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Is the hardcover novel dead?



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Sun Oct 03, 2010 6:48 pm
Nate says...



Seth Godin is an American author of marketing books - more than a few of which have become New York Times bestsellers. In a recent interview, he said this which I found pretty interesting:

I’ve decided not to publish any more books in the traditional way. 12 for 12 and I’m done. I like the people, but I can’t abide the long wait, the filters, the big push at launch, the nudging to get people to go to a store they don’t usually visit to buy something they don’t usually buy, to get them to pay for an idea in a form that’s hard to spread … I really don’t think the process is worth the effort that it now takes to make it work. I can reach 10 or 50 times as many people electronically. No, it’s not ‘better’, but it’s different. So while I’m not sure what format my writing will take, I’m not planning on it being the 1907 version of hardcover publishing any longer.


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He's pretty big on e-books, but is he right? And which do you prefer: hardcover or e-book?
  





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Sun Oct 03, 2010 6:58 pm
Prokaryote says...



Of course hardcovers are toast. Ebooks are outselling Amazon's hardcovers. And, honestly, is anyone really surprised? Ebooks are the future. Regular books won't disappear, but we'll reach a certain point where most people will use ereaders.

I don't have an ereader, but once I do, I'll naturally prefer ebooks. Torrents.
  





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Sun Oct 03, 2010 7:00 pm
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BenFranks says...



I used an e-reader once and although it's very convenient, I will always prefer print and I think that the e-reader will never diminish books. Books will always outsell e-readers, in my opinion. I might be being naive, but I honestly don't think it'll take over books.

Hardcovers dead? I think that an author will always feel pride if s/he publishes a hardcover book, so I don't think they'll die off.
  





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Sun Oct 03, 2010 7:02 pm
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LastPaladin says...



Nate wrote:Seth Godin is an American author of marketing books - more than a few of which have become New York Times bestsellers. In a recent interview, he said this which I found pretty interesting:

I’ve decided not to publish any more books in the traditional way. 12 for 12 and I’m done. I like the people, but I can’t abide the long wait, the filters, the big push at launch, the nudging to get people to go to a store they don’t usually visit to buy something they don’t usually buy, to get them to pay for an idea in a form that’s hard to spread … I really don’t think the process is worth the effort that it now takes to make it work. I can reach 10 or 50 times as many people electronically. No, it’s not ‘better’, but it’s different. So while I’m not sure what format my writing will take, I’m not planning on it being the 1907 version of hardcover publishing any longer.


Source

He's pretty big on e-books, but is he right? And which do you prefer: hardcover or e-book?


I don't think books will ever die, the Hard cover type, because some people just prefer holding something, feeling the pages texture and the smell. It's all part of the experience in my opinion, sure there is a market for e-books, but he's being deathly stupid to think Hard cover novels are dead. I prefer buying a book rather than downloading, because once you own it, it's yours.

But in the case of E-books, data is too fragile, and too many variable, it's just not practical whereas Hard covers really are user friendly and feel more authentic, e-books don't feel as if so much love went into them. Since the idea of writing a blurb, getting a cover designed, drawing pictures if a kids book. That feels like a labour of love, e-books are just data and I honestly doubt for that reason they'll completely replace hard covers.
You poor take courage
You rich take care
This earth was made a common treasury
For everyone to share
All things in common
All people one
We come in peace
The orders came to cut them down

Billy Bragg - The World Turned Upside Down
  





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Sun Oct 03, 2010 7:03 pm
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Snoink says...



I actually prefer e-book now... I have a Kindle and I kind of adore reading it. It fits easily in my purse, it holds an entire library and, what's more, my hands are not cramped reading it. Also, I can read it while eating. If I spill something on it (which happens more than I'd like to admit) all I have to do is get a damp cloth and wipe it up. It doesn't scratch easily, either... because I'm awesome I ended up giving the screen a little nick, but it's nothing that makes it unreadable or anything. Very easy to ignore. Plus, I can make notes on it without ruining my book... I hate marking up a clean book! But here I can make a note and hide it whenever I don't want to see it. And they're cheaper... at least if you read a lot. I know that I love classic literature, so the books that I want are generally free. ;) So, whereas I was buying $1-$5 of classic literature every month (which was a couple of books) now I can get even more books for free! And, because the of the Kindle being so easy to read, I am more likely to read it as well. Also, it's easier to read in the sun. I used to get headaches and stuff because the whiteness of the page was rather blinding, but the Kindle is really really easy to read in the light. Also, you can put multiple bookmarks in each book to get to the parts that you want to read.

