Books are big business. Sales of physical and digital books reached almost $12 billion (billion with a B) in 2010. Earlier this year Amazon reported that it sold more digital books than regular books. But to what advantage do we gain in losing the paper and going digital? Join us as we explore the pros and cons of eBooks versus book books.
Saying goodbye to storytime and memories save for in our minds
Many of us have fond memories of dragging along our favorite books everywhere we went - bringing them on vacation or reading them aloud in bed as we gently fell asleep to familiar characters and stories. Our torn and tattered copies were like security blankets and seeing them now as adults brings back a wealth of loving memories. Storytime gathered around an adult giving their all at funny character voices as we followed the pictures both in the pages and in our heads just won't be the same as mom reads from her Amazon Kindle Fire. We somehow have our doubts on whether an eBook file will have the same effect.
What happens to book signings?
"Hello sir, fancy to meet you. I thoroughly enjoyed your book - will you be so kind as to CC me a copy of your digital signature? Make it out to jasony@apartmenttherapy.com, thanks!"
An entire side industry killed
How will Hallmark and other kitschy vendors survive without their lucrative bookmark business? To the recycling bin goes all those "Hello Kitty" bookmarks which have so much history and memory pressed up against the pages which we dove into night after night. Sure they tried to have a little fun and jump out now and again but how boring it is to simply resume where you left off without retracing your steps?
How will Skymall and the like survive without pawning off crappy clip-on reading lights? eBook backlights allowing us to read anytime in any amount of darkness is to blame. Funny it used to be hard to read in too much sunlight as light reflected off the pages burned holes in our retinas. Now we squint to make out the text on a crappy backlight.
Booksheves lose their will to live without a true purpose in life
IKEA renames its entire section to "Shelves Which Now Simply Hold Miscellaneous Decorative Crap, Used to be Useful for Holding That Which Shall Not Be Named." We'll have to settle for the fake digital version in iBooks, with swipes of the finger on cold hard Gorilla Glass instead of down dusty spines and lovely fake gold embossed lettering.
Digital collecting just isn't the same
Speaking of bookshelves, no more are we able to lovingly look at and care for our huge book collection which we've collected over the years and proudly display on bookshelves as flags of our well read-ness. Now how will we show off those volumes of ancient history books that we bought with intent to read but pretense as to whether anyone knows we did or not - for it's on the bookshelf, must be a smart guy/gal!
Whatever happened to choice?
With the death of physical books we lose out on that tradition of selecting which books to bring with us on vacation, taking up but a ton of valuable carry on luggage space - damn the checked baggage fees preventing us from bringing out entire library to pretend we'll relax and read while at the beach or visiting a charming little town in a foreign country. We now are slaves without choice, forced to bring along every single eBook we own in the space of a single real book. Our choice has been stripped away from us. We are now all mindless readers and followers within the eBook ecosystem.
(Images: Bookshelf Porn; Flickr members The U.S. Army, >WonderMike<, WordRidden, bradleypjohnson, Pen Waggenner licensed for use under Creative Commons)
(Sources: 2010 Book and E-Book Sales Data for the United States, E-Books Outsell Print Books at Amazon)
The Roeders' Modern Life is Beautiful 
How To Keep Your Bathroom Clean In 5 Minutes A Day
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
Shopping for Ice Cream Makers: 5 Models We've Reviewed
How to Cook Moist & Tender Chicken Breasts Every Time
Comments (11)
What loss? I still buy "real" books almost exclusively. After all, I'm building a library here. My grandfather's library didn't come to me on a kindle or iPad and I don't intend to pass my library along that way either.
Though I sound like a luddite, I am far from it. My preferences is simply to have a digital copy with every "real" copy of a book I buy so that I can travel with a large portion of my library and be able to easily do research while travelling. As the industry is now, though, when faced with the choice of a "real" book or an ebook version, I will always choose the real things.
Also, for those of us who use hoards of reference books of a regular occasion, it takes far less time to find an entry in a real book than an ebook version. As of now, I have nothing to mourn in the rise of ebooks and I'm not convinced (as many seem to be) that "real" books are going the way of walkman.
Yikes, you are doomsaying without giving us human types enough credit for creating new cultures around reading and the "book."
