Paper shall thrive

Introduction

The "Paper shall thrive" scenario argues that paper book will remain popular in both the near and far future. Electronic books will also exists alongside paper books, but only for a very particular niche market. It argues that paper books are far superior to their counterpart electronic version because of added emotional value, something that eBooks don't have. It also argues that the major advantages of eBooks do not weigh up to the advantages of paper books and that the latter will never be replaced.

The emotion of books

The five senses

Paper books are something special; there is something about them that cannot be imitated by anything else. Sure you might think it's all about the content of the book but don't be misjudged by this common misconception. When you pick up a book it communicates to you through all your senses. There is the size and weight of the book; a small and light book might tell you it is just a flimsy story while a heavy large book might tell you it contains an epic story. Then when you open it up there is touch; you can feel the pleasant texture of the paper and can sense the slight breeze blowing at you when you flip through the pages. With that also come the smell and hearing: you can hear the pages flip, causing a unique sound based on the paper used and the size of the book. The smell is very powerful too; especially new books carry this undeniable pleasant odor of new paper. And finally when you start reading not just the text, but also the layout communicates its content to you, this can be on a single page bases, but some book will use a combination of two pages to bring you a powerful message.

Aforementioned senses are very characteristic and unique to paper books and people will not likely stray away from the feeling that a book gives them. EBooks are only able to provide the content of a book and are missing the texture and smell of paper, the size and weight of a book, the sound a page made when it is flipped and the layout that speaks to the reader. Without these elements consumers will no be given the full experience a paper book provides when reading an eBook and the paper book will remain to be the object of choice.

The social aspect

Books have this magical attraction that forces people to at least take a peak at what others are reading. If for example you are reading a book in the train the people sitting around you will know what you are reading by looking at the cover. This aspect of books is great (for some) as it has a great social impact: it is a conversation starter. Since people are always curious about what you are reading, they will find out, and if the book or topic of the book interests them they might want to chat a bit with you. If you would be reading an eBook this will not work. Since with an eBook you can only view one page at a time, the people around you will never get a clear view of what you are exactly reading. EBooks do not have any kind of social aspect, while paper books have a lot of it. Since people are social beings they would prefer a paper book over an eBook anytime.

The joy of shopping

Another major aspect that paper books have opposed to their electronic counterparts is the joy of actually buying a book. Paper books are generally bought in bookstores while eBooks are aquired on the internet. Bookstores provide a great atmosphere in which you can fully experience browsing numerous books, chatting with other customers or enjoy a starbucks coffee and read a bit in a book of your choice. This very enjoyable experience is completely missing when buying books over the internet in which the stale online environment will only show a small cover thumbnail and some introduction text. Browsing is most often not possible and interaction with other customers is non-existant.

Electronic readers

Usability curse

Current and future electronic book readers will suffer from usability problems for a large portion of the book market. Books are pretty much the easiest objects to use; you pick it up, flip it open and read, if you want to go to the next page or go to another section of the book you just flip some pages. Operation electronic readers is done in a fundamentally different way; instead of just picking up the book you have to download the book to the reader or transfer it from the computer to a memory card. Reading and navigating the book is also very different; instead of just opening the book you have to find it on the memory of the reader and to navigate you press next and previous buttons or type in the number of a page. This offers the same functionality as with a normal book, but it is much less intuitive and even more: much slower.

Although eBook readers are currently still in a very early stage and will evolve throughout the years it will never reach the ease of operation of a traditional book. Even if usability experts like Apple would look at it, and implement touch-screens, finger swiping navigation or maybe even voice control, a physical paper book will still be easier and more intuitive to operate and many people will prefer to not use an electronic reader because it is far too complicated.

