This make very sad and i recently decided i was going to start a organization to prevent paperbooks from being obsolete, to have debuting Authors joining the cause and established authors to support the cause. Because if everything becomes digital, if we have a information war everything from modern times is gone. A new dark age will rise. This cannot and must not happen. I've always been anti-digital when it comes to no paperback involvement.
Considered a preservation trust? Accumulate notable fiction, bestsellers and literary works. Also, information is a lot harder to remove than you think. Set a computer on fire, and a lot of the information is still recoverable. This is the sort of archaeology they'll be doing in the future... We will be remembered as the age of Porn and Cats!
Nope. The great mediums keep coming back around. After all, vinyl records, thought to be long gone, are making a comeback. Why? Because it's the final generation of the first medium used (analog recording on flat disks), and has a special place for many people. I believe that books will be the exact same. Now, I can see paperback books going away, and even mass-produced hardbacks. But there is no equivalent of having a first-edition print of your favorite book sitting on the shelves, just like there's no equivalent of having a vinyl record sitting in your cabinet.
I think it will take a very long, long time, but barring some sort of truly almost apocalyptic-level disaster, they will at some point go all digital. Even the ones that don't seem as susceptible to going digital, like children's picture books or "coffee table books" or books of photos or art. It does make me sad, because I also love the physical books. I am very resistant to e-books. I have a kindle, but only because my husband bought it for me, even after I told him not to. I rarely read it, even though I have bought a bunch of books for it (usually when the e-book was significantly cheaper than the actual book). I love looking at books, and holding them in my hand and flipping through the pages. I'll do this a bunch of times before I even start reading the book. When I'm tired and don't feel like reading, I sometimes sit with a few books and just look through them. So I really love the physical books. But, with each generation, they're going to be more and more into electronic reading. As it is, I doubt anyone under 30 (or certainly 25) has ever regularly read a newspaper that was printed on newsprint, and I would be surprised to find anyone in that age group who still reads a physical newspaper or magazine, or doesn't at the very least, express a preference for reading it electronically and only reads it the old fashioned way because someone else is the primary subscriber. Their kids will have even less attachment to some sort of paper with ink-printed words.
Maybe in a thousand years we won't be printing on wood pulp. Our "paper" will be made of something entirely different, and instantly recyclable. So we won't have to cut down trees to print fiction. We'll just have molecule engineers assemble new forms of matter with the exact properties we want for our book materials, and we'll print on that.
That's false, because i'm 15 and i despise only the choice of digital. I love Newspapers and physical books, i plan to make sure that one day my grandchildren will have the same passion. I want to be the one who makes sure physical books are saved and hopefully more will join the cause. I enjoy electronic reading, but nowhere near to the enjoyment of physical reading. I love Cover art, i love the smell of newly printed and old printed books. I love to read the info on the back too. I know it saves trees but i think we should replant hundreds and hundreds of more trees to protect the environment and continue the age of physical books. I don't mind Kindles as a choice, but if it becomes the only option i won't accept it.
I am ecstatic to hear that it is false, but I fear that with each successive generation there will be fewer like you, and not enough to sustain a demand. It might take 1000 years or more, but I think that one day it will happen.
Why would they go through the process of creating this paper, printing on it, storing it, when in an instant all of the above can be done on a piece of glass? You're one person, and definitely do not speak for the majority.
It only takes one. Look at Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr. India was spineless and afraid to speak their minds and thought it was impossible for independence, but then Ghandi stepped in and helped change all of that. After enough peaceful protest, it became a independent nation. Martin Luther King was pinned against the wall by the Whites who opposed him, but he was so determined he knew he would lose his life eventually fighting for a cause, and it happened. Blacks became free. If you told both of those great men that they are only one person and they can't change the world, they will prove you wrong. Ghandi inspired many people and has the respect from people living now. Not that am i anyway close to the greatness as they are, it's just i see these true leaders facing the odds and never quitting so it means something. I don't care if i'm the minority, i will make it a majority. Just because one thinks something can happen and does something about it, doesn't mean he or she stands alone in the end.
You bet. There are more than one way to make paper, however we haven't discovered yet. Just like Warp Drive. Hell, we are still discovering new fish. People are so doom and gloom about paperback when more and more people are recycling each day. I may seem like a fool, but a determined one at that. Digital and paperback should co-exist with new ways to make paper. Nothing more, nothing less.
No... you just compared your campaign to save paperbacks to two of the most famous and monumental human rights movements in history... You don't see a problem with that? Paper backs vs. e-readers - is black tea Vs. with milk. Not a call to stand against hundreds of years of slavery oppression.
Not easy to wrap your fish supper or keep the cat litter off the floor with a Kindle... but I suppose our household robot will do all that. I do hope the robot appears before the newspaper dies, though.
It won't be the tragedy some people seem to think. It will just be different. And to each generation that grows up with fewer and fewer "real" books it won't even be different - just the way things are for them.
lol... In reference to others, or yourself? ;-) I give mass-produced paperback novels 10 years, give or take a couple. Guess I'd better get a wriggle on, if I want my name "in print"!
I don't think we will ever completely lose physical books. I see a lot of people putting the "I pledge to read the printed word" buttons on their sites and blogs. Most people I've spoken to prefer a physical book to a digital one. I can see the advantages with space. People like tangible things. If you can hold it in your hands people will probably prefer it. That's just my experience and based on what I've seen with others. I've had friends get nooks and other e readers that wound up abandoning them for physical books later on.
No, but they sell butcher's paper, wax paper, aluminum foil, and plastic wrap (a whole other issue). They sell vacuum seal mechanisms and there are glass and plastic containers for the fish. For cat boxes there is a reusable mat, or the old fashioned broom to deal with litter. There are also those cat boxes that clean themselves and devices to teach a cat to use a toilet. I suspect that in the future all of these types of problems will be "solved," (if one deems that the need solving) through other technological advancements. And I've never wrapped my fish or captured kitty litter with a book.
Or maybe he does. There are a lot of people who have e-readers and buy e-books (or download those freebies by the ton - for obvious reasons) but do it mainly for the convenience factor. They still want books on their shelves at home, to be picked up and read and felt and smelled... It's not an either/or thing for them and I see no reason why it should be.
While our society is constantly evolving, we are not. We are still cavemen, and we still and will always cherish the tangible experiences. Just as movies have not completely replaced plays, and skype conversations have not completely replaced meeting face-to-face, neither will ebooks completely replace hard copy books.
Go and survey some people. But don't ask them "what do you think about..." Ask "Have you thought about paperback V. e-readers" - I'll bet you'd find that most people have never given it a thought. There have been numerous threads on these forums about this debate, but you need to remember that this is a micro-society. In the outside world, people just don't give a shit.
Eventually, probably, much like books replaced scrolls once the tech was there. But I doubt it'll be soon - e-books can provide the content, but not all of the experience yet. I imagine that in the meantime we'll see more of a shift away from mass-market paperbacks to books which are desirable as objects - good quality paper, beautiful typography, illustrations, maybe limited runs and collectors' items.
Then how do you know FX doesn't represent the majority? Maybe if they were asked, they would think about it, and give you an answer you don't expect. Maybe if they were asked, you'd find that they have thought about it, especially when you consider how many people buy books in various formats. You don't know any more than I do what the response from the general public would be, so stating your opinion as if it were fact doesn't make much sense, does it?
