# On print as a luxury, and ebooks as ephemera



## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

I know, what brings us all together here is the Kindle. But, more generally...

It is a very great pity that the permanent bound book (both hard and softcover), which brought quality literature as well as entertainment and pleasure to untold millions at very modest cost, is becoming a luxury item. It is a crying shame that it is being replaced by the ephemeral ebook, which will become as worthless as an eight track tape of Barry Manilow songs whenever Amazon or Apple or whoever decides to change the "standard" of their format, or just by creeping modification to the standard. If you don't believe me, try reading a PDF -- widely known to be the most stable of the current formats -- from the early years on current PDF software.

I have zero faith in the resurgence of the eight-track car audio tape.


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## DRMarvello (Dec 3, 2011)

Andre Jute said:


> It is a very great pity that the permanent bound book (both hard and softcover), which brought quality literature as well as entertainment and pleasure to untold millions at very modest cost, is becoming a luxury item. It is a crying shame that it is being replaced by the ephemeral ebook...


I think it's great that ebooks, however ephemeral, are replacing *certain* print books.

For me, fiction in print is largely dead, and I think that's a good thing from an environmental perspective. In general (at least 99% of the time), I read a fiction book only once. There's no value to me in having a physical book sitting on a shelf gathering dust. Sure, I could give the book away or donate it to the library, but that doesn't change the fact that for me, most fiction is utterly disposable. On the very rare occasion when I find a book I love and anticipate reading it multiple times, I buy a print copy. E-books allow me to get my reading fix for a lower cost (generally), and I honestly don't care if they disappear once I'm done reading them. I'm fine with "licensing" versus "owning."

On the other hand, I still buy almost all of my non-fiction in print. All of my books on writing are in print because I *know* I will read them again, and I prefer the print format for non-fiction anyway. I doubt I'll ever switch to e-books for non-fiction unless that becomes the only way to get them. There's one exception: I rarely buy programming books in print because the technology changes so fast they become useless too quickly. I've gone digital for my tech info.

What I do think is a shame is that e-books will probably change the "free print book" ecosystem. I was a big supporter of my public library before I got my Kindle. I regularly borrowed books, bought books at their book sales, and donated those books back to them. I'm sure many people have been the beneficiaries of free or low-cost used print books, which require no special software or hardware. The free book ecosystem for e-books is still developing, and it seems like a lot of issues still need to be worked out. As is often the case, people who have severely limited resources are getting the short end of the technological advancement stick.


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## Carol (was Dara) (Feb 19, 2011)

DRMarvello said:


> There's no value to me in having a physical book sitting on a shelf gathering dust.


This is pretty much how I feel about it. Sure, it saddened me the day I went through my print books and disposed of the ones I knew I'd never read again. But in a way it was also a load off my mind. I have a horror of dust and clutter and that's exactly what my print books were becoming. Mind you, there'll always be something special about holding a nice old fashioned book in my hand and I definitely plan to always have my favorite books in print. But in the future I expect my shelves to hold something like twenty physical books, instead of hundreds.


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## gljones (Nov 6, 2012)

I'm a big fan of print, in fact I still buy my fiction as mostly paperbacks.  Having said that, I don't see how the physical print industry for fiction can survive the ebook tsunami.
non-fiction, however, I can see that in print for a the foreseeable future but I just don't see fiction surviving.  It may take a while, but my grandkids will be making fun of me someday for holding a physical book in my hand.


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## Mike D. aka jmiked (Oct 28, 2008)

gljones said:


> It may take a while, but my grandkids will be making fun of me someday for holding a physical book in my hand.


Or they could be castigating you for not being with the rest of them and leaving the cave to scavenge for nuts, berries, and small animals to eat while it's still daylight. 

Mike


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## markarayner (Mar 14, 2011)

I think paper books will survive, but they will become a much more niche kind of thing for pretentious wankers like me who enjoy having a small library of beautifully crafted books on a shelf. 

Has anyone else been enticed by The Folio Society? Pure evil.


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## Robena (Jan 19, 2013)

I enjoy my print books, I read them over and over again. In fact if I buy an e-book and love it, I'll often buy the print version for the very reason of it's physical presence on my shelves. : )


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## gljones (Nov 6, 2012)

jmiked said:


> Or they could be castigating you for not being with the rest of them and leaving the cave to scavenge for nuts, berries, and small animals to eat while it's still daylight.
> 
> Mike


Are you watching the walking dead? I'm about 3 episodes behind.


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## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

markarayner said:


> I think paper books will survive, but they will become a much more niche kind of thing for pretentious wankers like me who enjoy having a small library of beautifully crafted books on a shelf.
> 
> Has anyone else been enticed by The Folio Society? Pure evil.


