IN the world of content, we’ve seen industry after industry go the way of digital. The music industry was hit by the digital wave first with CDs replacing records and cassette tapes, then CDs giving way to MP3 downloads. Today, many young people don’t even bother with downloads but simply stream their music on their mobile phones.
We saw pretty much the same thing happen with movies and TV shows. Initially, we had VHS video tapes, which were replaced by VCDs. Those were quickly replaced by the superior DVD, which in turn, was replaced by the even better Blu-ray discs. There was an effort to offer videos via downloads, which never quite caught on, but video streaming is now very popular.
But what happened with books?
E-books have been around for nearly as long as digital music and videos but many people still prefer their books in print format. This is especially so in this part of the world, although books aren’t exactly dead in the Western world either. Yes, Kindle and other forms of e-books are very popular in the US and Europe but so are print books, which refuse to fade away.
People obviously prefer digital music and digital videos because they have so many advantages over their analogue version. But if you look at the features of e-books, you’ll find there are a lot of things to like about them too. In fact, in most respects they’re superior to print books.
Portability: You can carry thousands of e-books in your tablet or phone. It’d be hard to carry more than half a dozen print books in your backpack.
Storage: If you store e-books in your computer hard drive or external hard drive, you’re looking at tens of thousands of e-books that can be kept here. It wouldn’t take many print books to fill up your shelf.
Environmentally friendly: E-books are digital so they exist as data whereas print books involve the felling of trees. If you care about the environment, e-books are definitely a better way to go.
Price: When you compare the prices of a digital and a print version of a book you’ll always find that the digital version is cheaper for obvious reasons. There’s no ink or paper involved. There’s not much storage and distribution costs either (just servers and bandwidth as opposed to warehouses and delivery trucks).
Delivery Time: When you buy an e-book, you get instantaneous access. In contrast, for a print book you have to drive to a bookstore, park, purchase the book and drive back before you can read it. If you mail order the book, it can take days even if it’s a local order and weeks if it’s from overseas (unless you pay for super expensive courier delivery).
Durability: E-books don’t degrade over time. And even if you lose your phone or tablet, you can always re-download e-books that you have already purchased. Print books are made of paper so they can get torn, get wet, get mouldy and get misplaced.
Multimedia Capability: Although not all e-books have multimedia functions, there are e-books out there that have animation, audio, video and interactivity embedded. It takes the reading experience to a whole new level that print books can’t possibly do.
Readability: E-books have the ability for the text size to be changed. So, if you have good eyesight, you might prefer a smaller font but if your parents want to read that same e-book, you might want to adjust the font size for them. You can’t do that with printed books.
Searchability: Not only are e-book titles easy to search for, the text inside each book is also searchable. So, if you’re looking for a particular keyword or phrase inside a book, you just have to type it in the search bar. The print book answer to that would be the index but not all books have indices and they aren’t as easy to use compared to a search bar.
LURE OF PRINT
With so many clear advantages, why is it that many people still prefer print books? Some people say they like the fact that it’s easier to share a print book. Many e-books are copy protected so you can’t share them, whereas with print books you can, although not en masse (because you’re dealing with a physical object, obviously only one book can be loaned to one friend at any one time).
Others say they like the fact that with print books, you can jot down notes on the margins of the book (it’s worth noting though that you can also make notes on e-books though it’s by typing and not
physically jotting).
But the overwhelming reason that’s given for preferring print books has to do with sentimentality. Almost everyone who says they prefer print books say they like the way a print book feels, they like the rustling sound that a page makes when you turn them, they even like the smell of a print book.
They basically like the physical presence of a book. It really has nothing to do with functionality. And because of that, it’s clear that in the long run, e-books will prevail just as digital music and digital videos have done. It’ll just take a longer time as we have to wait for a whole generation of readers who have little sentimental attachment to print books to come of age.
But market forces will be the main reason print books will be overtaken by e-books. Publishers and bookstores around the world are all downsizing. Even if you’re not aware of what’s happening in the book publishing industry you can see bookstores growing smaller and smaller as people aren’t buying books like they used to. The reason is probably information overload. There’s so much content online, they don’t feel the need to buy books anymore.
When this situation becomes too severe, publishers will have to make a tough decision on whether to close shop or to find a cheaper business model. Print is expensive. Digital is less so. It’ll take some time but within a generation or two, print books will become as quaint as vinyl records are today. The specialist collectors will still want them, but for the masses digital will be good enough.
Oon Yeoh is an consultant experience in print, online and mobile media. Reach him at oonyeoh@gmail.com