Let me share a little secret with you: Books are gonna die. I mean the hard back paper books are gonna die. They’ll be wiped to extinction along with their process owners just like it happened with the cassettes industry. And guess who is going to kill them? Kindle – Amazon and the likes. Ya, I know some will smile skeptically on this tiny claim of mine, but lets wager on that. I swear paper books wouldn’t survivethe next five years on earth! Comments below, sire.
Agree or disagree, what’s more important is that the paper-back-book industry – print – needs to and should die too, IMHO. And thankfully, so it will. Consider this, what is there to paper, that is not there to electronic paper? Or let me put it another way, what is the point of having hard back paper books when the information could be passed on more easily, in a scalable and economical manner? There is no logistics cost, there is no ink or paper cost, not even the cost of “copy-righting” if things moved the way they do on the Internet? And guess what our friendly neighborhood trees are saved from the axe as well, leaving the planet slightly greener than before.
Welcome to Clearwater High School, USA which recently adopted Amazon’s Kindle to change over completely to “paper-less” model of dissemination of knowledge to its students. According to a local news source the changeover is effective immediately and the kids are really excited about it. Other schools are gonna follow suit.
What’s important here is that even in India, we have a few good men vying to create a cheap tablet for the poorest of the poor. And then there are others like Barnes & Noble, Pi, Adam, Illiad, Hanlin, iRex and even the iPad which focus on dissemination of content in a near replacement to paper books too! So where exactly is the market headed? IMHO, there will be (and should be) vertical-rization in the e-paper segment too. Education books are consumed differently than novels or leisure reading which again is different from consumption of content over the internet and so on. Each book, just like in this case Kindle is positioning more towards ‘knowledge-books-school’, others need to carve a niche rapidly to build their own impregnable structure over a period of time.
For a country like USA, actions around Kindle or iPad carry a PR ‘hype’ intent whereas for India the involvement of Government in kick-starting such an initiative is a clear indication of our need rather than a PR story. And thankfully we have Pi from Infibeam, Adam from Notion Ink to fill the empty columns of our market.
But hey did all this divert your attention from original wager: The paper books are gonna die!
What do you think?
Yes, let’s wager. I say they won’t, not in the next five years at least.
Since you asked, lets wager on that. I say in 5 years the print industry will not die.
The print industry today (books as well as newspaper) are no doubt undergoing a huge turmoil. The situation is akin to the one faced by music industry almost a decade ago. What happened? The music industry did not die. MP3′s were cheap/scalable/convenient way to transfer/carry/listen to. But CD’s are still sold today. Cassettes are dead yes, but not CD’s, and I don’t think they will die in atleast 10 more years to come.
I say the books piracy business is going to go bust in next 5 years. People who buy pirated books are the one who will love to read stuff (paid or otherwise) on Kindle and other medias. But for a person like me, who still goes to bookshops, picks up an odd book to read, collects some real good books, I don’t think I will switch to Kindle in next 5 years.
Just my opinion
ha ha! @Mayank since you already “know” about Kindle, I bet you will stop going to bookstores in next five years coz you are gonna broswer the web/whispernet or something else to grab that book in the middle of the night when the shops are closed. Think :-)
Mmm, I mean “paper-cutting” industry. Not the books -> Object polymorphism uh oh. Yeah so how much is the bet worth, ha ha?
Cheers,
Arvind
Let me share a perspective here. Pluggd.in gets lot of books for reviews (mainly from US authors) and after I started using Infibeam’s Pi, I have been asking the publishing houses to send me the ebook version.
And when they tell me that they prefer to send a hard copy (there are legalities in sending ebooks to non-US countries), I tell them that it will take me a month+ to finish the hard copy and only 10 days to finish the ebook version.
So I let them decide! :)
And guess which version do they send?
I’m still not convinced. What if he wants to buy a book not available on Kindle? Also, I’m sticking with inertia here. Books have been around for more than a thousand years, so I’m betting that 5 years is too little to kill them off.
A time line of 5 years seems to optimistic claim. There are tonnes of countries far behind in the digital race. And with respect to paper books, There are still many things like highlighting, doodling that’s easier to do on paper than on the kindles of the world.
End of the day it pains less to lose one novel than to lose your whole collection. And having a gadget wherever u go is a bigger task.
The the industry change- yes, within 5 years – probably No
I personally don’t believe that ALL paper books are going to be replaced by eBooks. I heavily consume both paper and electronic media for different purpose. While the amount of paper media consumed by me is far less than its electronic counterpart, I don’t think I will be totally replacing it with electronic media any sooner.
Basically, I can put the media I read in two categories.
1. Reference media – News, articles, blogs etc. I mostly consume this type of media quite regularly via electronic medium. The major advantage is that I get exactly what I want by searching. For example, going through news feeds is much faster and easier than reading a newspaper.
2. Leisure media – Novels, other books etc. I primarily read it for refreshment or to get away from my computer. I like how reading on a paper feels. I also collect hardbound copies of the books I like. I don’t see eBooks as a “collectible” yet because they are platform bound (DRM). Despite “owning” them, I can’t read them using device of my choice and there are no guarantees that I will have that book safe and secure after say 20 years or so.
