This week I went to the London Book Fair, so see old friends, network and see what is happening in the market. Despite a big digital publishing section it was clear that publishers are still committed to producing books made of paper and cardboard, and although fiction may be more convenient to read on an e reader, it will never replace the tactile feel of handling and reading an illustrated book, of which there were thousands on display.
I can see the attraction of ebooks, particularly as I travel so much; my pack has always been excessively heavy because of all the books I lug around. I always feel uneasy when I don’t have anything to read, I regard a reserve of 600 unread pages as the bare minimum. So to save all that weight I can see myself buying an ebook reader in the future.
Arthur C. Clark the science fiction writer, always foretold a long future for the book. They are cheap to product, look attractive, can be lent and resold, don’t need a power source to be used, and can suffer a lot of damage and still be read. Drop your e reader in the bath or even just let the battery run down and you’ll be reduced to staring out of the bus window. Besides, books do furnish a room, they are the perfect present. No one will ever cherish an ebook, or look at it fondly on the bookshelf. The fact that in Britain we have a buoyant second hand market for books shows that people are still prepared to track down and buy old favourites.
At a seminar at the Book Fair a publishing executive from the US announced that in America, heavy book buyers were now buying over 50% of their books in digital format. A heavy book buyer is regarded as someone who buys only twelve books a year, itself a pretty depressing statistic. I see part of the problem as the way books are sold, and the demise of book chains like Borders in the UK is partly because they have followed the American retail model. Books are now regarded as just a commodity, they are sold in the same way as baked beans, pile a few titles high, sell ‘em cheap, regardless of the quality, and make this the same in all your stores. Waterstones are now doing this making a visit to one of their stores a particularly dreary experience these days. This mode of selling is fine for the supermarkets, after all it’s their business model but what the bookshops have forgotten is that book lovers don’t like having books sold to them as if their baked beans and they particularly don’t like the ‘do you want fries with that?’ type selling at the till. There are still good bookshops around, with a wide selection of titles and knowledgeable staff and I know many heavy book buyers who shop in them.
Many in publishing regard the advance of the ebook as unstoppable. I believe that people are buying ebooks not because they are so wonderful or practical but because the experience of buying real books is so uninspiring. Both formats can co exist and both have their advantages, as I’ve pointed out, but the publishing industry needs to stand up for real books. They should be helping to make them a pleasure to buy and own, reading books should be about more than the raw data printed on the pages. The booksellers also need to wake up and start finding out what their customers what and delivering it, instead of using a business model that only makes sense to the pointy heads. Those people don’t buy books.
I can see the attraction of ebooks, particularly as I travel so much; my pack has always been excessively heavy because of all the books I lug around. I always feel uneasy when I don’t have anything to read, I regard a reserve of 600 unread pages as the bare minimum. So to save all that weight I can see myself buying an ebook reader in the future.
Arthur C. Clark the science fiction writer, always foretold a long future for the book. They are cheap to product, look attractive, can be lent and resold, don’t need a power source to be used, and can suffer a lot of damage and still be read. Drop your e reader in the bath or even just let the battery run down and you’ll be reduced to staring out of the bus window. Besides, books do furnish a room, they are the perfect present. No one will ever cherish an ebook, or look at it fondly on the bookshelf. The fact that in Britain we have a buoyant second hand market for books shows that people are still prepared to track down and buy old favourites.
At a seminar at the Book Fair a publishing executive from the US announced that in America, heavy book buyers were now buying over 50% of their books in digital format. A heavy book buyer is regarded as someone who buys only twelve books a year, itself a pretty depressing statistic. I see part of the problem as the way books are sold, and the demise of book chains like Borders in the UK is partly because they have followed the American retail model. Books are now regarded as just a commodity, they are sold in the same way as baked beans, pile a few titles high, sell ‘em cheap, regardless of the quality, and make this the same in all your stores. Waterstones are now doing this making a visit to one of their stores a particularly dreary experience these days. This mode of selling is fine for the supermarkets, after all it’s their business model but what the bookshops have forgotten is that book lovers don’t like having books sold to them as if their baked beans and they particularly don’t like the ‘do you want fries with that?’ type selling at the till. There are still good bookshops around, with a wide selection of titles and knowledgeable staff and I know many heavy book buyers who shop in them.
Many in publishing regard the advance of the ebook as unstoppable. I believe that people are buying ebooks not because they are so wonderful or practical but because the experience of buying real books is so uninspiring. Both formats can co exist and both have their advantages, as I’ve pointed out, but the publishing industry needs to stand up for real books. They should be helping to make them a pleasure to buy and own, reading books should be about more than the raw data printed on the pages. The booksellers also need to wake up and start finding out what their customers what and delivering it, instead of using a business model that only makes sense to the pointy heads. Those people don’t buy books.
RSS Feed
