Thursday, April 29, 2010

eBooks for an iCulture

To start with, I do not think that the traditional idea of a book will ever leave us. There is something about holding a book in your hands, smelling it, flipping the pages, being able to flip at will to various parts of the book that will always be in demand.

I have to say though, I love eBooks. The free Kindle application for my iPod has been amazing for me. The simplicity of one click shopping for books on amazon with wireless delivery in just seconds, all from the comfort from my bed on a lazy Sunday morning is kind of amazing. And with fewer people reporting reading books today than they did twenty years ago, any form of publishing that saves money is probably a welcome thing for book publishers and not having to pay for the physical publishing of a book is sure to save money. I also think that ebooks from libraries are an interesting and welcome development. Although I personally could not figure out how to download and read the book I wanted from the library, smarter people than I are able to do this. Heck, my roommate told me the other day that she has a bunch of ebooks checked out from the library at the moment. I was a bit amazed at her (1) reading a book, (2) thinking of the library instead of just going to Borders, and (3) being on it enough to download books from the library's website. I'm sure this is my library influence shining through onto her. The more methods libraries have for reaching out to people and promoting reading the better, and the ebook adds another facet of library service.

I think there is another important aspect of the digital book phenomenon, the self publishers out there. Before, if you wanted to get your work published you had to submit it to a publisher, where more than likely it would be rejected. Then the truely ambitious could pay to have the book published themselves. Now though, anyone can publish their own work on the internet, they can even make it easily available to other people using amazon and their kindle application. There is something gratifying, a bigger sense of accomplishment is realized when people (besides your mother) read something that you have slaved away at creating, self publishing via ebooks is a way to fulfill this.

There is also the whole phenomenon of fanfiction. I know so many people who read and write fanfiction, its amazing. Without the internet and the freedom to publish just about anything on the internet, fanfiction just wouldn't be the same. I think its great that so many young people have the motivation and the opportunity of writing stories that other people will read. Another example of the great things the internet provides for us.

So I'm a fan of eBooks.

I'm a bigger fan of real books.

No comments:

Post a Comment