Today is the third day of the 2011 London Book Fair. Exceeding all expectations people showed up hugs numbers. Yes! Books are here to stay and the notion that electronic offerings will replace the good tactile book is far from reality, so far as to seem bogus speculation. Even print on demand seems so far remote.
People don't want to wait for several weeks for a book! That means the books are printed ahead of demands though the risk of huge over runs is lessoned, the cost and return for money to the reading customer is considerably reduced.
Despite the magical offerings in electronic books, these are such a waste of money in the long term. Forget your specialized handhelds. They are flies about to be swatted and hard. A life cycle to waste money for the consumer of books. What happens to the serious library as your gadget producer goes belly up. Oh yes! The rights of ownership get sold, but that is a pipe dream. What happens if your books vanish into vapor space?
At least, with real books you have a sale at the end, or is that what the belly up companies will offer. No! What will happen is likely to be deflation of value. The electronic book is not a store of value, not a key to money later on. It is a bunch of zeros and ones to get zapped.
I am not a ludite, but let's not waste people hard earned savings. They need assurance that investment in electronic books can be an investment. Oops, ya lost your electronic library in the cloud due to a high wind, lightning, a takeover, obsolescence, malfunction, fire!
So, go out a buy a winner. Buy an iPad. Then buy shares in Apple.
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=London+book+fair+2011&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&client=safari
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