Cowboy Confessional

Authors find it difficult to autograph Kindles.

With e-book sales hovering around 20% of all books retailed, and with the price of Kindles, Nooks and other slabs rapidly falling, the days of printed books are numbered. On a recent coast to coast flight, while hiking from the stern head back to my seat, I scanned who was reading what.  Of people delving deeply into literature, nearly 40% held gizmos and not dead trees. Publishing has reached a tipping point and the end of the only form of product it had previously known.

To move forward, you must leave something behind. To obtain romance you must scuttle heartache to the wakes. To get that better job, you have to leave your home town. To carry 5,000 books in your paw, be able to search through them for reference, to copy and paste passages into emails, you have to say goodbye to Gutenberg, his printing press and paper.

Certain things will be missed in the same way we all occasionally reminisce about lovers left behind. Book tours will continue, but the signing ceremony associated with them will wither, as will the collector value in owning autographed copies. Personally, I will miss examining the collections of newly met friends and enemies, for you learn much about a person by examining their bookshelf. A wise young fellow I know loves the sense of history when buying a used book, examining the dog ears and margin notes, and wondering about the people who read his copy before him. And giving books as gifts will lose the sense of the physical, the feel of real if you will. Giving e-books books as presents will have all the authentic, personal warmth of handing someone a gift card to Applebee’s.

Thanks Aunt Alice … so thoughtful.

We aren’t going back. Try to find a typewriter store and you will fail, though computer retailers abound. Try to find a book store and you will see slimmer pickings each day. Paper books will be like home, a place that stays fond in the memory and yet to which returning will be impossible.

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This entry was posted by Guy Smith on Sunday, August 14th, 2011 at 6:52 am and is filed under Media, Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.