The Value of the Printed Page?

In the race for acceptance it now seems that both printed and digital materials are neck and neck.

On "Book Dirt" readers were asked for their opinion... give good reasons that the printed book will survive.

Since I don't have an insistance that a "book" need even be recorded in writing and that the full contents of the body of knowledge we now associate with book learning is often carried for years in writer's minds, or in the case of the past, in oral tradtion, the question posed is of fundamental interest to the survival of humanity.

But, not to be a spoilsport, here is my answer to the question: You have probably come across the game a few years ago where people used just leave books they had finished reading in public places for others to find.

It's easier to lose a book, as I know from experience, than an expensive machine, as one is likely to take more care.

You asked for the edge printed books have over digital. In the case of photography books, pages can be removed and the images framed... though with the arrival of digital cameras such mutilation is now, fortunately, not necessary.

Words, Words, Words...

I've just found a great blog in the Blogspot system... Book Dirt. Beautifully written and, at this very moment giving 25 reasons why books (the printed versions) will survive.

Grammar finally abandoned me at the end of my zealous post there. I'm sure they'll work it out...

Vanitas Vanitatum

Vanity publishing has always been spurned by those who value authority and who see the desire to promote oneself as being the self indulgent haven of those too cowardly to find an editor. I mentioned a friend's book in a bookshop a few years ago. The recipient of my joyful explanation that such an edition existed made a simple, abrupt enquiry. "Vanity publishing?"

While the cynicism of a very small minority of youthful spirits continues to surprise and alarm me, I was able, hand on heart to answer firmly "No". It was not the moment to mention that Proust self published or that most bloggers would not bother to turn on their computers if they had to deal with the neuroses of the publishing trade these days so I left the person in question happily assured, thanks to a quick search that the book in question was not the worst he had come across that day.

Nor was it the moment to point out that such lack of enthusiasm was probably killing the book trade off quicker than many of the reasons being put about, officially, both in real life and online. Printed books are being replaced by digital for thousands of reasons but I had another even more astonishing insight in the problem when I was able to inform another bookseller that the writer I had been speaking about had just won a major prize and that it might be worthwhile moving one of the books into the relative limelight of the vast sales space we were standing in.

I know this sounds pushy but Laurie Lee used go into shops and physically move his own work up front, even though he had the backing of a veritable power house of publishers and editorial acclaim.

This post explains, most of all, why most people would probably never dream of writing a book.
Too much of a fuss...