November of this year will mark the fifth anniversary of the introduction of Amazon’s Kindle. Back then, the Kindle was thick and clunky, with a poorly designed keyboard and a fairly limited catalog to purchase from. Purchasing one on launch day would have set you back $400, and Amazon’s entire stock was bought out in a matter of hours. Today, the Kindle catalog has grown tremendously, while the Kindle itself has shrunk both in size and cost, down to a paltry $80. Kindle software is available for all the major smartphone operating systems, as well as Windows and Mac OS X. The availability of eBooks is absolutely unparalleled.
There’s not a doubt in my mind that eBooks will make up a significantly greater percentage of the overall literary market in the next few years. Put bluntly, dead-tree books are less portable, less available and more expensive than their digital counterparts. For example, when I’m on the go, I can download a new book to my iPhone using my cellular data connection with a few button presses, rather than seeking out a physical bookstore that might not have the book that I’m looking for. What’s more, the second book that I buy doesn’t take up any more space in a bag, or weigh anything more than the first. It’s an incredibly convenient system.
Of course, eBooks do sacrifice some of the inherent bookishness of their bulkier relatives. Flipping pages just doesn’t feel the same without physical pages to flip, and the smell of a book is something that you just can’t get from a hunk of plastic and circuitry. For folks who enjoy the way a novella sits in their hand, or the nice heft of a fantasy epic, eBooks just aren’t the same.
However, those who worry about the death of literature or the death of reading because of the rise of eBooks are missing the fantastic opportunities electronic readers have in store for them. I’ve read several articles worrying about what might come of libraries, if and when eBooks become the preferred method of reading. The way I see it, the idea of a library as a space that provides information to members of a community will remain both valuable and relevant.
Furthermore, I’m most excited by the opportunities for innovation in the storytelling space itself. While there’s still plenty of demand for books that are simply words on a page, there are a lot of really cool possibilities available when you think about the capabilities of eBook reading hardware. The storytelling capabilities of books are limited by the physical media they were printed on: Color images are expensive to print, and while it’s possible to connect a dead-tree book to content on the Internet, it often involves convoluted links, footnotes and poorly designed websites.
Consider the possibilities, though, when reading on a smartphone. Now, it’s possible for readers to interact with books on a device that is not only constantly connected to the Internet, but also to GPS. Imagine a book that, in addition to providing a compelling reading experience, can also put you in the shoes of the protagonist. When the hero of the story gets a phone call, you don’t have to read a transcript of it: you can listen to the real deal on your phone. Or, even more interestingly, your book could know if you happen to be near a place referenced within the pages you’ve just read, and can then guide you through a tour of exactly the footsteps outlined in the text.
The possibilities for eBooks to change the way we think about literature are phenomenal. In the next few years, I think we’re going to see some really fantastic innovation come to market, and that’s great news for reading.