So, as far as avoiding print goes, I am more than happy to ditch newspapers, periodicals, and reference books like dictionaries. But, when it comes to books, I won’t be abandoning them in near future.
Just my two cents.
@Rakshit Both the verticals are now at the mercy of e-book makers. So if Adam decides to focus on leisure content, you are gonna ditch hard-back paper novels. And if Pi decides to enter school/education market the kids around us are going to ditch the hard paper books.
The writing is on the wall.
- Arvind
@Arvind Amazon offers almost everything on Kindle that is available as a paperback/hardback novels. I still wouldn’t buy it because the kindle editions can’t be “collected” or “preserved” like a hardback edition. They practically store my books on their cloud and reserve the right to remove them whenever they want.
Besides, I can’t show-off my books collection in Kindle, can I? :P
Perhaps you may want to show 3-4 Kindles to your friends tomorrow? Who knows. Have a look at Barnes & Noble’s Nook where you can lend a book to your friend too. It is as real as your paper books.
The infibeam sells at a price of Rs. 9999/-
How many students (or their parents) would be able to afford that? Maybe a handful of schools in Mumbai or Delhi.
Are you going to give your VI std. kid such a costly gadget? Rather, how many times will you be ready to replace it if it gets lost?
I think the analogy is slightly off:
Books : Kindle :: CDs : MP3 players
And there are two points why ‘books’ will become less popular.
1. Ease of purchase of content on Kindle/iPad/etc
2. Availability of large variety of content (new authors will flourish as you wouldn’t need the typical publishing house and years or running around to get a book out).
Paper books are not going to die..Kindle can’t give the same feeling what we get when we read paper books..
Though there are many e-books available ,for the serious reading ,i still buy books or take print as i hate to look into computers or any device for a long time..
I share the same sentiments w.r.t e-books. But e-paper books are devices which resemble paper back books. So you are way off the mark by comparing the thing with computer screens or even the iPad.
- Arvind
5 Years? No way!
Books are here to stay for a long time to come. Books are cheap and easily replaceable if they get lost, wet, stolen, dropped, et al. Not so in the case of Kindles, Nooks or any of the other clones.
Environment friendly? Lets not forget the manufacturing process of these e-devices and their “long lasting” batteries and the cost of energy.
I could go on…but I’d rather just come back in 5 years and post “I told you so!”.
ha ha!
But see if you buy your school going kid a kindle today your gonna cut down on felling trees drastically. No. of separate units/kid go down to ZERO. Simple maths. Paper books are not cheap, they get soiled and are often lost to people whom we lend to.
Think again, sir.
- Arvind
Quote: Paper books are not cheap, they get soiled and are often lost to people whom we lend to.
And what about kindles that get damaged or god forbid soiled in the rain and short circuit internally?
Hi Arvind and Other Helpful Readers,
Can you pls tell the best e-book reader for an Indian buyer living in India. I want to buy an e-reader but doesn’t know all the options and the best among them.
Pls consider factors like:
-Cost of the e-reader
-Cost of e-books compatible with the reader (from Indian as well as international sellers)
-Battery life
-reading experience
-Compatibility with different e-book formats, PDFs etc.
-Ability to annotate, bookmark, highlight etc.
-Life & Quality of the e-reader
Or simply putting: Which e-reader you will like to buy today & why?
I would go with Kindle (with 3G, either 6″ version or DX) but they are short on two fronts:
(1) No support for the EPUB format yet.
(2) PDF support needs to improve a bit.
No other ebook reader can match Amazon’s catalog. And lifetime free 3G/Edge connection is well worth the extra 50$. But EPUB support is a must have. That’s what I have been holding up my wallet for. :-)
Paper books will die in 5 years? I will be surprised if e-books will cross even 50% mark in 5 years worldwide!
Reasons: While there are similarities to music industry, there are crucial differences. some of them below:
- Cassettes needed a device of their own to play on. It got replaced by a different device. Thing to note: no customer behavior change required. You still play your music on some device. Not the same thing as book. From print book to e-book is a major behavior change and also a major investment.
- All the examples you are giving are very top-of-the-pyramid. Majority of people do not read enough books to justify the expense of an dedicated e-reader. All the Chetan Bhagat crowd probably reads 2-3 books a year. Will they buy and maintain and carry a separate device for that? I doubt. But a lot of people listen to enough music to justify the cost of a music system which can play mp3 also – anyway it was not much. Or having a phone which can play mp3 or may be even a personal mp3 player.
- If you would claim that text books in US will become almost digital in 5 years, I will say, it can happen even in 3 since the market inefficiencies are way too high there. Paying $100+ for a < 200 page book machine learning book just feels wrong. In India, such inefficiencies do not exist primarily due to government control on school text books. Plus there are significant benefits in having digital text books. I am not sure there are significant benefits of having digital editions of Albert Camus :).
Abhaya
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