Are Paperback Books Nearing The End?
So here at Run Level Media, we have a plethora of reading materials. Mostly are technology focused to keep up with the latest web trends and development environments. Most recently we have been purchasing either a combination of the book online along with the e-book or web book version. With using the Kindle, and Kindle for Android as well as iPhone apps, there seems to be less and less a need for storing and using the actual physical paperback version of the book.
Having a digital copy is much easier to keep track of as opposed to a book that we have on a shelf, taking up room. In this day and age where the phone in my pocket has more than 1000 MHz of processing power, is it necessary to continue the practice of buying actual books? Now, there is something to be said about rolling up to your local book store, buying a coffee, pulling some periodicals or books off the shelf and perusing through them as you get your caffeine fix.
New York Times bestselling author and marketing guru, Seth Godin vows to never publish traditionally again. After over 12 books with a legacy publisher, Godin says he’s had enough.
According to an interview with Seth Godin conducted by Media Bistro he can reach 10 to 50 more times the amount of people and spread the word about his book using online outlets than the effort it takes to get readers into a store to pickup his latest work. I tend to agree with him on this extreme as it may be.
As we develop websites and understand the human behavior for how one finds information, a service or product, it is important to realize that the traditional methods used for gaining knowledge for the purpose of advancing our understanding or just pure entertainment, are changing. This is becoming seemingly more apparent with the widespread use of social networks to share information. With all of the different ways we now obtain and consume music, news, movies is it just natural for books to follow in step? We’d love to know your thoughts, feel free to ping us on twitter or email!
Cheers,
Run Level Media (An Atlanta Web Design Firm)
Call me nostalgic, but I prefer actual paper for reading. The exception may be Amazon's Kindle, but reading from the glossy screen of a phone, iPad, etc. creates a significant amount of eye strain. Kindle's eInk is brilliant, but it's probably doomed to full color LCD tablets.
True, I would have to say that it is much more comfortable and enjoyable experience to actually hold the book, roll the cover back and flip the pages….