So today John Green posted a video about some of the difficulties that are going on in the book publishing industry right now. As a writer, I find this a little worrying.
What I find so troubling is not the thought that it might be more difficult for me to get published, it is the idea that there are people out there who honestly think that print books will end up completely obsolete, or that the e-book is the solution to all the industry’s problems.
For those who are unaware, some time ago, Amazon came out with the Kindle, which is pretty much an iPod for books. I think this is a terrible idea. I don’t want to read an entire book on some little screen, or even on my computer. My eyes are terrible enough as it is and I spend enough time staring at the computer.
I also find it very troubling that someone posted this in the comments of John’s video:
IdleGod (3 hours ago)Books are dead and dying. All they are is text in an non portable format. If books became available online, via a subscription type service, like Netflix, then perhaps more books would be read. I know I won’t buy any novels because they just cost too much when I can get a movie for a fraction of the cost, that has a much higher production value that I can share with my friends. You cannot share books, or rather, the experience of reading the book. Books only lend well for individual endeavors.LittleMissLilxox (3 hours ago)Haven’t you ever read F451? There whole world changed because people stopped reading books, so people stopped thinking, or freely thinking anyways. Books help are imagination to grow and they inspire TONS of thoughts. Movies give you that picture so you don’t get to imagine and create it, and yes I love my movies, but nothing would ever beat books.IdleGod (3 hours ago)Just because a book says so, doesn’t mean things will turn out the way it predicts. Especially works of fiction. Informative books are significantly more important then fiction. However, reading those is getting less important as information is much more easily gathered via the internet. You can find alternate opinions, as well as all scientific papers, within seconds. No longer do you need to purchase any books, or spend hours researching, as we have the technology to take away that time.
Edit: I find it very disturbing that this person seems to think that “informative books are significantly more important than fiction.” IMHO, works of fiction are as important, if not more important than “informative books”. Fiction gives us a way to understand the world through someone else’s view. They explain the world in a way that we can understand – through stories. The purpose of fiction is not just to entertain, its purpose is to teach us important truths about ourselves and the world around us, often without us knowing.
Join the discussion here, in the comments of John’s video or elsewhere. It really doesn’t matter where, just discuss it! And buy books!
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