Could it be that 25% of you really just won’t buy mostly e-books ever? With the caveat that these results are unscientific and the audience has varied from year to year, this marks the third consecutive time 25% of the poll responders said you can pry paper books out of their cold dead hands: 2007: […]
E-books
Will you ever buy mostly e-books?
It’s that time of year! It’s time for the seventh (!!!) annual poll on our e-book future, which I first started in 2007 when the first Kindle had barely launched and when 2013 seemed so far into the distant future it may as well been the setting for a science fiction movie. Now, yes, caveat, […]
Publishers Should Empower Authors to Sell Their Own E-books
Despite having extensive distribution operations, publishers have long been extremely reluctant to sell books directly to customers. Whether for lack of retail expertise, out of fear of competing with bookstores they need to thrive, or lack of concrete vision, publishers have completely ceded the e-book and e-retailing landscape to Amazon and others. Even Bookish, a […]
Hands-free Books Are Coming
Credit: Google/Screenshot by me My friend and colleague Sharon Vaknin recently received word that she is one of the lucky winners of the Google Glass Explorers program, and will soon be able to test out this futuristic device called Google Glass for herself. What is Google Glass? It’s part screen, part camera, part enhanced reality, part […]
What Role Should Libraries Have in an Electronic World?
Children’s book author Terry Deary stirred up some controversy last month when he said libraries have “had their day” but no longer make sense in today’s world. He cites the lack of compensation for authors and damage to bookstores, who have to compete with an institution giving away the book for free: “People have to […]
Will books lose out in a tablet world?
One of my favorite predictions I have put down on pixel and screen is this one from 2007, when the Kindle had just been announced, e-book sales were virtually nonexistent, and the iPad was but a glimmer in Steve Jobs’ eye: In my opinion there will never be a widely used iPod of books, a […]