...Yep. I am obsessed.
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Sun Oct 03, 2010 7:45 pm
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Demeter says...



Hardcover all the way. I will never ever prefer an online book to a real book. Come on. I'm actually pretty surprised how people are so positive towards e-books... =P Although I do understand why they're liked -- they're quick to get and writers want to get their hands on new books quickly. But really -- staring at your computer screen for hours instead of lying on a sofa holding a concrete book with actual print and words and pages and the smell of a new book? I don't think so. There's just something so... real in actually seeing a book and feeling it and watching it. And what's the point in bookstores then? Libraries? Wandering between the shelves letting your hand caress the backs of the books?

Fine, okay, I'm obsessed too. It's just... books. It's not a book if it's online.
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Sun Oct 03, 2010 8:29 pm
Snoink says...



It's not an online book, actually. If it were, I would agree with you. Reading books online is not my kind of fun. Instead, an e-book reader is a portable device that has a screen that makes it look like you're reading paper. Plus, you actually flip through the pages and stuff using some small buttons. Mine looks like this:

Photo 667.jpg
Normal size!
Photo 667.jpg (80.44 KiB) Viewed 649 times


Photo 668.jpg
And I have small hands!
Photo 668.jpg (78.87 KiB) Viewed 649 times


You do read a screen, but the screen has been made to look a lot like paper.

For example, this is a book.

Photo 663.jpg
P&P in lovely book form!
Photo 663.jpg (81.38 KiB) Viewed 649 times


This is the Kindle:

Photo 659.jpg
P&P... in Kindle form! Notice the lack of glare.
Photo 659.jpg (66.29 KiB) Viewed 649 times


Also, if you can't read that, you can always adjust the size and spacing of the Kindle so you can read it better.

Also, it's easy to curl up with.

Book:

Photo 664.jpg
Reading the book! And, because my wrists hurt, this actually kind of hurts my hands. Boo!
Photo 664.jpg (82.09 KiB) Viewed 649 times


Kindle:

Photo 666.jpg
OMG! Studious look! Also, for some reason, this doesn't hurt my hands.
Photo 666.jpg (85.18 KiB) Viewed 649 times


Also, I realize that this is comparing a paperback with an e-book and not a hardback with it, lol, but... well... same concept except hardbacks are significantly heavier.

And! I forgot to talk about this other feature which I love. Say, you don't know what this one word is. You can look it up by just making this cursor thing go down to the word. It'll automatically show you the definition without taking you away from the story. If anyone has ever lugged a dictionary along with a book you wanted to read, you'll understand why this is so awesome. :)
Ubi caritas est vera, Deus ibi est.

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Sun Oct 03, 2010 8:37 pm
LastPaladin says...



Snoink wrote:It's not an online book, actually. If it were, I would agree with you. Reading books online is not my kind of fun. Instead, an e-book reader is a portable device that has a screen that makes it look like you're reading paper. Plus, you actually flip through the pages and stuff using some small buttons. Mine looks like this:

Photo 667.jpg


Photo 668.jpg


You do read a screen, but the screen has been made to look a lot like paper.

For example, this is a book.

Photo 663.jpg


This is the Kindle:

Photo 659.jpg


Also, if you can't read that, you can always adjust the size and spacing of the Kindle so you can read it better.

Also, it's easy to curl up with.

Book:

Photo 664.jpg


Kindle:

Photo 666.jpg


Also, I realize that this is comparing a paperback with an e-book and not a hardback with it, lol, but... well... same concept except hardbacks are significantly heavier.

And! I forgot to talk about this other feature which I love. Say, you don't know what this one word is. You can look it up by just making this cursor thing go down to the word. It'll automatically show you the definition without taking you away from the story. If anyone has ever lugged a dictionary along with a book you wanted to read, you'll understand why this is so awesome. :)


http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009 ... rentPage=1

I believe this article sums up things a lot better.

