Just yesterday, on July 20, Amazon announced that the sale of ebooks had even surpassed the sale of hardcover books. For every 100 hardcover books sold, Amazon sold around 180 ebooks during the past month. It seems everything is going electronic these days. Newspapers, snail mail, research; staples of everyday recent life have all been taken over by more efficient, electronic versions provided through the internet. Furthermore, the electronic industry seems to be poised to pounce on the book market and make paper books an obsolete thing of the past; but will they succeed?
Well, yes and no.
When introduced to the concept of ebooks, the general public felt ambivalent about the prospect of this new advent. An eBook just felt out of place and far less superior than normal paper books. Constantly looking at the screen strained the eyes and the text often appeared difficult to read. The general consensus claimed that the eBook just did not have what it took to take the reins of the book market. Books were just better overall. Also the reader could freely annotate, highlight, and make the reading experience very personal to himself. Ebooks could do none of these. Almost in every aspect the eBook seemed to falter against the superior books and seemed impractical.
However, recent developments in eBook readers, such as the Amazon Kindle and the iPad, have paved the way for ebooks to take the spotlight. Now, users of these eBook readers enjoy a large amount of benefits better offered by these products. Along with the ability to read in the dark, users can also access a huge library within one product. They can highlight and annotate these electronic documents in new, crisper screens, yet unlike with books, they do not have to risk any permanence in their markings. It almost seems that every advantage of paper book had been one-upped by the eBook market.
Even with all these advantages, ebooks still face a long road ahead until they can dominate the market. First, the basic appealing features of ebooks, the large expansive library, the simplicity and cost of making ebooks, also spotlight the distinguishing aspects of books. While an eBook does not cost much to produce, the amount of effort and resources put into publishing a “real” paper books sets them immediately in quality. And while an eBook does allow a reader to access an incredible anthology, they do not enjoy the same feeling of ownership that a purchaser of books has in a physical library. Books, for now, will remain a staple of everyday tradition, like jotting down a note rather than typing it into a phone.