To whit:
1) Storytime with digital books is still a tradition in our house thanks to the iPad, with its generous screen and full-color capabilities. Oh, were you thinking about holding storytime only with Kindle books?
2) Celebrity hounders always used to carry around a small journal called an autograph book - blank pages waiting for signatures. Perhaps an industry of 'book cover trading cards' (signed by the author, much like baseball cards) will supplant signing the title page on the physical book.
3) I could see customized digital bookmarks being designed and sold as an add-on to your Kindle or ereader app. Not so much of a stretch. As for clip-on reading lights, don't Kindles require those for nighttime reading?
4) Suicidal bookshelves shall recover from their depression once they realize they can be used to hold millions of other knick-knacks.
5) I can imagine owing a touchscreen wall that will allow me to display my books (spine-side or cover-side out), open them, and read from them. Also, I can categorize and change the sort display - based on subject, author last name, what-have-you. This can't be too far in the future...
6) I can CHOOSE to send read ebooks to an archive and not see them, or I can CHOOSE to set up a collection called "Vacation" and save books into that category.
Sorry, dears, your arguments for what will happen when we all go digital simply doesn't stand up. Trace the zip code in my handle, and you'll realize I have a little bit of experience in this.
"We now are slaves without choice, forced to bring along every single eBook we own in the space of a single real book. Our choice has been stripped away from us." - Is this satire? Am I being punked? How can this be a serious complaint? I can't even take this seriously enough to offer a proper response...
"Now we squint to make out the text on a crappy backlight." - Not if you're reading on a Kindle, Nook, or anything with an e-ink screen. Booklights still apply.
"Speaking of bookshelves, no more are we able to lovingly look at and care for our huge book collection which we've collected over the years and proudly display on bookshelves as flags of our well read-ness." - Again... is this a joke? 1. Nobody is forcing you to throw away your book collection. 2. We should get over ourselves and the desire to make it appear that we're more intelligent than we actually are.
Whenever I hear any of the above complaints all I hear is "wah wah wah the feel of crumpled paper wah wah wah I can't move on wah wah wah."
Honestly, as long as we still have access to quality content why does it matter what form it takes? As the previous commenter said, you can still have story time with an iPad, and I don't think it's feasible to think that children's picture books and the like are seriously going to disappear completely anytime soon.
Oh, and you want to collect autographs? There's an app for that (http://tenonedesign.com/autographmobile.php).
"Also, for those of us who use hoards of reference books of a regular occasion, it takes far less time to find an entry in a real book than an ebook version. As of now, I have nothing to mourn in the rise of ebooks and I'm not convinced (as many seem to be) that "real" books are going the way of walkman."
It takes even less time to type the question into Google and find a respectable source with the answer.
I'm trying to tell if this was serious or an attempt at satire. I'm really hoping for satire; if this was serious, then I'm going to file it under "people need to find more important things to worry about."
Probably don't write about things you clearly know very little about (e.g. book signings). It's the interwebs after all; someone's going to call you on it.
@Kimberly - I ran this by the GF for the sarcasm/satire detector and she ensured me readers would see it... :)
@denizen - do you work at the library of congress? Your #5 would be awesome, a touchscreen "bookshelf" to thumb through your library.
@Kay - I've only been to a small handful of book signings and loved the personal nature of the author putting his signature and a note on my own copy of the book.
I know this is satirical but there are two aspects of paper books that often get overlooked -
The Cost Factor: We go through about 3 books a week in my household. 95% of them come from used bookstores, the library or loans from friends. To get digital downloads would run us over $100/month. As it is, we spend about $10/month.
The Social Aspect: How do you loan a digital book to a friend?
I know this is satire, but I did run into a "what do I get signed?" problem with a musician - I only owned digital copies of her albums off of iTunes! What's a fan to do!
So I had her sign my iPhone case (fortunately a nice blank white) and we both had a good laugh about it.
Anyway, current print books are probably going to go the way of vinyl records. Obsolete technology, but with enough fans and collectors to still be produced and sold to this day. So if you're a big enough fan of a book to want a signature, you'll buy an "retro" version of the book in print and get the author to sign that.
"Perhaps an industry of 'book cover trading cards' (signed by the author, much like baseball cards) will supplant signing the title page on the physical book."
Umm, that's kind of genius. :)