"Are books following the Dinosaurs?" Topic

I love all the antitechnology people. Hey folks you are obviously getting old, rejection of the new is a sign of old age. You will appreciate tech when you go to the hospital and you are up and walking 3 days later. Been there and seen it both ways, the painful horrifying surgery of 20 years ago and the new less invasive stuff of today.

Besides books take up space. I am getting rid of all my books. Collecting vast amounts of stuff is foolish these days. Soon global warming will come and destroy all this stuff anyway.

Unless the amazon servers will be destroyed too, all my books will be on file. Tech is your friend sometimes except when the government is using it, it can be very helpful.

For me, I paint all day and my wrists are tired, I cant bear hefting a 15 pound monster when I can read it on my kindle the same as a 20 page novella.

About bookstores disappearing, this is the risk you take when getting into any business. I am in business have been all my life and one thing I know, if you cant compete you go under. Its not right or wrong just how business works. People want the best option.

It isn't anti-technology to point out a few facts – despite the advertising and the hype most books are sold as books, a tiny fraction are sold as ebooks. Most music is sold as CDs, download sales (and I emphasize SALES) are a small proportion of the music industry's revenue.

Sure, everyone who buys a kindle then buys a lot of ebooks – they'd be pretty dumb not to but right now they are not most people in terms of the UK and USA, and in worldwide terms ebooks only represents a vanishingly small percentage of readers.

Do I think ebooks will "win" in the end – probably, in about 30 or 40 years in countries like the UK and USA, probably longer in countries with less spending money.

The difference, compared to vinyl/tape/CD/download is the "playing" device. My vinyl LP won't play on my cassette deck. My cassette won't play on my CD player, my CD won't play on my ipod. However, my books "still play" just a well as they ever did and will do as long as my eyesight lasts. Even my books that were printed 100 years or more ago are perfectly readable.

There's also the small problem of quantity – therre are 200,000 odd new books every year in English, and has been for some time. There are somewhere in the region of 100million books that have been published. Are there yet even a million ebook titles available ? In january 2010 Amazon said it had 410,000 titles – this was mostly due to publishers making the latest years offerings avaialble as printed and ebook titles. Who is going to go and digitise the other 99.5million titles ? Unless you only read new stuff (or a very select subset of books that get labelled Classic and are regulalry reissued), then you're stuffed.

This isn't, as I said at the start, anti-technology, it's more anti-BS.

I blame the Fahrenheit 451 disciples…..

A lot of facts but no proof to back them up. Throw soe proof out if you're going to bombard someone with facts.

Cds are dead,
books are starting to fail. Anyway you will need technology to buy them soon thats for sure. B&N is even diversifying away from books into other ventures such as siklly things rich people buy because they can and have no use for.

CDs are dead? That would explain why many retailers are reporting their best sales in the format for some years.

Remember, next time a pigeon divebombs you in the park – its a(n evolved) dinosaur.

So, books (dinosaurs) will evolve into new formats (birds).

A lot of facts but no proof to back them up.

On the other two threads.

Book publishing figures? Try googling "how many books are bublished every year". Google is clever (technology !) and will fix that incorrect spelling.

From ~1990 there has been a steady trend of 200,000+ English language books per year. And, as Connard said on the other-other thread about books – what about China ?

CDs are dead ? No. You are wrong. If they were dead they wouldn't sell so many. Illegal file sharing may beat CD sales – but I deliberatly excluded that as it isn't properly measurable.

I think you have fallen into the intellectual trap of thinking "what I do is what everyone does". It's easily done, but it's best avoided as it is rarely the actual case.

The book will last a long time due to that weight of inertia of the 100million existing titles. nd, as I explained, that the new format doesn't invalidate the old format – the "reader" remains the same, which makes the comparison to music formats a flawed comparison.

No, I base my opinion on observation, to me the purest indicator of what is happening is at ground level. I may be wrong because I dont have time to look up statistics. But who makes the stats. No one controls my eyes. If I am wrong it wont be long before people realize that having hoards of junk isnt as good as having it all in one small section of your house. Ebooks are still a fairly new tech in its infancy and still needs lots of work but look how well its done anyway. The kindle looks like something scraped together by a highschool student but the incredible possibility it brings makes it my favorite device even more than my hi def computer monitor.

I am worried about the cover art for things though but that will be fixed when full color kindles come out. Some brands already have this.

I stopped buying cds when I found I could buy the dl cheaper on amazon than a cranked up full retail price to have an outmoded vehicle which is fragile and tends to lay around cluttering up the place.

At any rate, how many people are still listening to cassettes? 8 tracks? I have a great cassette player thats practically new but rendered useless but todays tech. But then I guess they can be bought cheap at yard sales and big flea markets.

I also have a mix of archeo-tech that would shock anyone reading this. My newest stereo is 15 years old. No surround sound. In mycar my mp3 player is hooked up thru the cars cassette deck with a strange device, lol.

I love tech and in someways old tech as well.

Until the emp hits I'm happy though…

While not a adverse to technology …I can play my wargames and read my books with my trusty hurricane lantern or by candle light. Kinda hard to use an E-reader or play a computer game without power!
I still use a compass too…unlike daggers or GPS my compass is never out of network! viva the dinsosaurs! ;)
I do like technology, but reliable is more important to this old footslogger. ;)

This year I have bought more books on paper than the Kindle but if you include PDF downloads then no the electronic format wins out.

Problems I see are:

1) Books take up room – I have over 300 on the shelves behind me and more than I can count upstairs / in the roof. Compare that to the 400 in a small USB stick
2) I can read books on the loo
3) I like the feel of a book
4) I love browsing bookshops and having a coffee / cake
5) I like being able to see a book and have it in five minutes
6) I can slouch with a book – not found a comfy spot to hold the kindle and 'turn the pages'
7) Neither glow in the dark – wife + lights = short read time in bed
8) I print PDFs – kindle / iPad etc not good for some PDFs

I still love paper but use electronics as and when I see fit.

I've just read a 22 year old book – just reading a book on my second kindle in 1 year…

Long term I think books will become a minor part of some shops (look at WHS now) and we will see them fade from the general high street.

Remember, next time a pigeon divebombs you in the park – its a(n evolved) dinosaur.

So, books (dinosaurs) will evolve into new formats (birds).

Oh goody, my faith in the future restored. I'm quite looking forward to flying books that can crap on your head and despoil public monuments.

"Are books following the Dinosaurs?"

It they are, it's going to be tough for the dinosaurs to read them.

I like Hay on Wye, got me a few old maps of the midlands from there circa 1695.

I didn't realise that the local industry went back that far – or you come to that.