“Print [will soon be] dead”(NYTimes), as many presumed when Michael Hart created the first e-book in 1971. Since the introduction of the first e-book, there were many early presumptions stating that “print books [will become] obsolescent by 2001, or [will lose] half their market to ebooks by then” (Gomez 117) – foreseeing that e-books will drive down the sales of print media. Though it is not true that e-book has made print books obsolete by 2001, it did however accumulate higher sales than paper versions in 2009 on Christmas day on Amazon.com for the Kindle (Van Dulken 3).
Cory Doctorow “a self-avowed techno-agnostic social-democrat libertarian” thinks otherwise, he believes that the free downloads of his “cutting edge science fiction” will not drive down the sales of his physical books, but instead spurs sales” (Gomez 150) The goal of his generous offering is to “win an audience”, those who download were not going to buy his book to begin with anyway. Many of us spend all day reading electronically, including magazine and news material and web surfing (Gomez 124) so it is understandable that Cory Doctorow is using the Internet as a marketing tool. Authors should definitely experiment with marketing tools for electronic media at their disposal.
There are numerous online discussions on books people have read, one of the more famous website is called ‘SHELFARI’. It is a platform that allow readers to “[share], [learn about], [discuss] about the books they have read”, unlike the days where you have to physically be at someone’s home to see their shelf where they can show and discuss the books they have read to people (Gomez 158). With e-books, teenagers would probably have read more books than they actually did, as “e-books can provide opportunities to increase library usage” which allows “24/7 availability and remote access” (Ashcroft 5). Another advantage for using an e-book is that some university libraries support the retrieval of e-books on our own accounts through the e-book “cloud” if we lose an e-reader – a storage feature that allows you to securely access it with your library account (Herther 9).
Anne Quindlen said that “part of the great wonder of reading is that it has the ability to make human beings feel more connected to one another.” (Gomez 157) From the invention of writing, humans have been increasingly able to communicate, recollect history, share ideas and feel connected. The Internet, and invention of the electronic reading device has allowed users of the e-book connect with one another more than ever. This e-media has allowed many opportunities to arise and has made a significant positive impact for educational purposes:
“A student who reads an e-book that contains sound as well as video would more likely understand the material contained therein than one who reads a printed book”(Oghojafor 5)
An e-textbook allows for information to be most up to date, as publishers can change and update texts easily. Special effects make the textbook more engaging and useful for students in the learning process (Oghojafor 6). Some special effects include kindle’s ‘text-to-speech’ feature for visually impaired people (Harris). It permits greater outreach amongst students, teachers, readers and authors, therefore, letting society “become active readers in an educational environment” (Tuman __).
In an economic perspective, as the sales of the printed texbooks continue to drop, the price of the textbook unstoppably soar higher. According to The Association of American University Press there was a 4.4% decrease in sales from 2001 to 2003 (Oghojafor 7) and a 150% increase in price from 1997 to 2005 (Oghojafor 7). The main problem with e-books is the “segregation between the well-off and the poor, there are no used/read e-books market” (Harris). For someone to access the e-book world they will have to buy an e-reader, which the poor might not prioritize to do. Another setback for the less fortunate, is that even if they have an e-reader, the e-book world is so “steeped into the world of e-commerce [that] without a credit card it is next to impossible” (Gibbons 3) to purchase in the e-book market.
The Internet and e-reader allows for updating context of a book to be more efficient as it is cost effective to make a new edition and to publish, which permits it to be easier to distribute. It has also been projected that in terms of news and the latest information, the digitization and “general accessibility of all, past and present, scientific data and information” will increase because of “collaborations enabled over the Internet” (Hall 7). Giving a “renewed public sphere approach”, where the notion of who controls digital culture becomes questionable.
Undoubtedly, the idea of an e-reader device was spun out of our bustling lifestyle and the need of immediacy, and the want of multi-tasking in the 21st Century. We are in an information age where we should embrace the past traditions and move towards the future of e-books. The e-book should not be seen as a replacement for the print texts, but rather an extension, even given its rising popularity amongst readers.