Is print media dead?

[lin]

Well, in a way...



LINTON ROBINSON.com</font>

MAKE YOUR OWN BOOK PROMO VIDEOS FOR FREE</font>

[Hawkinslad]

That's good. Print has been breathing its last breath for decades, it seems. There's a scene in Ghostbusters where the secretary, Janine, is talking to Egan about her hobbies--one of them being reading--while he's working on the computer. He gets up and tells her 'print is dead.' That was in 1984.

Print is dying only as fast as the people who demand it.

Nicholas Ian Hawkins

Published Works
'Knowledge and Dust,' in Magic & Mechanica, Ricasso Press
'What Heroes Leave Behind,' in Return of the Sword, Rogue Blades Entertainment
'The Weald Maiden's Will,' in Every Day Fiction and The Best of Every Day Fiction 2008
'Relativity,' in FLASHSHOT


Visit my website, Trampler of Beautiful Phrases

[darkbow]

For better or worse, it's mostly the people inside the industry who are killing it.

So says a former newspaper editor.

"Beneath a Persian Sun" upcoming in Carnivah House's "Infinity Swords" anthology
"Ogre" coming Feb. 16, 2009, to The Absent Willow Review

"The Death of Lester Williams" in the anthology Deadlines, "Peter Piker the Pankin Man" at Big Pulp, "Day Trip" at Demonic Tome, "Deep in the Land of the Ice and Snow" in "The Return of the Sword" anthology, "The Note" at Every Day Fiction, "Walking Between the Rain" at Every Day Fiction, "The Unconquered Mage" at Static Movement, "A Dragon's Tale" at Aphelion, "Terror in the Flare Lights" at The Tiny Globule, "Killing Just for Fun" at Demonic Tome, "Zombie Tears" at Tales of the Zombie War, "Steven Spielberg and The Magic Box" at The Ranfurly Review, "The Death of Lester Williams" at Crimson Highway, "Hot Off the Press" at Ray Gun Revival, "A Dragon's Tale" in Issue 22 of Beyond Centauri

www.tyjohnston.blogspot.com</A></A>

[lin]

They're the only ones in postition to do so, no?

LINTON ROBINSON.com</font>

MAKE YOUR OWN BOOK PROMO VIDEOS FOR FREE</font>

[crystalwizard]

lin said...
They're the only ones in postition to do so, no?

Well.. no. The people that make the paper and ink, they could do a fair job of killing it

[lin]

They've tried that a bit in Central America and it never seems to work.

LINTON ROBINSON.com</font>

MAKE YOUR OWN BOOK PROMO VIDEOS FOR FREE</font>

[crystalwizard]

lin said...
They've tried that a bit in Central America and it never seems to work.

However, the CPSIA that was passed in 2008, and takes effect on Feb. 10, just might succeed in killing printed books for kids 12 and under.

And a whole bunch of other things for 12 and under as well.

And force libraries to keep kids away from the books or destroy their collections.

I kid you not

Start with this blog for more information

[Domenic]

YES...because Obama is using all the paper to print fake money. When he is done with that, he will print cyber money and take up all the ebook space.

[Domenic]

PS...then we will go back to sitting around a camp fire telling tall tales from mouth to ear...I love it.

[Jaqhama]

CW is talking about this:

http://www.publishersweekly.com/arti....html?nid=2788

Have the Nazis taken over in the USA?

Your EPA and Product type organisations come up with the most outrageous ideas and suggestions...I mean how many nutters can there be in one organisation?
The nut who comes up with the idea and the rest of the nuts who endorse the original idea.
But more than that; there's no diversification...one broad swipe of the paint brush covers everything, when obviously one broad stroke isn't going to suit all different conditions.

Those of us not living in the USA often question how organisations like the ones we're talking about here get so much power?

How can they go unchecked without some common sense being injected into the mix?

It baffles a lot of us.

The European Union in Brussells has come up with equally dopey ideas over the years...It's a simple case of too many people having too much power.

I don't believe the lead in books scenario is going to pass in America. But it's annoying that so many other people and groups had to protest the suggestion...when common sense and some research would have provided the answers the CPSIA needed in the first place.

I mean what about comics?
Marvel and DC?

Did the CPSIA think to seek guidance from any in the book publishing industry or the comic publishing industry?
I'm guessing not.
I'm guessing they are so arrogant with their 'we doing it for your own good' plan that they didn't seek counsel from anyone.

Adolph Hitler and the Nazi Party operated on the same principles...and they weren't that fond of books either.

The Jaqzone:
http://kevin-jaqhama-lumley.blogspot.com/
http://alfwarz.blogspot.com/

[erazmus]

Its not about common sense, or solving problems. It isn't as though we have an insurmountable number of children suffering from lead poisoning. Or any that could be traced to printed material or, for that matter, to any toy currently on the market.

Its about power and conditioning people to go to the goverment to ask permission before they do anything.

