle and have embraced it along with most practical new technology that has come along in my lifetime, but I don't think it will ever completely phase out my puchasing of "real" books. I hope that e-books will help to reduce the price of printed books, personally. I hate paying $50.00 for a book that I know costs less than $5.00 to print.
 
Nah, with lower book sales and more limited distribution options, prices for books are headed up not down. Remember, you're losing the economy of scale...
 
I still think there are enough "old-schoolers" out there that don't even know the technology exists, much less how to use it, that the mass markets will still be around for quite some time. I work with someone who had never even heard of an e-reader or e-book and my boss has never-and I mean never ever-even gotten on a computer. There are still too many dinosaurs for books to be phased out completely.
 
Ah. I can see that as a possibility. Looking forward to seeing how it all shakes out. I never would have thought that the digitization of music would give new life to specialty recording studious, but it did.

Who knows what will happen as lit undergoes the change?
 
I think that vanity press type stuff will be more and more common in e-book formats and paperbacks will probably end up getting too expensive to be worth it. Hardcover books will probably remain largely unchanged.

I think the big thing is that e-books will overtake paperbacks.
 
abecedarian said:
I have no animosity towards e-readers; I'll probably buy one eventually. At the moment, I rarely buy books at all. Interlibrary loan enables me to preview books I might want to purchase, and allows me to read books I'd only read once without shelling out money I don't have to spare. I have a houseful of readers too; no way I can buy every book we'd possibly want to read. As long as free libraries exist and I have the option of requesting materials from other free libraries, I don't absolutely need an e-reader.
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exactly, interlibrary loan is such a great thing, without it most libraries would be alot more useless today.

I don't know how many times I've had a book on my TBR or TBB list and simply got it via interlibrary loan, you can at least see if it's worth it to buy it for the long term thus saving alot of money right there. And of course good old fashioned borrowing to read save lots of money there as well.
 
different papers, fonts, covers, and sizes. If I am going to spend a few hours reading a book, I'll usually pay 1-5 bucks extra for a real copy. I mean damn, 5 bucks is less than a meal at McDonalds, I'll be enjoying the book for a few hours at least hopefully.

But I must admit, I love free books on kindle (classics and such with no copy right anymore). My girlfriend's iphone has a cooler e-reader on it than my kindle though, so I'm a little jealous. haha.
 
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