Well that degenerated quickly One point can we stop talking about "ebooks vs traditional" ..... trad publishing deals include ebooks in most cases, and self publishers can easily do print through POD ... both can also do audio. The issue here is self publishing vs traditional publishing - ebooks are a red herring.
Well the thing to take away is that e-books beat out sales of physical books on Amazon in only four years. It's very expensive to print physical books, it's not very expensive to publish an e-book. I think within our lifetime alone, we'll see traditional publishers primarily working with e-book publishing and helping more with marketing and editing the product, as their role of "we will make the physical product for you" has been made obsolete. E-book sales have fallen slightly in the last couple of years, but I doubt they'll stay down for long.
You don't give a publisher rights, they buy them. I don't really understand why anyone would want to run off with another publisher after getting a book deal. Do you know how hard it is to get a book deal with these publishers you're bashing? And, for the most part, you can make a hell of a lot more money with a big publisher than you are going to make self publishing an ebook. That's just how it is. And as fast as you think the publishing world is moving, it's not. Books aren't going anywhere. I say this as an avid reader who will always prefer an actual book to anything electronic, and I'm not alone in thinking this way. Again, you have these predictions, but it just sounds like you don't really know the publishing world and how it works that well.
I will always prefer actual books to anything electronic, too, but I'm not alone in believing that publications are moving towards e-books. E-books are basically superior in every subjective way to physical books, just like video game publishers are moving more and more towards digital downloads as opposed to creating physical discs and cartridges. The electronic-version phenomena isn't exclusive to books. And while physical copies of books and games aren't going to totally vanish in the foreseeable future, all things seems to suggest they're taking the backseat. It doesn't matter if you or me "like real books more". Boring ad hominem, how interesting.
People enjoy paper books. I've never known anyone to enjoy a disk or cartridge. And video games have to end up on electronic devices, so of course the faster you can get them there the better. Books don't have to end up on electronic devices. It's a false equivalency.
No it isn't. People enjoy disks and cartridges. They enjoy having a collection of physical games just like you enjoy a shelf full of your books and they enjoy expanding their collection. They enjoy going to video game stores and buying the newest game, GameStop and local video game stores are the literal (read: dictionary definition) equivalency to libraries and book stores. Most indie games that are released digital-only to begin with end up having either 'special edition' physical copies of the game created, or just get an outright physical release. People like physical versions of their favorite things, but electronic versions are more cost-effective and are able to reach more people without the need of a publisher creating those physical copies. You have a point in video games, whether it's a physical or digital copy, end up on a screen either way. Books have always been a physical thing, making them different from an e-book. The near future is going to show whether or not this point is very strong, however.
That's what you've taken away from the article, clearly. But I don't think it's "the thing" for everyone. I prefer to read the entire article and take away all the things!
Except they're not, really, and their biggest downside is that they have to be constantly tied to an existing infrastructure to even be viable. If I gave a Kobo to some dude in the the middle of the Sahara, what could he do with it? He wouldn't be able to download anything, he wouldn't be able to charge it, it would be basically a plastic brick for him until he got to 'civilization'. If I gave him a printed book, also a brick, but one he could actually use for its intended purpose.
Yep. When I really like a book and want it to still be around in a few years, I buy it in paper—sometimes after having read it electronically, because I didn’t expect to like it that well. Ebooks, for me, are for technical books that will likely be useless in a few years, junk reading, or sometimes cheap classics that I don’t have physical room for and am confident will stay in print.
This has to qualify as the stupidest argument I've seen on WF for a long time .... E books are better, arent, are, arent, are so .... soon one participant will tell the other he smells and threaten to get him at playtime. E books are easier to self publish (although print isn't exactly hard with create space) other than that both have strengths and weaknesses , and both as I mentioned above can be self or trad published
That already happened a few pages ago then we were forced to apologize to each other and neither one of us was allowed to play with the Flintstones Phone.
Do I really have to point out what a bad argument this is? This is the actual equivalent of you trying to say cellphones will never replace written letters because "what if you get lost in the jungle and can't charge your phone?!". Internet coverage exists almost all over the world at this point and anyone traveling or living in remote areas has, you know, ways to charge their devices. Humanity already went through this whole "is technology really the way of the future?" back-and-forth over a decade ago when Smart Phones started to become a thing. If you didn't know: technology ended up being the way of the future.
