The adult audience were universally in favour of the printed book and could not understand why anyone would choose an electronic book over a printed book. This is common with adults. They have been brought up with printed books and are comfortable with the technology. It’s simple, cheap and doesn’t require batteries.
The Kindle and the Sony Reader are but the beginning of the revolution. The choice will really come when we have paper white screens that are not backlit, that have colour and movie quality motion, are waterproof, so you can read them in the bath, and are light and flexible with rock steady operating systems. This will be the convergence of all media. it will be something you can watch tv with, do your emails with, video conference with Granny with and read your book with. A universal lifestyle machine. It would become a part of you – like one of Philip Pullman’s Daemons. Your life would be backed up on the cloud and available to download to you machine wirelessly at any moment.
By then (ten years?) the book will have become an interesting gift item.
I know this will happen, because that’s where all the technology and publishing corporations are heading. Shifting lumps of wood pulp around the world is not sustainable. Information wants to be free and it will find a way to be free. Once the words are digitised they can not be held back. Children have no loyalty to the paper book. Whatever they are presented with becomes the norm. They will be just as happy with a Kiddie Kindle as they are with a paper book.
What this will mean for authors, I just don’t know. I think there are interesting times ahead. There are two conflicting problems. Authors need to be paid and millions of people are quite happy to write for free. Quality writing doesn’t just happen. Quality is judged, encouraged and tweaked by editors who also need to be paid.
Authors will have to learn to forget about royalties. They will have to find different ways of getting paid. No doubt publishers will turn into content managers, making money out of content in any way they can to provide funds to allow the authors to continue creating.
Oh Dear! I’m getting all sorts of crazy ideas now. I’ll have to think about them for another day.
As we walked home last night, we saw a view into someone’s front room. A young woman sat on her sofa. The TV was on but eyes were glued to her laptop. This is a normal scene in any household now. This has happened in the last three years. In ten years time, books will be strange objects that old people are interested in.
It makes me shudder to say it – that’s my living going down the drain – but it’s coming, sure as electric light turned candles into gift items.