I've done something terrible and I'm wracked with guilt about it. Yes, I've gone and got an ebook reader. Sorry.
Have I contributed to the End of Publishing As We Know It? Will more bookshops and publishers go to the wall now they can't rely on my purchases? Maybe it's silly, but I'm losing sleep over this. When the day dawns that not one paper book can be found in the entire world, the blood - or ink - will be on my hands.
But it's SO COOL! It's slim and neat and downloading books is SO EASY! It's disturbingly easy, in fact. There are these cool sites that give away free ebooks - imagine that!! So as well as the hundred freebies that came with it I can download to my heart's content. I feel like a kid in a sweet shop, and all in the comfort of my computer chair. No more trudging up to Waterstones or waiting a week for Amazon to pop my order in the post.
I can't help wonder where this will end. If we don't need shops or paper what's to stop us all putting our books online for immediate download? How can copyright be enforced between national boundaries when the Internet is global? Will paper books be a thing of the past?
1 comment:
Just think of the trees you're saving, Sandra.
I blogged about this a while ago when my husband bought a reader. People will still buy books,I think, because they'll see one on the shelf in the newsagent and suddenly want it. They'll maybe buy one from a particular author on the reader and then want others by that author that aren't available on the reader. But eventually I guess, the reader will become the norm.
As for copyright - dunno!
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