eBooks: The Only Books?
Way back when the internet first learned to walk there was a
famous aphorism encouraging it as it took each unsteady step:
"Information wants to be free." Well, while the internet is not
old by any stretch of the imagination, it is now upright,
sturdy, and racing ahead, two legs strong and insisting:
"Information wants to be on the internet!" The resounding boom
of this proclamation initially caused other information-related
industries--namely print media and publishing--to backpedal or
just plain shake. Newspapers, luckily understanding the
ramifications of the internet, quickly steadied their nerves and
appeared online, first as supplements to their printed versions,
then vice versa as their primary mode of distribution. Books, on
the other hand, appeared slowly, initially at a crawl, but
seemingly overnight are like the internet itself, already
running.
In increasing numbers, books are now digitized; i.e. becoming
eBooks. Though industry numbers vary, some sources already place
eBook sales at 35% of the overall total of yearly book sales.
Book reviewers, likewise, increasingly shift their critical gaze
away from traditional hardbound and soft-cover books to eBooks,
which either appear solely in digital format, or as alternatives
to their tangible world counterparts. And not only do eBook
reviewers now regularly give resoundingly influential thumbs up
or down to specific eBooks, but entire websites are available to
review, catalogue and otherwise provide information on eBooks in
an increasing number of categories. In fact, the breath of
reading materials contained within an eBook's pages already
exceeds traditional (and at present most sought after, and thus
lucrative) self-help eBooks to encompass even literature's canon
(formerly only found gold-leafed and leather-bound) from Homer
to Shakespeare.
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