No, no it doesn't. Coming from someone who's community got internet access within the past 5 years in a developed part of the world. Yeah, generators. The only problem with those it that they too are dependent on more infrastructure. I have a bible on my bookshelf that was printed in 1885 and no one has had to put any more energy into it than that required to open the cover.
And technology shifts. http://www.erichstauffer.com/technology/white-album-problem (Summary: "This is gonna replace CDs soon; guess I’ll have to buy the White Album again." (Men In Black)) Maybe this is less evident for people who are so young that CDs and DVDs and rippable music already existed when they were born. We have several movies on Beta, VHS, laserdisks (does anyone else have laserdisks, or did they fly by too fast for most people to see?) DVD, HD DVD, Blu-ray DVD, and iTunes. Before Beta and VHS, we of course had to hope that some network would choose to play a favorite movie, sometime, someday. When a new technology comes along, we christen it by buying a copy of Tremors. Every transition is dependent on someone's decision to convert a favorite movie to the new format. I'm not willing to have that happen with my books.
Well, in terms of what's relevant to this thread, I take away that you've been believing something about e-books that doesn't seem to be true. (That e-books have overtaken print books). So based on that discovery, I'd challenge you to consider what else you may have believed about publishing that turns out to not actually be supported by facts.
Yeah, no. You've had access to satellite coverage. Just because no ISPs were operating in your area to give you a broadband connection doesn't mean you didn't have internet coverage in your area. If you had a smart phone that let you connect to their 4g connection, you had access to the internet. People can connect to the internet from the top of Mt. Fuckin' Everest. No they're not. Miniature, portable generators are incredibly powerful. Do you seriously think we're still living in 1975 or something?
Was the Amazon example not a good enough example that they've done it on the world's largest supplier of books? I admit I used a bit of hyperbole before, I did correct myself already by citing that e-books in general currently only comprise about 20-25% of all current book markets. For now, at least.
Well, Amazon is a primarily on-line bookstore, so it seems likely that they're going to skew toward e-books, right? I'm sorry, I missed it when you corrected yourself. I wouldn't have bothered pushing this line of conversation if I realized you'd already done that. Except... where did you do that, exactly? ETA: Oh, I see, you went back and edited the post. For future reference, it's often useful to make corrections like that in the currently active posts, as most of us aren't re-reading the thread as we go.
What makes you say that? People were using Amazon to buy physical books for almost a decade before they were ever using it to buy e-books. I mean, e-books overtook normal books at a rate that surprised even Amazon themselves. That's shockingly fast, and it's only the start. Did I make it an edit? I forget. In general I habitually re-read my damn posts like five times after making them and then edit for content/language/typos. I know it's not your fault for missing an edit, but a lot of times you might find an older post of mine contains newer information.
Firstly, cellphones connect to cell towers, not satellites. Satellite phones connect to satellites and even then you have to wait for satellites to be within range of wherever you're trying to use them. And for that you still need a service provider willing to allow you to connect to those services in exchange for money. I can't just boot up a satellite phone and connect to random satellites without the protocols that your Service Provider gives you. So even if there were satellites that could theoretically provide me with internet, then I still couldn't access it without an Internet Service Provider. Surprisingly enough, just like 1975, these generators still need fuel. It doesn't matter how powerful they are if they have nothing to run on. A northern community that gets it's goods exclusively from an airstrip and sometimes ice roads in the winter doesn't really have a lot of that kicking around and it's generally reserved for things that are actually vital services, like water treatment, hospitals ,and not freezing to death.
I already said you need an ISP to connect you to the internet. Why are you repeating me? It's not whether you need an ISP connecting you to the internet, it's about internet coverage being possible almost all over the globe. And here comes the most extreme example you can think of to support a weak argument.
But internet without access has the same effect as having no internet at all, so what are you arguing? No, that's a place I used to live. Like recently. I still have friends and family up there, too. To get there I either have to charter a plane or drive as far north as I can, catch a 6 hour train ride, then catch a 4 wheeler/skidoo ride for another couple of hours until I get there. You could come visit if you'd like. I'm sure you wouldn't have any problems learning how to use dial up on a party line.
I'm arguing that most people are able to get internet no matter where they are. I guarantee you that you could have gotten satellite internet wherever you were five years ago. I lived in the literal boonies of Iowa at the time and satellite packages were available to me. This is still the most extreme example you can think of to support a weak argument.