Like vinyl LPs to an audiophile. There's a whole mystique extant about vinyl having "more" sound on it than digital CDs do... I can easily see a similar mystique shooting up about printed books, complete with its own high priesthood. I'm a high priest of audio, heretic branch, as a tube -- British: valve -- amplifier and loudspeaker designer http://www.audio-talk.co.uk/fiultra/JUTE%20ON%20AMPS.htm who can't be bothered with vinyl, so I know how heated the factions can become. I'm looking forward to the day someone makes a case that "the feel of the book adds insight to the story".

But in my original post I was thinking more along the lines of D. R. Marvello, about the marvelous capacity of printed books to survive and spiral down to all levels of society. Nobody in a society with printed books is too poor to have books, even if acquired by dumpster-diving, but my Kindle, case and delivery, cost €250, over USD300 and even a cheap Kindle I saw in a supermarket the other day is still €99, far too high to be anything but a luxury item. When it gets to be 9.95 in whatever smackeroos are current in your country, then it will truly be a replacement for books - and it will, or, more precisely, a clone will, but that's another discussion.


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## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

I'm with Dara - not having piles of books all over the house for the first time in my life is a fantastic thing. I haven't bought a paper book since I got my K1 in 2009, and I have already done some rereading of favorite books that are now digital. I kept 3 bookcases with old favorites because I'm too cheap to buy digital versions of books I own in paper, but pulling out a paperback to reread the other day made me go hmm because the print is small enough to be bothersome.

I do worry about losing books because of format changes. That's why I'm very much in the anti-DRM camp, but I don't worry about it enough to buy paper books.

The cheapest Kindle is something like $69. In a society where a cell phone is considered a necessity, and the "poor" have air conditioning, microwaves, and automobiles, I don't see that as a big stopper to reading. And there are always libraries. I do read paper books from libraries when something I want isn't available or is priced beyond what I consider reasonable.


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## Grace Elliot (Mar 14, 2011)

I used to buy huge amounts of paper-books until I got my Kindle. Now I spend the same amount (!) of money but purchase ebooks, hence I can buy even more...OK, OK, I have a huge 'virtual' TBR pile, but I have lots and lots of lovely books. Seriously, I buy non-fiction as a physical book (mainly because of the photos and illustrations - but this may even change now) and all my fiction as ebooks. 
I don't think print is a luxury - just outdated for my reading habits.


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## jason10mm (Apr 7, 2009)

Dedicated e-book readers may be a luxury, but the market penetration of devices that can display an e-book is HUGE. Every computer, smart phone, tablet, etc, can be an e-book reader and almost everyone in America has access to at least one of these devices.

While us old timers may scoff at reading a book off a monitor or off a smart phone, the younger generation are capable of spending hours reading from these screens. The real question is whether or not the availability of highly portable media and gaming devices will make book reading IN GENERAL fall away. Will short stories make a come-back? Will today's youth spend any time sitting down to read a book, no matter the format?


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## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

jason10mm said:


> The real question is whether or not the availability of highly portable media and gaming devices will make book reading IN GENERAL fall away. Will short stories make a come-back? Will today's youth spend any time sitting down to read a book, no matter the format?


To discover the answers, ride a bus. All kinds of people read on smartphones, and I tried it, quite pleasant for an hour or two at a time. The short story has already made a comeback from being so nearly moribund that virtually the only outlet for a short story in the world was the British version of public service radio, the BBC, and a few minority genre like hard sci-fi. Now I meet writers of short stories all the time. Many of the people you see on a bus or a train reading are young. I live in one of the wealthiest areas (jokingly called the Costa del Tax Exile) in one of the most expensive countries in the world, and I see no evidence that the printed book is even wounded, never mind dead. The library thrives, you see people, young and old, with books on benches, in cafes, on the bus (we don't have trains in an area where a minimum car for a humble housewife is a Mercedes coupe) reading printed book; my own family, with several computers and several tablets per capita, still buys enough printed books to fill several new bookcases every year, so that we have to buy double-deep bookcases because the wall space is the limit; we have a thriving village bookshop. I ride the bus four times a year and ask to see what they read. Mainly thick historical romances, and downmarket from there; when I used to take the train from Cambridge to London for the same purpose, in the first class carriages cheap thrillers ruled and elsewhere better quality thrillers and romances, historical and aspirational.

Oh, and yesterday I was in an upmarket charity shop called Gorta, looking for a small lady's leather clutch purse to use as a toolbag on my bicycle, and I saw three people buying stacks of books, and one of them was wearing a camelhair coat that won't give any change out of three grand. I imagine she takes my attitude, that the secondhand books have been selected by people just like her, saving her the hassle of discovering what's good. The great David Ogilvie said "The consumer isn't an idiot, she's your wife."


