McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
Books in a digital world, and when will books be obsolete?
terioncalling:
I'm suddenly reminded of an episode of...eh, what's the TV show. Sort of like the Twilight Zone only without Serling and more recent. Eh, I can't remember.
But it had an episode that was in a future world where books were made obsolute because of this computer system that hooked everyone into all the information in the world. People had this thingy on their head that hooked them into it and they could download whatever they wanted right into their brain. Except there was one guy it didn't work on and he had collected all the books he could.
'Course this continues on into a big plot by the computer to take over the world and - of course - book guy saves the day. But that's beside the point.
This discussion just reminded me of that.
And, personally, I believe I'll be a long time before the written word dies. Me, myself, I love stuff I can read online. But I love having an actual flesh 'n blood book in my hands much more.
novium:
--- Quote from: smoorman on October 04, 2006, 01:38:37 AM ---Baen Publishing has had an e-book line for some seven years now. What they do is, you can can get the entire month's worth of books for about what a single hardback costs. As I understand it, they pay those authors in the exact same way the pay for paper versions.
--- End quote ---
they also have a lot of books up for free, because ... well, it's a long philosophy/rant. Basically they don't think piracy is a problem. Especially when so much of their business relies on libraries, people lending books to their friends, etc.
novium:
It was the outer limits.
Anyway, I think there's a time and place for e-books. For example, I've got a bunch of books from the baen free library on my PDA. It doesn't bother me all that much to read it that way. I'd never want it to replace paper books, but it is damn handy to have ten books packed into something the thickness of maybe 15 playing cards and only of a slightly larger size. Then I'm never stuck without a book, because I keep my PDA in my wallet... or I can take it out and slip it into a pocket.
--- Quote from: terioncalling on October 04, 2006, 10:37:57 PM ---I'm suddenly reminded of an episode of...eh, what's the TV show. Sort of like the Twilight Zone only without Serling and more recent. Eh, I can't remember.
But it had an episode that was in a future world where books were made obsolute because of this computer system that hooked everyone into all the information in the world. People had this thingy on their head that hooked them into it and they could download whatever they wanted right into their brain. Except there was one guy it didn't work on and he had collected all the books he could.
'Course this continues on into a big plot by the computer to take over the world and - of course - book guy saves the day. But that's beside the point.
This discussion just reminded me of that.
And, personally, I believe I'll be a long time before the written word dies. Me, myself, I love stuff I can read online. But I love having an actual flesh 'n blood book in my hands much more.
--- End quote ---
terroja:
It'll never happen.
Dom:
Never is a long time, terroja.
I find it interesting that people in general have not been addressing what I wrote, but rather...I guess the idea of digital books as they stand now. Looking at the present, rather then the future.
Some elaborations on my original post:
1. Like always, there will be generational resistance to the adoption of a new technology. I highly doubt any of us on this board, even those who regularly read stories on thier PDAs, computers, etc. will ever give up paper books. I do not expect us ever to. I know that I will not.
However, that does not mean the next generation, perhaps those who are not born yet, or perhaps those who are still in diapers today, will have the same nostalgia for paper books. Again, consider the very viberent world of fanfiction; 99% of that is online. It's a whole spectrum of fiction that is almost entirely read online. You get a 10 year old, 12 year old reading it, and they won't find anything strange at all at reading fiction that's not in a book ten years in the future. Sure, it's clunky now, but humanity is all about innovation. Someone will get fed up with things and make it easier.
2. Antimatter Girl mentioned Tad Williams. I wasn't aware of his venture...my question is, was it only his own fiction that he published, or did he have a wide array of fiction by many authors? The critical point for most websites online is quantity (and to a lesser extent, the quality standards or moderation system in place). The big, comprehensive sites online get the traffic. This is also one of the hardest things to get together for the sort of site I'm hypothesising about, because you have to convince many, many skeptical, critical authors to contribute their babies to such a cause. Again, I'm using fanfiction.net as an example. A lot of it is dross, but many fanfiction authors post there anyway just because so many people use the site, and they are sure to get a wide audience. There are so many readers on the site because there are so many fanfiction authors on the site. It's a self-reinforcing cycle. Until one site hits that critical mass, yes, it is very, very likly that most digital book sites will fail, both in readership and in making money.
3. I don't think there will be a book-replacement gadget soon; the technology I mentioned is in its infancy. However, I do believe once we have a gadget that has all the positives of a physical book, and none of the negatives that gadgets nowdays have (battery life, fragility, etc), one physical book that you can download hundreds or thousands of books into would go over great with the travel/space-conscious crowd, and also the younger generation (who won't be nostalgic over paper books). I could see this going over great in colleges too. Price will of course start high, and then drop. Think of MP3 players nowdays; I have one myself that cost $250.00. My CD player from before cost $40.00. The reason I paid the premium for the MP3 player is because I can fit more songs onto the device, and I don't have to carry CDs which can be scratched (half my collection is scratched because of sliding around in my car, which means I have to re-buy the CDs after a while). Books are friggin heavy; I know, I just moved, and I have 400+ books. While I would never give up my physical books, being of THIS generation, a younger generation might see carrying all those friggin heavy books as just plain silly. Just buy your $250.00 book-reader, and put all your books on that. Never have to break your back moving books again.
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