The dark side is, the books are cheap. Not quite the same commitment as someone plunking down $12.99 or even more for a tangible book. I would love to see stats on the percentage of books downloaded vs. actually read. I think it would be a scary number.

I still REALLY don’t understand this argument.

It seems to be that accessibility, convenience and affordability will somehow devalue books.

This really seems to me exactly like monks telling Gutenberg, “But when books aren’t handwritten and therefore become more accessible, convenient and affordable?”

And to be fair, the monks had a point. When books had to be handwritten, only very valuable books were written — the Bible, maybe Aristotle. Perhaps a treatise by Galen. Etc.

But after the advent of print, you started getting these crass, money grubbing, capitalist pigs selling pamphlets about two-headed cannibals and all sorts of weird sh$%. Pretty soon writers even started wasting their time writing deliberately “novel” “fictions”.

It got so bad that concerned authorities had to start banning and censoring books just to keep a lid on things. Occasionally, burning the authors. Fortunately, that worked. Oh, no, sorry. Didn’t work.

The dark side is, the books are cheap. Not quite the same commitment as someone plunking down $12.99 or even more for a tangible book. I would love to see stats on the percentage of books downloaded vs. actually read. I think it would be a scary number.

I still REALLY don’t understand this argument.

It seems to be that accessibility, convenience and affordability will somehow devalue books.

This really seems to me exactly like monks telling Gutenberg, “But when books aren’t handwritten and therefore become more accessible, convenient and affordable?”

And to be fair, the monks had a point. When books had to be handwritten, only very valuable books were written — the Bible, maybe Aristotle. Perhaps a treatise by Galen. And the scholars who read these things were very serious about it.

But what happened when just any boob could buy Aristotle? Or read the Bible?

Actually, come to think of it, that started a century of warfare.

Ok. I stand corrected.

The dark side is, the books are cheap. Not quite the same commitment as someone plunking down $12.99 or even more for a tangible book. I would love to see stats on the percentage of books downloaded vs. actually read. I think it would be a scary number.

I still REALLY don’t understand this argument.

Accessibility, convenience and affordability =

…people reading LESS?

In what universe does that make sense?

The only thing I get is that there will be more competition for the individual author. Right now, a person may hesitate a long time before buying a $30 hardcover or $8 paperback. But chances are, they are committed to that book once they buy it. (Less so with the paperback, presumably.) And they have less money left after buying your book to buy the competition.

Now, it seems the fear is that after readers stock up their Kindle with hundreds of competing titles, your book STILL has to compete for reader attention even after it’s bought.

But again, I don’t think this will translate to LESS readers. Because the people who would have been your fans before (and spent more money to buy your book) are the ones who will still value it the most, whatever they paid for it. The people who buy your book not sure they will read it are people who wouldn’t have taken a chance before, but now have, because it’s not as big a loss if they don’t get around to it. And once they have it, they are more likely to read it.

So your book is not going to lose anything by not being read by a few buyers. Those were buyers who wouldn’t have bought you otherwise. In that case, what do you care if they buy your book but decide not to read it after all? Except maybe a blow to the ego.

There’s nothing scary about this to me.

Throughout the history of the book, there has always been one predictable truth:

Accessibility, convenience and affordability = MORE READERS.