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## Grace Elliot (Mar 14, 2011)

Andre Jute said:


> I see no evidence that the printed book is even wounded, never mind dead. The library thrives, you see people, young and old, with books on benches, in cafes, on the bus


I want to live where you do! 
So sad, I live in a large town on the outskirts of London and our last bookshop closed on Christmas Eve. We used to have an enormous Borders (which was my second home) which closed down which left us with multiple bargain bookstores and a Waterstones. One by one all the bargain shops closed and then Dec 24th Waterstones closed its doors for the last time. From the evidence of my eyes, paperbooks are on life support and the bookstores have been cremated and their ashes scattered. 
With wholesale library closures in the UK, that leaves mainly Amazon and eBay as places to obtain books and I can't help wondering how children will get there introduction to browsing bookshelves and the wonders of discovering a book they didn't know they were interested in until they flicked through the pages.


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## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

Grace Elliot said:


> I want to live where you do!
> So sad, I live in a large town on the outskirts of London and our last bookshop closed on Christmas Eve. We used to have an enormous Borders (which was my second home) which closed down which left us with multiple bargain bookstores and a Waterstones. One by one all the bargain shops closed and then Dec 24th Waterstones closed its doors for the last time. From the evidence of my eyes, paperbooks are on life support and the bookstores have been cremated and their ashes scattered.
> With wholesale library closures in the UK, that leaves mainly Amazon and eBay as places to obtain books and I can't help wondering how children will get there introduction to browsing bookshelves and the wonders of discovering a book they didn't know they were interested in until they flicked through the pages.


Good heavens. It just shows how quickly what we take for granted can be destroyed, how a plenitude can be turned into a cultural wasteland. I'm sorry to hear that, Grace.


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## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Where I live in New England the libraries are bustling and very busy with all manner of paperbooks and a selection of ebooks which keeps growing. Recently I've taken the train and the bus and I'm amazed at the many passengers with either paper or e-e-reader, though e-readers have the edge. 

Bookstores have dwindled down to 2 small ones and both sell used books too. Selection is thin. I know they try. Gone are the big 2 chains that were in the mall. The nearest independent bookstore is at minimum 2 hour roundtrip drive. The other is 3 hours in the other direction. 

I remember the magic as a child finding my first Jules Verne book on the library shelves. Eventually paper will recede, but the magic of finding a good book online will happen to millions...without the dust and fading paper.


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## AuthorJotter (Feb 24, 2013)

For me, there is still a sort of magic in opening a physical book, and being able to feel the weight of it.  I have not yet had the same feeling of discovery online that I get in a physical bookstore, coming across some unexpected gem.  However, most of my print purchases are now non-fiction or special versions of fiction, perhaps with illustrations or from favorite authors.  Where I live there is still one chain bookstore, and an independent that is 90% used books or on-line searches.  I have yet to cull my physical book collection, but I need to.  The shelves are overflowing.


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## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

AuthorJotter said:


> For me, there is still a sort of magic in opening a physical book, and being able to feel the weight of it. I have not yet had the *same feeling of discovery online* that I get in a physical bookstore, coming across some unexpected gem. ..... I have yet to cull my physical book collection, but I need to. The shelves are overflowing.


I gave away most of my books to friends and the library about 5 years ago--I had too much and most I'd never read again. It felt good and I had a lot of new space. Less dust.

Years ago as a kid I would spend the day at the original B&N in NYC, before they went corporate and for me back then it was a magical experience. Back then it was the greatest and biggest bookstore I'd ever imagined. I too used to think the feeling of discovery was better back then. One day I realized I was using the soft and hazy nostalgia lens and re-thought it.

Back then the selection really and truly was a puny selection, I now realize. Today the selection at Amazon is 1000's of times better than what B&N and their Annex shelved. A store would have to be the size of Yankee Stadium to shelve all of the books produced today and that is not possible or feasible. Or desirable.

I've made some magical discoveries online--they are there. It's different though. In 30 years someone will look back to that magical day they found their first really great book, back when they were a kid and shopping on Amazon. And like you and I. They will be wearing their nostalgia glasses too.


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## Ben Finn (Mar 4, 2013)

Well its sad but its the times we live in. That said putting a business hat on...print books will become a major niche somewhere...


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## 123nancy (Dec 22, 2012)

I personally prefer ebooks. I'm dyslexic and reading on an ereader allows me to enjoy reading. Print books are difficult for me to maintain focus. That having been said I'm married to a bibliophile and it was a sad day indeed when he brought many of his books from storage only to find that they were infested with book mites. 

I like not having the dust and stacks upon stacks (my husband was really bad we are talking thousands of books).

Now there are certain books that I make it a point to own the hard copy mostly because if there is a story that I love and I want to share it I like to have it around. I have a copy of one book that has literally been read by 30 people.

As far as B&N the model is failing and authors (which I am not) struggle and actually pay money to be in the stores. Little known fact, having your book facing forward in B&N is something that is paid for by the author/publisher.

Ebooks are advantageous all around with the exception of discovery. I don't know that there is a formula for success. There are so many wonderful books out there that don't get discovered.


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## Mike D. aka jmiked (Oct 28, 2008)

gljones said:


> Are you watching the walking dead? I'm about 3 episodes behind.


Nope, couldn't get into that series, for whatever reason.

Mke


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