This article explains roughly why I think digital publishing is the future of print:
There’s a lot of angst in the book publishing industry — and among book lovers — about the rise of the e-book and the decline of the printed version, but there’s good news for those who care about books regardless of what form they take: A growing body of evidence shows that people with e-readers are reading more books. (from GigaOM)
Yet, it also explains why magazine publishers probably will take a lot longer to embrace digital: there is empirical evidence that they should do it and do it now. Seriously, what is it about publishers that they don’t make changes that are nearly guaranteed to save their industry?
I like eReaders, but the one thing I haven’t seen them address yet is library users. I read a lot, but I get 75% of those books from the library. Until there is some secure way to “borrow” eBooks from the library, I probably won’t get an eReader.
That’s a really good point. I borrow from the library a lot because I don’t want the clutter of more books (I’m pretty particular about which books I keep), a problem that goes away with e-readers. I do, however, keep many back issues of magazines, so e-reader FTW there.
But I also borrow from the library because books are expensive, and I don’t want to pay a lot for a book that isn’t good (so a Netflix-like for-fee rental plan or library-like public service borrowing plan would work for me). AND, I also like to support public access to quality reading materials. What if a percentage of every “book rental” went to libraries? What if publishers only allowed public libraries to rent books, instead of allowing companies to take over? (Companies could still make money on the biz by consulting and developing systems for the public libraries.)
Actually, the Sony e-reader supports borrowing eBooks from over 9,000 libraries around the country. “Access your local public library to browse, checkout and download eBooks. Best of all it’s free and open 24/7.”
So, actually, that’s been addressed by one company. I wish Amazon would do this as well, as the Kindle 3 is a superior product. However, since Amazon uses a proprietary eBook format, it probably won’t happen any time soon. But it *will* happen.