The ebook – a threat or a goldmine?
As a passionate writer, reader and even a aspiring bookbinder, I have a great love for books. I love the craft of a well bound book, the smell of a new book fresh from the presses and the wonderful little sound a book makes when you open it for the first time. You might have thought I wouldn’t like the growing number of books you can find online nowadays. I don’t though. Bringing books to everyone can’t be a bad thing. Spreading the joy of reading must be something to appreciate.
I do feel some concern though. If more readers abandon the paper version of the book, the publishers might do that too. Already we can see fewer titles published each year and the publishing companies seem to focus on “big authors” and top list books. It’s very difficult for new writers to be published the traditional way. I’ll get back to how you might be able to address these problems, in another blog post.
Actually, I think the ebook is a great invention. You can easily bring a whole library with you on trips or to bed. When you don’t have to print lots of copies of books with a quality that might not last for so long, you are saving trees. Another good thing, that didn’t occur to me before, is that you can read whatever you want without people trying to figure you out by the choice of book titles. I read somewhere that the most popular type of ebook is the erotic one. 
Ebook readers
There are plenty of readers around. Some are for reading offline on the computer, some are built on so called book shelves on ebook sites where you read the books online. Others are programs made for smartphones, mobile phones or other hand held devices such as the ebook reader Kindle
These are just a few readers for ebooks:
Text file based ebooks – can be read by notepad or any other simple text file software.
Html format books – can be read by any browser.
For the iPhone – Bookshelf
For Kindle – Mobipocket reader
The good thing about the Mobipocket reader is that it can be used, not only with the Kindle, but on a lot of different smartphones. It runs brilliantly on my Sony Ericson P1.
Free ebooks
There are a lot of free (legal) ebooks around from many different sites. Some are classics made available to the general public because no one holds the copyright to it anymore. Some are by unknown authors who want to make a name for themselves in this inexpensive way of publishing.
Free Novels Online and Links to Other Online Cyberbooks – http://www.starry.com/free-online-novels/index.htm
1 Comment
-
Percy the Hamster
Dooodl!
The latest Doodle:
Percy by RRRX
Click here to view all doodles that visitors created!
Feeling creative? Click here, draw your own doodle and add it to this sidebar!
Dear Clarissetta,
how right you are in your thoughts! Indeed, paper or plastic? Kindle is good and Schmindle is even better but maybe it is beterrer to have real books.
A good example from my own reality is the fact that Mother recently found the Pickwick Papers online and she fav placed the website, planning to read it to me on those cold winter nights when we will both be sniffling and meowing to each other due to the extremely low temperatures in our area. A week later she came upon the paper version of the book, in a second hand shop, and couldn’t resist buying it.
Overall I foresee that maybe those humans who are now very little children will have no interest in paper books when they grow up due to their reality being strongly computer oriented. Your generation grew up without computers though and so you can still see some beauty in books, and so can Mother-plus she likes the smell of paper.
The times are changing Clarissetta and soon we won’t be needing shelves anymore. We can fit 3,000 songs in an MP3 player and 3 shelves worth of bookery in computers and e-book readers, thus eventually the feather-duster will die too. That’s sad because I love chewing on them…
PS From Jen: I agree with Gandalf, future generations will lose interest in paper books altogether