Paperback Writer

Does the photo look familiar to you?   In case you’re confused – that’s a book.   Books used to be made of paper.  Pretty soon, not so much.

Do you remember getting into your car and driving to a bookstore to buy a paperback?  Well, it turns out that we don’t do that anymore.  Nope.  Sorry.  Those days are over.  Now, we just wirelessly connect our Kindles and download the next novel in the series.  No car required.  No store required.  No waiting on a long line.  No need to even change out of your pajamas.  Presto: a new book, downloaded in seconds.  Your reading pleasure continues without interruption.

Is this a miracle of the digital age or another tragic detachment from our living, breathing, “real world” society?  Do you love the online book recommendations, but miss the seasoned sale clerk’s personal suggestions whenever you used to stop by the small, local bookstore?  Do you enjoy the light weight of the new electronic book readers, but sometimes miss the serious heft that an honest to goodness, just-released-this-week, hardcover book provides?  You are not alone.  It is a mixed bag.

Some companies have prospered in this New Reading Economy.  Really prospered.  Others have failed miserably.  There has been plenty of commentary on the meteoric rise of Amazon and the decimation of the Borders bookstores.  Someone wins.  Someone fails.  That’s progress, I guess.  But, one thing is for certain.  For good or for bad, the terms “book”, “bookstore”, “reading”… even “lending”… have taken on different meanings.

Dozens of times a week we get bombarded with news stories about electronic tablets, e-books, digital newspapers, interactive textbooks and “magazine apps”.  Everything about how we consume knowledge in the written form has changed.  And, it continues to change.  We have been fully immersed in the digital revolution for some time, but it is only with the recent roll-outs of Amazon’s Kindle and Apple’s iPad, that society has so freely and convincingly embraced the digitization of paper and seemingly abandoned “old paper”.

Paper is very old.  The earliest paper is thought to have been created by (literally) “beating to a pulp” a suspension of hemp waste in water with a wooden mallet.  This physical act resulted in a “sheet”.  Commonly cited as a Chinese invention in AD105, the papermaking process hasn’t changed all that much over the years.  The Georgia Tech Robert C. Williams Paper Museum is a great place for more information on the invention of paper and the history of papermaking.

Digital “papermaking” really isn’t about “paper” at all.  It is about “electronic ink”.   It turns out that you only need one sheet of electronic paper to make a digital book.  That sheet of electronic paper is really just an electronic display capable of presenting any written page by manipulating electronic ink into letters that make up the words on a page.  Sounds simple, right?   PCWorld has a great article describing the electronic ink used in the Kindle 2 device.  It is actually quite a feat to do this well and to do this inexpensively.

A few more observations:

1. The last “book” that you read may have been a “real book” but it is becoming more and more likely that your next read will be an electronic book.  Years ago we referred to them as “e-books”.  They’re ubiquitous now and not called “e-books” anymore.  They’re just “books”.  And, just about every new book written today is also available in electronic form.
2. The last “bookstore” that you visited was probably online and not a “brick and mortar”, physical building.  It was probably Amazon.com.  They are the one to beat.  But, it may have been Apple’s or Barnes and Noble’s bookstores too.  More are on the way.  Google is in the race, of course.
3. Everyone still reads.  We’ll continue to read.  That’s unlikely to change.  It’s just different now.  It is no longer “what page are you on?”.  It is now “what ‘percent done’ are you?”.   More are saying – “I’m only at 15%” rather than “I just started the book”.  The Times they are a Changing.
4. The definition of “lending a book” has been redefined by Amazon and others.  For a fascinating read of policies and procedures, read this: Lending Kindle Books.
5. You don’t need to bother a bookstore clerk for recommendations on authors similar to your favorites.  Many readers have come to rely on online recommendation systems with sophisticated, computer-based algorithms: “You Might Also Like…”  (as in, You Might Also Like your old brick and mortar bookstore back).

With apologies to the Beatles…

It’s a thousand pages, give or take a few,
I’ll be writing more in a week or two.
I can make it longer if you like the style,
I can change it round and I want to be a paperback writer,
Paperback writer.

Someone help me out… what’s a “paperback”? 🙂