Heavy limitations

Electronic readers of now and of the future will have some serious shortcomings when compared to paper books. Not only do they lack all the emotional and extra "senses" based experiences but they also suffer from other inadequacies. One of the biggest of these is the fact that electronic paper and e-ink have a very slow refresh rate. This is apparent in the current black and white readers but becomes an even bigger problem in the next generation colored readers. It can take more than twenty seconds to build up an entire page! This will become faster in the future but this slow refresh rate will never get to the speed of conventional LCD technology, thus making quickly browsing pages a major pain. Another limitation is the limited resolution, which limits the size of the page that can be shown and the detail of illustration; this resolution will be increased in the future but at the price of refresh rate. In short current electronic readers have some serious shortcomings when compared to books and although they will be vastly improved in the future, they will never be able to reach the hights of what ordinary paper already can do.

EBooks as a niche

Students and universities

All above mentioned facts about electronic books and their readers will apply to novels, but the facts change a little when we apply these to educational books for students and universities. Educational books are primarily used as a way to gain knowledge or as reference, therefore emotional value becomes of far less concern and practicality has to be considered as one of the top requirements. In this particular case eBooks and eBook readers become far more interesting. Since they allow student to carry around all of their required study books on a small relatively light device it becomes an appealing alternative. When taking in account that keyword searching in eBooks shortens the time the student will have to search for particular knowledge the eBook wins considerably from the paper book.

This niche will keep the electronic book reader and eBook from dying out. It serves a very particular purpose for this group of lessening the weight of study books and by far enhancing the ability to quickly find target information. Of course this is only a very small piece of the total book market and will have very to no impact on revenues made on paper books.

Reference guides

A secondary, but far smaller, niche has been identified in which eBooks will serve a purposeful intent: the highly specialized technical worker. Take for example a jet engine mechanic. If he were to be called in to fix an unknown problem occurring in a specific jet engine he would have to take a whole stack of jet engine reference guides with him and spend a lot of time looking for information in order to find, diagnose and fix the problem. If he would have digital copies of all his needed reference books and an eBook reader that would be the only thing he'd have to take. Furthermore he could just search for keywords and find target information extremely fast. But once again this is only a very small niche and will not influence the book market as a whole.

Laughing about piracy

Threat?

One of the arguments why paper books will not survive in the future is the fact that people are obtaining digital copies of literature directly from the publisher or by scanning them themselves and putting them on the Internet free to download by everyone. This "piracy" has shown to be a burden on the software and video game industry and is still threatening the movie and music industry. But will it also be a threat to the publishing industry? In the case of novel the answer to this is a clear "no", since we already established that novels are not pleasant to read digitally, pirated novels will only be downloaded by the very select group of people that enjoys reading them on laptops or electronic readers or is actually crazy enough to print it out. In the case of educational literature the answer is also no, or at least very unlikely. Since educational literature publishers (like Sanoma Learning) do not just publish books, but are a full-fledged service provider they will very unlikely to be threatened by piracy. A student or teacher can illegally obtain a book, but will not get the rest of the service, which may include websites, audio and visual material, trainers material, test exams and professional help with learning or teaching. This all sums up to the conclusion that piracy is of no threat to the publishing industry.

Blessing

Piracy is not a negative development towards the publishing industry but it might as well be something positive that the whole industry can benefit off. The whole piracy scene will become something of a "see before you buy" concept, in which people can download eBooks through illegal channels, see if they like them and if they do buy them. Its purpose would be of a somewhat more convinient library accessable from your favorite desk chair. This concept would even work best for novels, since they are less fun to read on digital readers but can give the reader a very quick impression of what the book is about or if they like it. So piracy might even boost sales and become a positive factor to the whole literature industry.

Conclusion

Paper books will not change in the future, their properties that make them books are unique and cannot be replaced by digital devices. Digital books on the other hand will keep existing side by side with paper books, but will not influence their market at all; they will be more of an addition to the market, just like audio books are today. Especially educational eBooks have a very useful purpose and will be of great utility to the people that can use them. Both format will have an existence in the future and companies should be prepared to deal with them both, but paper books should have the clear focus and will by far overshadow their digital counterparts.