So why have eBooks not destroyed the market for paper
books? The development of eBooks was a digital disrupter technology. But as a
disrupter technology eBooks have only managed to run in parallel with the
centuries old technology of printed paper books and not replace it. They have
failed to sweep away the paper books. In fact eBooks have been losing ground to
the older technology which has managed, through the increased use of digital
technologies to make a come back on both pricing and distribution costs. You
can now buy paperbacks at low new prices or pay 10p in a charity shop for many
a hard bounded masterpiece. Even the internet services, offered by second hand
book shops, is booming guaranteeing a future market for pre-used paper based
books. Think of them being like vinyl records. The nostalgic feelings that can derived
from using older technologies like paper books will never be lost.
The handling of a wedge of paper the size of two hands
with some weight to it creates certain emotions of touch and feel that cannot
be replicated in the use of an eBook or Smartphone or Tablet. The book allows
you to feel the weight of knowledge, experiences and emotions covering all
matter of things right in your hands. The weight and the number of pages all
laid out in front of you gives you that feeling of expectation that no electronic
device can emulate. You can flick through the pages in expectation of the
future content be it textural or visual.
But in many ways it’s the fact that paper books can be
stored on a bookshelf allowing you to have the ability to easily visually peruse
these portals of frictional stories or factual works of genius. Although it is
accepted that the dictionary and encyclopaedia genres are much better delivered
as digital solutions. In terms of books you read rather than reference it is
difficult to emulate the feeling created by handling such books compared with
those inert feelings associated with holding an electronic device.
Now the best books are the creation of one person. The
writer who commits their individual consciousness to words. The fact that
writers can work on their own without being dependent on others gives you the
chance to exclusively share their minds. But the essence of books is that
although they trigger and guide your own thought processes the final setting of
the visual scenes is a function of your imagination not theirs. They can use
words to paint the picture in terms of characters and settings deciding how
much detail to share with you but the real skill in writing is to allow the
reader to complete the job with their own vivid imagination. It is a fact that mentally
created characters or settings will be different from that perceived by another
reader and no doubt different to what the writer originally intended you as the
reader to visualise.
As Hilary Mantel, sadly now deceased, has proved with her
trilogy on Oliver Cromwell even an historical factual book can link documented
facts into undocumented but realistic life like character settings. The skills
of a brilliant historical writer making an often very dry genre into best seller
material. It is an accurate fictional representation of a well-researched
historical character or setting. In my historical writings I have often tried
to convey the scene through the eyes of someone living in the relevant time period
and this needs to take into account the available technologies that person is
likely to have available to them to use.
Now the work of long dead writers across the centuries
can be another source of a unique experience. Both fiction and fact books can
offer you the chance to experience the world at the time of the author’s
writing. Fact books, particularly covering the sciences, show how
intellectually things were understood at the time of writing. Reading these
older books often shows how things have or have not moved on with the passage
of time. My particular interest has been identifying and understanding some
objects or entities that have not changed over time. The book is a classic
example of being a type of document that although the medium of delivery has
changed from cave walls, to pottery, to paper to digital the fundamental writer’s
thoughts are often the same. The thought processes of the human brain have not
changed significantly over the last 2000 years but the technologies in which
these thoughts can be expressed and communicated have radically changed.
But getting stories and messages from human to human has
now extended into what could be termed competing media types. Sound alone being
broadcast radio and now the segmented easily selected podcasts. Pictures being
artwork and photographs moving from paper to digital images. Moving pictures
moving from films and video using cinemas and television to digital streaming
on smartphones and tablets. All these are competing with the book for your time
and attention. It is strange how many people in describing the things they want
to do on holiday list reading a book as one of their priorities. Just you and
the writer spending valuable time together.
So although I consider myself a technologist I have not
been drawn away from paper books. Searching Amazon for a book I will often
avoid the Kindle digital options, although cheaper, choosing to go for paper
versions. Under the economics of retirement living often a printed paper second
hand book is the preferred purchase option. In my case because I like
annotating using notes written in pencil onto the books pages this concerns me
less on a second hand book.
There is only one area in which I have moved completely
away from the paper based product. Experiencing and preferring a true digital
disrupter technology. Yes newspapers. In particular the Times Newspapers. Both
the daily Times and the Sunday Times. But they have to be read on an Apple
iPad. Their implementation particularly when commencing from a PDF facsimile of
the actual printed paper copy whilst seamlessly linking into a textual copy of
a selected article in a reasonable size font makes for a perfect reading
experience. Then the extra capability to share the link to this article with
friends or for my own use by creating a linked message format suitable for a
Smartphone screen size by just undertaking a few clicks whilst reading the
newspaper. Perfect.
Significantly the Times publishers have retained their
newspapers original paper based brand appearance. There was a danger they would
when they went digital just emulate the design style adopted on the internet by
the TV Broadcasters.(eg BBC, Sky etc). The Times have covered this territory by
offering a second format that is purely HTML5 based emulating the style adopted
by the TV Broadcasters. Essentially the TV Broadcasters are looking to lower
the textual content and look at replacing it with video outputs in many cases
captured directly from the public. This both suits the increasing video
expectations of readers particularly the younger generation (eg TikTok) but it
can be much cheaper to produce requiring reduced human work input. But this at
the same time it will lower its intellectual offering to the reader. The Times,
rightly, are looking to retain this intellectual capability provided by its
excellent journalists.
So at some point this digital disrupter will completely
replace the use of the paper medium for the distribution of knowledge and
entertainment. But I would not predict this as being too soon based upon how
slow my reading behaviours change.
