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In his 1951 short story The Fun They Had, Isaac Asimov has a boy who finds something really weird in the attic -- a printed book. In this future, all reading was done on screens.
When e'books* like the Nook and Kindle came out, there were always women sitting outside the building on break on a nice spring day reading their Nooks and Kindles. It looked like the future to me, Asimov's story come true. I prefer printed books, but thought that it was because I'm old, and was thirty before I read anything but TV and movie credits on a screen.
And then I started writing books. My youngest daughter Patty is going to school at Cincinnati University (as a proud dad I have to add that she's Phi Beta Kappa and working full time! I'm not just proud, I'm in awe of her) and when she came home on break and I handed her a hardbound copy of Nobots she said "My dad wrote a book! And it's a REAL book!"
So somehow, even young people like Patty value printed books over e'books.
My audience is mostly nerds, since few non-nerds know of me or my writing, so I figured that the free e'book would far surpass sales of the printed books. Instead, few people are downloading the e'books. More download the PDFs, and more people buy the printed books than PDFs and ebooks combined.
Most people just read the HTML online, maybe that's a testament to my m4d sk1llz at HTML (yeah, right).
Five years ago I was convinced ink was on the way out, but there's a book that was printed long before the first computer was turned on that says "the news of my death has been greatly exaggerated".
* I'll write a short story about the weird spelling shortly.
(Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Saturday March 21 2015, @01:48PM
"e'book" is better. It's a real contraction, not a "branding exercise" with attendant murdering of good style, that we have all come to take silently for granted, "e-book" and whatnot.
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Sunday March 22 2015, @02:25PM
You nailed it. I haven't written the article yet, maybe tomorrow.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday March 22 2015, @11:30AM
Nobody has figured out the "ebook as a gift" marketplace although Barnes and Noble have totally optimized the hell out of the "book as a gift" marketplace / experience / business model / whatever is most appropriate description.
So I mostly read online but I'll occasionally get gifted a physical paperback book. I've somehow accumulated the complete works of Leo Frankowski (a somewhat obscure Polish sci fi / alt hist / sort of fantasy author) and my family feels obligated to provide me a copy of the annual anthologies almost every year (stuff like "best new sci fi of 2003" and similar titles)
People keep telling me all pbook stores will die, but B+N provides a standardized experience across the country of "pbook as a gift" and they do a remarkably good job of that specific experience. Maybe all the pbook stores but B+N will die, or B+N will screw up, but they'll always be a market position for the "pbook as a gift", however small it might be.
(Score: 1) by basicbasicbasic on Tuesday March 24 2015, @03:20PM
I transferred my CDs and DVDs to a hard drive long ago, sold the physical copies and don't regret it at all - they're in a format that is easier to play and takes up no space. But when it comes to reading I don't even consider buying ebooks - real books don't run out of power, are more durable and more comfortable to read, and unlike music I've never wanted to carry hundreds of books with me at once. Paper books are just a better format for me.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday March 25 2015, @08:30PM
Well, Betteridge's Law is hardly a law, since he broke it himself more than once, But yeah. I still have all my LPs and cassettes and CDs, but the only ones that get played are the CDs (including the cassettes and LPs I sampled) and they only in the car. All my music, including music that started out analog, are on my hard drive. As soon as I replace my DVD burner the rest of my movies will be there, too.
If I were in college I'd certainly have all my textbooks on my notebook computer, but I don't mind carrying one or two physical books from the library. In fact, the newest thing on my shelves is a hadcover copy of We Were Soldiers - And Young (should have just checked it out from the library, it's too dry for enjoyable reading).
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2015, @09:07AM
The University of Oxford Text Archive has been called "the oldest electronic text centre for scholarly materials, founded in 1976"1 and the first item in its catalogue2 is still available 39 years later (albeit in all caps).
There's a paper book that's lasted since the 6th century3, and a set of engraved gold sheets from around 600 BC that were unearthed in modern times.3, 4 Zirconium 7025 or platinum-iridium ought to last a long time, too. Laser etch, rub with India ink for contrast, and bind in the ancient way with metal rings?
[1] http://computerphilologie.uni-muenchen.de/jg03/robinson.html [uni-muenchen.de]
[2] http://ota.ox.ac.uk/desc/0001 [ox.ac.uk]
[3] https://medievalfragments.wordpress.com/2013/12/20/what-is-the-oldest-book-in-the-world/ [wordpress.com]
[4] https://wiganlanebooks.co.uk/blog/interesting/10-of-the-oldest-known-surviving-books-in-the-world/ [wiganlanebooks.co.uk]
[5] http://corrosion.ksc.nasa.gov/610-89a.htm [nasa.gov]