Also, I honestly never see hard cover being replaced by ebooks for reasons I stated earlier, this article just reconfirms this.
Last edited by LastPaladin on Sun Oct 03, 2010 8:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
You poor take courage
You rich take care
This earth was made a common treasury
For everyone to share
All things in common
All people one
We come in peace
The orders came to cut them down

Billy Bragg - The World Turned Upside Down
  





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Sun Oct 03, 2010 8:40 pm
MeanMrMustard says...



It's going to depend entirely on what makes money for publishing companies, and retroactively, still provides incentive for authors to write. They'll always look for the next big thing to make them a nice windfall, but there are advantages cost cutting wise to e-books. At the same time, they will have to maintain the databases for all of this material to be sent out, and do not trivialize how much money that will cost. Right now it might seem like a lot, but imagine the entire publishing world running on electronic only. You need some ridiculously powerful supercomputers and connections to keep that running smoothly.

Print will exist in a strong capacity for at least a couple decades until there's a final word on whether e-books are a successful venture or not. There's a very strong tendency with humans to go the "if it's not broken, why fix it?" route, especially when money is involved. As is, very few people have made e-book publishing a successful career, and we probably need at least another decade to see if they can maintain it. My guess is you'll see e-readers as the de facto way of reading in the far, far-off future, which will be a pain for people that get migraines, but c'est la vie.
  





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Sun Oct 03, 2010 11:12 pm
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StellaThomas says...



But Snoink... when you open up Pride and Prejudice on paper and see, "It is a truth universally acknowledged" and smell the paper and curl up in bed or on the sofa or on a kitchen chair in a patch of sunlight... I just don't see how an ebook completes the image.

I will say at this point that the only person I know with an ebook is a Russian kid in my class who likes to carry it round in a pile with his MacBook Air and his shiny new iPad, and writes his essays on his technology because he can't organise himself to keep folders (binders) like the rest of us. Yet while he has Hamlet on his iPad, he carries round the paper copy as well, because apparently he can't make notes on it. You should see my Hamlet. It is so very, very loved.

I'm probably a romantic (scratch the probably) but I'm the kind of person who doesn't even call Pride & Prejudice by its title, I call it Lizzie, I don't say I'm going to go read, I say I have an appointment with Mr Darcy. And if all my books are on one thing, then they don't have any personality of their own. Lizzie's on the same screen as Emma and Anne and even silly people like Jane Eyre and Cathy, she's mixed up with Voldemort and communist pigs.

If any of you have read Inkheart, there's a passage in it that always explained this well for me. Meg used to read one of her favourite books in whatever new place she went to. That way, when she opened the book again she could still smell the sea or taste ice cream, it carried the memories for her.

Will I surrender? Possibly in years to come when I am a poor student with no space for books. But not otherwise. Neither is there romance in going online and buying a book off Amazon, not like stepping into Hodges Figgis out of the rain, or drinking hot chocolate in the Waterstones' café with a new purchase. An ebook can't be the same as feeling the texture of the Book Thief's dust cover, or finding notes written by previous readers in school library books or just curling up with it.

And as for carrying it around, Snoink, I can fit a notebook, a pencil case and a novel into my handbag with my purse, camera, iPod, phone and umbrella, and trust me, my handbag is small. And it doesn't need anymore technology in it.

Whew. That went on a bit.

-Stella x
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Mon Oct 04, 2010 12:25 am
Prokaryote says...



You will all come around. Use a device with e-ink. Look at the plummeting prices. Consider how tiny book files are -- you can store an entire library (thousands of books) with two gigabytes of space. Book stores like Barnes & Noble are having severe trouble.

The used book market will still be there... but everything else is moving into the digital realm. Look at records versus MP3s. Similar story.

You need some ridiculously powerful supercomputers and connections to keep that running smoothly.


The music industry made the transition, and music files are usually at least three times larger than book files.

My guess is you'll see e-readers as the de facto way of reading in the far, far-off future, which will be a pain for people that get migraines, but c'est la vie.


Silly. E-ink looks like paper. No headaches. E-ink does not equal LCD. There's way too much confusion about what modern ereaders really are. We're not talking about reading on an iPad, ya dig?

Then again, maybe YWS is full of die-hards. More power to you, I guess, but for all the nostalgia the pages of a book hold, it is fundamentally the story that counts. The words, not the paper.
  





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Mon Oct 04, 2010 12:53 am
Fishr says...



