' Will books be Napsterized ?"

craner

Beast of Burden
Nope, just get lovely old editions cheap from Abe or Amazon marketplace or either go to or order from Foyles or support your local independant.
 

pattycakes_

Can turn naughty
reading a book on t'computer urts me eyes.

only one i ever made it through was 'the game' by neil strauss.
 

Sick Boy

All about pride and egos
The listening experience doesn't change at all when it has value or not, since it has been listened to in a digital format for many years now.

Television makes sense too in that you are watching a screen no matter how you view it.

News also follows suit because you experience it in very short bursts of time. You get your morning news and you are more or less done for the day.

I think the book industry will still survive for a long time because of how unpleasant reading a full novel through a computer monitor is. Kindle might have something going but it's early days for them yet.
 

polystyle

Well-known member
The listening experience doesn't change at all when it has value or not, since it has been listened to in a digital format for many years now.

Television makes sense too in that you are watching a screen no matter how you view it.

News also follows suit because you experience it in very short bursts of time. You get your morning news and you are more or less done for the day.

I think the book industry will still survive for a long time because of how unpleasant reading a full novel through a computer monitor is. Kindle might have something going but it's early days for them yet.

Agreed on much of what you said SickBoy, cheers :

The actual listening ( sounds goes into ears and brain ) is the only part of the whole experience that hasn't changed , as the forms and the actual sound itself ( how many times have we raged about 'mp3 quality' ) have all changed a few times already .

The perception of 'monolithic' TV networks and their 'power' and percieved sway,
TV Guides ( remember print versions in a Sunday newspaper ?).

On news, imo , it's an all day all night thing -so much going on world wide,
hour by hour things can shift alot in one day.
Can remember sitting and catching the 6:30 evening news 'fix',
but that's just dissolved away -like buying a print newspaper.
Still have stacks of them, at least now they are back of the closet.

I agree the book industry will survive in short to mid term-and I do hope it does.
There was an ace Art Book Fair @ PS1 in Long Island City over the weekend that was excellent bounty of books in all form , sizes , budgets.
But the business is changing, mega publishers feeling the pressure -imo - not unlike the record business did .
'Bloated' deserves to get lanced too, and the cycle from indie to 'major' goes around again.
The economic collapse here and this 'jobless recovery' makes for a changed landscape and audience when the county comes out of it and for the years ahead ...
In short -everything on cell phones, like Japan , Korea and to some degree Europe has pushed into for years already.
 

nomos

Administrator
it will be pretty sweet to be able to search for text in any given book
i do this all the time already with google books, either to find things in books i own or to see if something is worth tracking down. it's also getting easier to find searchable PDF scans for download too. again, very helpful for referencing when writing - finding things that you know are in there somewhere but which have evaded indexing. really reading on a computer is awful though. i could be tempted by a tablet with an ink-and-paper-like matter screen but not as a replacement. hopefully they'll just coexist in increasingly useful ways.
 
Last edited:

pattycakes_

Can turn naughty
yeah, trying to find a quote you know is in there somehwere can really be a painful task. will check out google books.
 

don_quixote

Trent End
some non-fiction possibly yes, when you want to search for certain parts in books or journals.

fiction, absolutely not. the paperback book is the ultimate format. it'd be interesting for someone to experiment with writing a book using an online format though with the capabilities of computers.
 
Top