Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Well, sure …

… Never Mind E-Books: Why Print Books Are Here to Stay - WSJ.com. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)


I think the people proclaiming the death of the e-b0ok should pause and takes steps to prevent further hyperventilation. One reason I buy e-books is so I can read books I'm interested in looking over but don't feel like paying the hardcover price for. There are other good reasons as well. It's a question, usually, of convenience.

1 comment:

  1. E-books have proven a real boon for independent authors, as a quality product can be developed at home and marketed online without the time, expense and frustration of going through the "official" literary publication process (or just as likely not making it through). The WSJ article notes the tilt toward genre fiction, which makes sense from both an author's and a reader'sstandpoint: a simple paperback can't be produced and shipped at the same low cost that mass marketing publishers can charge, and offering a hard copy of genre fiction at a higher price isn't going pull in the readers. But the opposite is true with E-books: a publishing house has to pay for a lot of overhead, while an independent author doesn't have those expenses -- thus, the 99 cent E-book becomes a reality.

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