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The Death of Print?
Sep. 17th, 2011 05:46 pmI just came from a conference where our closing speaker was Mark Coker of Smashwords. He talks a convincing argument for going the self-pub ebook route, and I agree with many of his points.
And then I read a post by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
seanan_mcguire about ebooks and ereaders and poverty, and if you haven't read it, you really need to. (well, that was weird, I just lost half my post!!!!) She raises a good point, one I hadn't considered, and I'd really REALLY hate to see the end of print books, for exactly the reasons she states.
I'm torn about ereaders. I've resisted buying one so far, but I'm going to cave, mainly because there are some books out there being self-pubbed that I do want to read, plus I've heard they're so much easier to read in bed, which is where I do most of my reading, and the ability to increase the font size is really appealing.
But I do not want to see the end of print books. That scares the beejeezus outta me. I saw Farenheit 451, the movie, when I was young, and since I loved reading and I can honestly say that reading was my best friend, that movie terrified me as no horror movie could.
And yet, I know I contributed to brick and mortar bookstore demises, because I quit patronizing them. They never had the books I wanted to read, they were more expensive than buying online, and I know I could order the books, but then you had to wait, plus drive down there to pick them up rather than have them delivered to the door. But I also have to say, that the brick and mortars also contributed to their own demise by not stocking books, and by requiring publishers to accept back books at FULL REFUNDS without giving the books a reasonable shelf life. It's a tangled web, I know, and no easy answers.
And then I read a post by
seanan_mcguire about ebooks and ereaders and poverty, and if you haven't read it, you really need to. (well, that was weird, I just lost half my post!!!!) She raises a good point, one I hadn't considered, and I'd really REALLY hate to see the end of print books, for exactly the reasons she states.I'm torn about ereaders. I've resisted buying one so far, but I'm going to cave, mainly because there are some books out there being self-pubbed that I do want to read, plus I've heard they're so much easier to read in bed, which is where I do most of my reading, and the ability to increase the font size is really appealing.
But I do not want to see the end of print books. That scares the beejeezus outta me. I saw Farenheit 451, the movie, when I was young, and since I loved reading and I can honestly say that reading was my best friend, that movie terrified me as no horror movie could.
And yet, I know I contributed to brick and mortar bookstore demises, because I quit patronizing them. They never had the books I wanted to read, they were more expensive than buying online, and I know I could order the books, but then you had to wait, plus drive down there to pick them up rather than have them delivered to the door. But I also have to say, that the brick and mortars also contributed to their own demise by not stocking books, and by requiring publishers to accept back books at FULL REFUNDS without giving the books a reasonable shelf life. It's a tangled web, I know, and no easy answers.
