Print vs. Ebook
In the distant past, a person who owned numerous books, possessing personal libraries, was a luxury of only the wealthy. Seeing thousands of novels in one setting would draw the attention of any normal person. Today, the average reader are beginning to leave the printed word behind and make the switch to digital. Monitors and digital readers take the place of bounded pages.
Some may believe we are slowly being tossed in to Jetson’s age where homes and businesses exist high in the sky and everyone drives flying cars. However, few still hold on to the written word that was cherished so dearly once upon a time. I possess well over a hundred books in my collection. Some stories I love. Others I would drop in a bargain bin if given the chance. Something about reading a book on a computer screen rather than physical pages takes away from the experience. You don’t get the same feeling.
Question is will we evolve so far in to the digital age that the printed word gets left behind? Will convenience trump what the world loved so much about leisure? Which do you prefer: print or ebook?
Comments are closed.
Write Anything 
You’d dump some of your books in a bargain bin if given the chance. Maybe bookmooch.com is for you. You can offer books and get points for each book someone asks you for. With these points you can mooch books you want from others.
As a child I always loved reading books. However now, as a blind person, I actually find digital books much more convenient and accessible. It takes four pages of braille to fit the content of one print page. the average novel in braille usually has around tent braille volumes which takes up a lot of space.
Thanks to ebooks, I can now enjoy many more books that aren’t available in braille or audio and they don’t take up any phisycal space. So I think that the shift towards ebooks can also be a good thing.
I did a quick survey of my Year 11 English class (16 -17 year olds) the other day about this idea and was quite surprised that most of them preferred a physical printed book. I was surprised because for most of these students, their life is connected by technology, yet their connection to physical books is still strong.
I agree with Dark Angel, that the benefit of ebooks is enormous.
However, I don’t want technology to dominate simply because it talks the loudest; publishers need to think very carefully about where they are going. But in saying that, I can see where the reduced cost of ebooks will be a very attractive business proposition.
I don’t want to see a printed book disappear, but I suspect it will.
It depends. With non-fiction, I’ll only buy print, because I consider non-fiction a reference.
With fiction, I prefer to buy in e-format unless I have reason to believe that it’s a book I’ll read over and over. My favorites still need to be in print, but if I’m pretty sure it’ll be just a one-time read, like a summer beach book, I prefer e-format so I don’t end up with yet another book taking up space. I’m all out of shelf space as it is, and out of bin and box space, too. I only buy the really special books in print these days.
I think I have mostly an attachment to the printed book, especially for reading novels. And in regards to publication, being in print feels more real to me than being published on an online market.
But I am moving further and further toward eBooks and online fiction.