This is a take that’s going to be surprisingly unpopular, despite being obvious.
E-books are better than paper books.
They cost nothing to deliver. They’re cheaper than paper books. They don’t kill trees. They’re lighter and easier to read.
They can also be updated, and that’s important.
I got a call recently from a company wanting to reprint my 2001 book on tech history, which I called (unfortunately) The Blankenhorn Effect. I later re-issued it twice, each time under a different title, as I came to understand that tech changes too fast for books to keep up with. My next project will be another update, tentatively titled Moore’s Lore 2024: More After Moore.
What’s the advantage of a paper book? It’s permanent. Its sale process offers serendipity. There’s nothing like the smell and feel of a bookshop, or a library. You can make the same arguments for LPs over a streaming service.
There’s one more argument that book lovers use. They hate Amazon.Com.
I get it. Amazon, and its Kindle, rule the e-book market. It’s the format of choice. It holds a market monopoly. This has made Amazon lazy. The whole Kindle business is now a pimple on the butt of Amazon.Com, which was founded almost 30 years ago to sell paper books.
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