I believe that e-book sales will surpass the paperback sales as the amount of e-readers increase.
According to Personal Technology columnist Edward C. Baig, he predicts that e-books will surpass paperback sales sometime in the next nine to 12 months. Sometime after that, they will surpass the combination of paperback and hardcover (Edward C. Baig 2010). Looking at this information
David Houle made a forecast, which predicted the percentage of e-book readers that will be sold within the couple of years ahead (David Houle 2010). Below are the predicted forecasts for e-books as a percentage of the total e-books sold.
I agree with this prediction because I can presume that the majority of people around the world would be using e-reading devices to read books. For example, students will be using e-readers to revise for topics because that would make it more efficient and easy for them to learn. It will also allow them to carry fewer items to classes or lectures.
Furthermore, I think that e-readers will be the future as the majority of authors are starting to publish their books as kindle e-books because e-books are starting to have a bigger market share.
According to Amazon, the seller of the Kindle e-book reading device may boost digital book sales by 83 percent this year to $248 million from $135 million last year (Greg Bensinger 2010).
In contrast, E-books have had a huge impact on libraries across the world. However, based on a survey presented by Ian Singer of Media Source, both public libraries and academic libraries expect an increase in circulation of e-books (Reid Calvin). Libraries offered more than 30,000 e-titles. In the coming year, the survey also found that 84% of public libraries expected e-book circulation to increase. Therefore, as a result, the libraries had to make a change and offer vast amounts of e-books to public. The main issue here is that libraries are turning digital, which means that they will face copyright issues. According to Martin Zimmerman et al, libraries may face huge problems like piracy due to people copying or using e-books inappropriately, which can cause a multitude of copyright issues (Zimmerman et al). An example would be students copying and then sharing files over the internet.
One of the main issues were that how would we benefit from this change. Comparing both paperbacks and e-books, we can see the advantages and disadvantages of each aspect. This way, we can see if we will benefit from this in the future.
Essentially, both formats are similar and they both allow you to read content. However, they differ in many ways for instance paperbacks are easily obtainable because they are sold in bookstores and on the internet. Moreover, they are cheap and most important of all, they do not cause eyestrains (Coeus). By extension, paperbacks also contain high quality photo books.
On that account given, there are also disadvantages of paperbacks for example, paperbacks are very heavy and bulky which makes it hard to carry around. Sometimes you cannot read the text if you are not in a well lit room or place. Therefore, it makes it harder for you to concentrate. Some paperbacks can also be very expensive due to the size of the book.
On the other hand, e-books also have advantages for instance, they are easily readable. Most of them offer zoom functions and letter resizing which can be useful. It is also possible to change font of text to a desired one. It is portable and it allows you to carry hundreds books at once. E-books are environmentally friendly as they are a co-creation. E-devices also allow you to take notes that are not permanent. This is a great function as you can access these notes or even edit them. However, there are also disadvantages for example, battery life can affect your reading as your e-device might switch off at an important part of a story. Some e-books have bugs that get the device to crash at times. E-devices like Kindle and the IPad are very expensive to buy.
To conclude, looking at both aspects we see that many issues will be addressed and one major issue will be copyright protection law due to piracy. However, we can also benefit from using e-books as we can save many trees, as it is environmentally friendly. On that account given, I agree that e-books will be the future because looking at all the evidence I have provided, they all convey the message that e-reading devices will be the future. The evidence provided contains figures and estimations that can prove that e-books will be the future of our society. However, paperbacks will still have a chance of remaining, as it will be a substitute for an e-book.
Bibliography and References
Harvard style
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Coeus’s Ebooks Versus Paper Books: The Pros and Cons, 2008. <http://hubpages.com/hub/Ebooks-Versus-Paper-Books-The-Pros-and-Cons>, [accessed 26.03.11].
David, H., 2010. A Futurist's Forecast for E-Books. [available from Media Biz Bloggers], <http://www.mediabizbloggers.com/evolution-shift/100027269.html>, [accessed 15.03.11].
Edward, C. B., 2010. Volume of Kindle book sales stuns Amazon's Jeff Bezos. [available from USA Today], <http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2010-07-29-amazon29_VA_N.htm>, [accessed 13.03.11].
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Martin, Z. et al., 2011. E-books and piracy: implications/issues for academic libraries. [available from Emerald], <http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?issn=0307-4803&volume=112&issue=1/2&articleid=1902005&show=html>, [accessed 27.01.11]
Reid, C,. 2010. Turning the Page on E-Readers. Business source complete EBSCO [online], 257(40), 3-4. <http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=18&hid=24&sid=1f8d8078-d925-4598-998d-1780bce13688%40sessionmgr14&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=bth&AN=54563703>, [accessed 20.03.11].
