Nelson sent me an article in the New York Times that reports on Amazon's newest e-book device. One that connects directly to an e-book seller (Amazon mayhaps? hummm.....?) The writer wonders if this might might be the start of a trend that would ultimately end the printed book's dominance. *here is a link to the article*
Here are my thoughts on E-books as a replacement for printed material in general.
hummm, electronic books are nothing new. Even the question itself is disingenuous. Look at the sales of just the Potter books to make my point. People take books for granted. You get a small faction that will tout that it saves trees. But books save trees. Think about it. Once you have a book, you never need that book again. You always have it. But every time you want to read an electronic page you must use energy. Some where there is something burning or turning to make that possible. Not so with the book. The book is not the lowest rung on the technology ladder, it is the peak of multimedia efficiency. Think of the book and the information analog of the bike. The bike is tech that is every bit as old as the book but shows no sign of being replaced any time soon. Augmented yes, replaced no. Why? Because its such a wonderfully efficient machine. It allows a person to move with very little energy, rivaling any animal in existence. The book is in the same class. It imparts information on several different levels and does it in a wildly efficient manner. Plus there has to be something to the pure tactile enjoyment of reading a book. Like a bike, a book is so much more than the sum of its parts. Until something comes along to make that moot, I don't see books going anywhere. Plus with a starting price of around $300 U.S. I am not rushing out to purchase one, no matter how much of a geek I am. 300 dollars to me is still at least 12 books on my worst days book buying. Nope, I don't see myself as a standard bearer of an antiquated tech either. For now and for the foreseeable future, I feel that I am getting the best bang for my buck and being pretty damn efficient at it as well.
Here are my thoughts on E-books as a replacement for printed material in general.
hummm, electronic books are nothing new. Even the question itself is disingenuous. Look at the sales of just the Potter books to make my point. People take books for granted. You get a small faction that will tout that it saves trees. But books save trees. Think about it. Once you have a book, you never need that book again. You always have it. But every time you want to read an electronic page you must use energy. Some where there is something burning or turning to make that possible. Not so with the book. The book is not the lowest rung on the technology ladder, it is the peak of multimedia efficiency. Think of the book and the information analog of the bike. The bike is tech that is every bit as old as the book but shows no sign of being replaced any time soon. Augmented yes, replaced no. Why? Because its such a wonderfully efficient machine. It allows a person to move with very little energy, rivaling any animal in existence. The book is in the same class. It imparts information on several different levels and does it in a wildly efficient manner. Plus there has to be something to the pure tactile enjoyment of reading a book. Like a bike, a book is so much more than the sum of its parts. Until something comes along to make that moot, I don't see books going anywhere. Plus with a starting price of around $300 U.S. I am not rushing out to purchase one, no matter how much of a geek I am. 300 dollars to me is still at least 12 books on my worst days book buying. Nope, I don't see myself as a standard bearer of an antiquated tech either. For now and for the foreseeable future, I feel that I am getting the best bang for my buck and being pretty damn efficient at it as well.
2 comments:
Like you, Paul, I believe that there is no substitute for the feel of paper and turning pages - and no batteries required!
However, as a writer of SF, I must concede that our personal preferences (i.e., yours and mine) might one day soon be relegated to those of 'dinosaurs' by a tech savvy/hungry younger generation who won't be brought up in the same world that we were...and as much as I'd like to, outside of my fiction, there's no going back...
Oh I am sure that constantly changing attitudes and tech will impact the printed page in the future. Just observing the effects daily tells me that its changing all the time. I still hold to my original premise though. Books today are popular not because they are "books" but because they are ...books... Books are simple cheap and efficient. There is nothing really special about books other than our preference for the emotional and tactile feel of them. But until tech can apply itself to all three advantages of the printed page, it will never replace it. When I have to pay 300 for the chance to read a book or 25 to own one....well its not contest.
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