2010 - the Year the Paperback Dies and Ebooks Thrive

Prior to showing how the ebook model is destroyingthe entire news and reading experience for
the paperback book model I want to show a parallelpaperback and magazine readers.
trend that is happening with the newspaper industryApple is said to be announcing shortly the imminent
versus online news. We are witnessing the death ofrelease of a tablet device. The full specifications are
the newspaper as online news becomes the primenot known but there is not a technical person in the
method for to receive news about events.world that thinks reading ebooks will not be part of
Paper-based news has been dying a slow death sincethe functionality - or even the entire focus of this
the internet has been accepted by the mainstream,new device. The magazine industry, as well as the
and this has been hastened by the dawn of socialNew York Times has mentioned the existence of the
media real-time news tools like Twitter. Twitter hasdevice and they are building software to distribute
singlehandedly put the final nail in the coffin of paperwhat used to be paper-based news, on this new
news in 2009.device.
Why do I say this?Much of the resistance to the ebook medium as the
Prior to Twitter the newspaper industry was able toultimate medium for fiction and traditional paperback
plod along. People would still buy their local andbooks has come from the publishers themselves.
national newspapers to see the story written byImagine writers not needing paperback books
some of their favorite writers, though manyanymore at all. Imagine the entire paper publishing
preferred to read about major news on frequentlyindustry being turned upside down like the newspaper
updated news sites like CNN or FOX news.publishing industry. That is what we are seeing come
Newspapers were preferred by many that wereto a head in 2010.
accustomed to viewing their news in this manner.Writers of fiction and non-fiction see clearly the
The internet has become the place for moreadvantages of instant distribution online for their
up-to-date news and few people are willing to waitworks in the form of ebooks. They also are starting
overnight for their newspapers to come out with ato understand that, while there was prestige
breaking news story. Could you imagine sitting aroundassociate with being published in paperback format,
and waiting for news about 9/11 to hit thethe prestige often amounts to little tangible to show
newspapers when we had 24 hour news coveragefor it.
on all the major television stations and much moreWriters of paperback books in the past went to
from the internet news and private citizens thatagents to virtually beg them to represent their books
actually experienced the event posting their videosto publishers who picked and chose what actually
on their own websites?became a book and what did not. Many writers were
With the advent of Twitter and real time newsrejected hundreds and thousands of times before
messages from people with smart phones connectedpublishing their first book. There are millions of
to the internet - the newspaper will go away quicklyunpublished books sitting on Word and other text
in 2010. That is not all... Google itself is finding that it isediting programs on hard drives across the globe that
frequently updated index was a sleeping dinosaurhave been rejected by paperback publishers, but that
compared to how quickly news traveled on Twitterare viable, interesting books waiting for the public to
and so they bought into Twitter's real time streamconsume.
of information. Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft searchEnter the ebook market which allows for almost
engines all display Twitter results in some form -anyone in the world to publish a PDF file and jump
hoping to continue to be relevant by bringing breakinginto the market as an ebook author. Though it has
news to the masses.been said that not many people as a percentage of
Ebooks are going to be the final nail in the coffin tothe population in the USA read paperback books, the
paperback books much the same way Twitter wasmarket is clearly worth billions of dollars and, as that
to the paper news industry. Ebooks have beenmarket moves online to digital books there will evolve
challenging paperback books for a number of yearseven greater acceptance and more "book readers"
now, and yet there has not be widespreadwill be the result.
acceptance of ebooks as a replacement forPart of the problem of the past has been the
traditional paperbacks. Part of the reason, is again,ridiculously dry format of the paperback book which
the preference of long-time readers of paperbackconsists of nothing more than Times New Roman
books for the feel and habit of using paperbacks.font on bad, yellowish paper for the most part. Color
"Curling up with a good book" was part of thatscreen ebook readers that allow the reader to
feeling, sitting in one's living room sipping warm tea onchange the size, color, type of font in a few seconds
a cool night is something that book readers cravedare going to bring new readers into the fold. Color
and were not fully getting the same atmosphereimages, which before cost paperback publishers much
curling up with their notebook computer on their lapmore to produce, now cost nothing more at all to
reading PDF ebooks.produce and can be included liberally within ebooks to
Ebook reader hardware has been changing all along,the tune of thousands if the author desires.
and now we're seeing the advent of dedicatedThe instant delivery of online ebooks into a reader's
ereader devices like the Kindle, Nook, and Sonyhands makes waiting 5 days and paying for shipping
eReader. The year 2010 will bring a truckload of newof a paperback book all the more outdated and
devices with many more features than what wecompletely ridiculous. I could go on and on about the
have available now, which will push the marketdifferences between ebooks and paperback books
toward viewing books on ereaders. In fact, ereadersand why 2010 will be the year that paperback books
will probably quickly become the preferred methodare finally accepted as dead by the public and the
for reading novels and other large books as the formwriters that create them. It is very clear that with
factor of an ereader becomes even smaller andthe announcement of the new ereader device that
lighter weight than paperback books. FrequentApple is set to announce this January 2010 will set
travelers have preferred digital ebooks andthe ball rolling... crushing paperback publishers
information to carrying around heavy travel guidesscrambling to hold on to the ways of the past.
and multiple books in their luggage for years. ThisIt is a historic moment for writers because we can
trend is becoming more prevalent over time.reclaim the rights to our works. We no longer must
Perhaps the single-most important event for thebow to the demands of publishers and be happy
ebook market is going to be the release of a newmaking 10% of sales on works we created. Now we
ebook reader that does it all. Remember before thecan enjoy 50-100% of the sales of our ebooks online.
iPhone showed up on the scene? There was no realWriters across the globe must see this and support
clearly defined leader in the market. Nobody makingthe ebook revolution with all their energy and help
phones was clearly ahead and they all seemed to bethe change come about as fast as possible. There is
copying each other and unable to create the onenothing but benefit waiting for writers that turn to
phone that everyone wants. Apple changed that withthe ebook model in 2010.
the iPhone, and could be on the verge of changing