Hardcover all the way! Screw e-books. A book is more then binding and a hunk of pages with ink. A book is a companion, a friend, and one which will never fail you. Plus, you get the bonus: With a new, freshly printed book, oh, the wonderful aroma of fresh ink and paper. For Antiaquariam books, the musty smell is equally as delightful and can reall set the mood. Plus, the foxing just looks wicked cool.
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Mon Oct 04, 2010 1:55 am
SporkPunk says...



Time for my two cents!

E-books
I imagine the ebook market is going to be much like digital music. It will become the standard, and publishing houses will suffer like record companies. New authors whose manuscripts would have an extremely difficult time making it out of the slush pile could release material directly to readers, thus being able to reach more people and cut out the middle man. In a way, this is good for everyone because now we can experience writing from more people than just who publishers deign talented enough. You'll see publishers scrambling to keep afloat, and some sort of piracy law, much like the one with mp3s, will be enacted where you can't convert the hardcover into data format, or something to that effect. So, ebooks do have their advantages.

Hardcovers
It's more than just reading, it's an experience. The feel of the dust cover gliding under your fingertips, the scent of fresh pages and ink, the texture of the creamy page as you turn it. Many people still prefer this, the authenticity of hardcover novels. For much the same reason, LPs and cassettes are still created and sold. They're certainly not the standard anymore, but they offer something digital data files never will---the human aspect of it all. As long as people are still willing to buy them, they will still be made. Their creation may be moved to more indie publishers who are die-hards, but they won't die out.

Personally, I prefer hardcover novels, much for the experience and for the fact that I am a bibliophile. (I have almost 100 hardcover novels right now!) Also, aesthetically speaking, hardcover novels just...look better to me. That said, I'll probably give in eventually and buy a Kindle, like I gave in and now have both a Walkman mp3 player and an iPod Touch.

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Mon Oct 04, 2010 2:09 am
Evi says...



I will go on reading hardcovers until it becomes massively inconvenient. And then, if I decide the practicality outweighs the negatives, I will happily buy an ebook and convert to that. It's the story that matters to me, of course, but I do like the feel of a book in my hand, and I will continue buying books until the entire world makes the switch (which it hasn't come to yet); then I will get a Kindle or whatever and go on with my life. :P
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Mon Oct 04, 2010 2:29 am
Nate says...



There are two things that attracts me to the Kindle:

1. Instant Gratification. I can't tell you how many times I've been stuck somewhere with nothing to read (usually because I had finished the book I was reading). With a Kindle, I can get almost any book within minutes with no trip to the store. Plus, it's cheaper than going to the store.

2. Huge storage space. I have no more room for books. Maybe when I'm older and have enough money to afford an entire room devoted to just books, I'll change my mind. But for now, owning a hardcover book has become annoying. I don't have any place to put it after I'm done reading it. I get rid of a bunch every now and then through either donations or by selling them, but it never solves the problem. Besides, there's a huge advantage to being able to carry every single book I own in something that weighs a pound.


But, there are also two reasons as to why I haven't bought one just yet:

1. Kindle doesn't support the e-pub format. The Nook does, but I've tried the Nook and I don't like having the touchscreen at the bottom. The e-pub format is important because then you have access to literally hundreds of thousands of free books. On the Kindle, if I want to read Mark Twain, I have to pay for it. On the Nook, I can download Mark Twain for free. But unfortunately, as I said, the hardware for the Nook just doesn't feel right to me.

2. Licensing. When you buy a hardcover book, you own it. You can sell it, lend it, burn it, whatever. But with an e-book, you never own it. You're only renting it, and so your ownership of the book is at the whim of whomever sold it to you. What if Amazon or Barnes & Noble went bankrupt one day? I'd be in danger of losing all the books I bought (it's the exact same with iTunes, which is why I use Napster and Pandora).

Regardless, I probably will buy a Kindle once the third generation of it comes out (that's when hardware makers usually nail it down right). Would've been helpful to have one just a couple days ago when my 2 year old nephew was over. He wanted me to read him a story, so he pulled off a book I guess he thought looked interesting from my shelf. The book? Historical GDP statistics. Unfortunately, I didn't have any books for his age. If I had a Kindle, though, I could've downloaded a Thomas The Tank Engine story (he reacts to trains like 11 year old girls react to Justin Beiber).
  








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