Are you a Kindle convert or do you insist that a real book with pages is the way to go? Is ebook the way of the future? Will paper books eventually die out? I have heard that, in some places, people are buying real books more as a house accessory. They buy good looking, hardcover books by the metre to put on their shelves to add an extra interior design element to their home. Does this mean the era of the real book is over? Will it soon be considered an outdated accessory?
I don’t think we will see the end of real books. I think there will always be enough people around who favour them to keep them going. After all, if we don’t have a real book, where do we get the author to sign when we go to book signings?
On the books signings I’ve been on the bookstores certainly seemed busy, even the smaller ones. This is good to see. I’m sure business has fallen a little since the ebook revolution. That’s inevitable. Ebooks are new and exciting, not to mention extremely convenient. They make it easier to take a lot of books with you if you’re going on holidays somewhere, for instance.
It does worry me that some bookstores will go out of business as a result of ebooks, although I think online stores will be equally to blame when that happens. Hopefully, some will still remain for those of us who like the feel of a real book in our hands. While I like ebooks as well – I have a Kindle and took in on holidays with me recently – I still like a real book too. I like the weight of it. I like the smell of it. I’ll try and keep the industry going. Who’s with me?
I like ebooks for fiction, and real books for non-fiction.
Ebooks are best read sequentially, from start to finish, and this is how (most of us?) read fiction. So I like ebooks best for fiction, unless I’m reading in the spa pool. Then it’s paperbacks, the cheaper the better.
But when I read non-fiction, I tend to read it sequentially the first time. But when I refer back to it, I’m often flipping from page to page, and that’s a lot easier to do with a real book.
Personally, I reject the term “Real Book”. I refer to “ebooks” and “paper books” because neither is more or less real than the other.
To me, a book is the words not the storage medium. That’s what is important. That said, I happily read both.
The kindle has opened up an entire new world to me. It has enabled me to read books that I would never otherwise get my hands on. I have a very limited financial budget, and extremely limited space in my house. Our house is literally stretching at the seems with all the books my wife and I have bought, so reading eBooks has become a necessity for both of us. I do however borrow paper books from the library.
I understand your concerns about bookstores being unable to compete, and I share your concern for local business. I’m not sure what the answer is. As a Kindle reader, all my money goes to Amazon, but as a Kobo user, my wife can spread her money between various Aussie-owned stores like bookworld, Koorong etc.
I use both. I love my Kindle app on my iPad and iPhone when travelling or in a waiting room, but I LOVE paper books. I like to be able to flip backwards and forwards to check things or reread parts of a story I’ve really enjoyed, and that’s much easier with a hard copy. And the smell of a new book is something else … Lol