Paperchains

Sometimes it’s a delight to hold and read a printed book: the texture of the cover, the weight of the book, the beauty of the fonts and images all bring a luxurious aesthetic to the experience of reading. People commonly enjoy reading works of fiction printed on paper.

But sometimes books are just tools — we want to look up a fact, discover a technique, make notes, learn something. Often a printed book is not as convenient or efficient as an electronic text where you can use the power of the computer to search for a word or phrase, highlight or annotate the text, copy and paste extracts into a storage file, or click a link to further information.

The next time you’re looking for a textbook, a reference book, and instructional work, think about whether an electronic copy would meet your needs. Publishers don’t always make it easy to find their (legal) ebook versions, but they are often available if you look hard enough.

One immediate advantage is that delivery is instant: purchase and download, the start reading. No waiting for couriers or postal services.

And then, you don’t have to store or dispose of the book: no bookshelves required. Your ebook will likely fit easily, with hundreds of others on a CD, or store it on your computer’s hard drive or an online secure storage service.

As an example of needing to look around, consider the book Maria Langer and I co-wrote: WordPress 2 Visual Quickstart Guide. Buy the easy-to-find print version from Amazon, or buy the ebook from the publisher. Or, join the Safari Online service and read the book online.

Next time you’re thinking of buying a book take a moment to consider: is print the best format for this book for me, or can I do it differently?

Although many people love the feel and smell of a (new) book, there are also many who believe that a move towards ebooks could be a good thing.

Personally I hate the problem of ‘old’ books. I have problems giving them away or selling them, as they are often just not wanted. And I have huge resistance to throwing a book in a bin, whether for recycling or as rubbish.

Dave Balter suggests authors should release their works as ebooks, as a way of testing the market before publishers print copies:

• Authors self-package their book entirely on their own.
• Authors distribute digital copies of their books for free to attract readers and to identify a market. They use self-distribution tools to sell as many books as they can.
• Based on the response, the publisher determines which books to pick up, and pays a licensing and distribution right and uses their relationships to distribute a product that has developed an initial marketplace of buyers (note: great new potential business model for some plucky entrepreneur: track the ‘response’ of free book downloads as a data set for publishers to review opportunities).
• Publishers take the completed product, make tweaks as author and publisher feel necessary, print more and distribute them through the strength of their partners.

[Via : How the Book Publishing Industry Should Reinvent Itself - Harvard Business Online's Conversation Starter.]

I think the whole matter of ebooks is more complex than that, but it’s an interesting point of view.