Mike

Michael D. Turner
'Psyched Up' in _Turn the other Chick_-ed. E. Friesner-Baen books
www.baen.com
'Dutchman Rescue'in Continuum SF #6
www.continuumsciencefiction.com/orders.htm

'An Incident at Black Tongue Tavern' in _Bash Down the Door and Slice Open the Badguy_ from Fantasist Enterprises:

www.fantasistent.com/books/anthologies/BASH.php
'Pink Plastic Flamingos' in Big Pulp
www.bigpulp.com/m.html
'Stains' in Tales of the Talisman 3-1 www.zianet.com/hadrosaur/index.html
'Morning Coffee' in Every Day Fiction
www.everydayfiction.com/morning-coffee-by-michael-d-turner/
'The Jewel Below' in Flashing Swords
flashingswords.sfreader.com/issues/issue8/vol2-iss8-05.htm
'Happy Landings' in Every Day Fiction
www.everydayfiction.com/happy-landings-by-michael-d-turner/
'Teller of Tales' in Every day Fiction
www.everydayfiction.com/teller-of-tales-by-michael-d-turner/
Read 'Silver Shells' In Every Day Fiction
www.everydayfiction.com/silver-shells-by-michael-d-turner/

[EdK]

Print media will never die. Electronic media might.

And yes, we have many ridiculous organizations in the US that wield too much power. The EPA is only one. Add to that the ACLU, UAW, NFL, NEA, NRA, NCAA... (and a hundred more) and you get one screwed up country.

We've become a country run by organizations and lobbyist.

But print media will not die. It's been around for centuries and will continue for centuries. Will it be the dominate source? I doubt it. But it will be here.







Edward Knight
Former Editor
Journey Books Publishing and
Amazing Journeys Magazine

[lin]

Wait until they find out about lead pencils

LINTON ROBINSON.com</font>

MAKE YOUR OWN BOOK PROMO VIDEOS FOR FREE</font>

[crystalwizard]

lin said...
Wait until they find out about lead pencils

Which have no lead in them. They're graphite.

New content added on a regular basis.

Visit Abandoned Towers at
http://cyberwizardproductions.com/AbandonedTowers

[lin]

As opposed to all the the lead in paper products? [img]/emoticons/smile.gif[/img]

LINTON ROBINSON.com</font>

MAKE YOUR OWN BOOK PROMO VIDEOS FOR FREE</font>

[darkbow]

Whether it will happen or not, whether it will be a good thing or not, there's a U.S. congressman trying to push through a bill that would allow newspapers to restructure as nonprofits. The papers would still be allowed to cover all news, including elections and political events and such, but would not be allowed to endorse candidates.

http://www.reuters.com/article/polit...52N67F20090324




"Beneath a Persian Sun" upcoming in Carnivah House's "Infinity Swords" anthology

"Interlude in Lombardy" at Noctober, "The Death of Lester Williams" in the anthology Deadlines, "Ogre" at The Absent Willow Review, "Peter Piker the Pankin Man" at Big Pulp, "Day Trip" at Demonic Tome, "Deep in the Land of the Ice and Snow" in "The Return of the Sword" anthology, "The Note" at Every Day Fiction, "Walking Between the Rain" at Every Day Fiction, "The Unconquered Mage" at Static Movement, "A Dragon's Tale" at Aphelion, "Terror in the Flare Lights" at The Tiny Globule, "Killing Just for Fun" at Demonic Tome, "Zombie Tears" at Tales of the Zombie War, "Steven Spielberg and The Magic Box" at The Ranfurly Review, "The Death of Lester Williams" at Crimson Highway, "Hot Off the Press" at Ray Gun Revival, "A Dragon's Tale" in Issue 22 of Beyond Centauri, "August" at Demonic Tome

www.tyjohnston.blogspot.com</A></A>

[EdK]

I kind of like that idea as an option for newspapers. It would be refreshing to read a paper that just prints facts without slanting stories to their own POV. The paper out of Nashville has no objectivity at all. They write stories with lines like "And in our opinion..." Or "We agree with this candidates view..." "We support this court's ruling..." I just want a paper that tells me the facts and lets me make up my mind rather than trying to sway me to agree with their perceptions. It's alright to do that in the editorial section, but they do in in nearly every story.

So, I guess I can support that idea. In my opinion the more news options we as Americans have access to, the better off we are.




Edward Knight
Former Editor
Journey Books Publishing and
Amazing Journeys Magazine

[Team 2012]

The big decision here, and not without debate, is that there is little future in print books. They're just too 'un-green' and expensive to store and ship and produce.

People will move to electronic reading when it moves to them. Just as people moved to digital phones, iPod listening, internet chess, Japanese cars, etc.

Our feeling is that youngs writers starting out should concentrate on ways to utilize electronic modes and try to get ahead of the innovation curve.

That's what we're doing.

[ghostposts]

I think there will always be a form of both, but I do see the electronic book growing.

http://whisperingspirits

[erazmus]

'un-green'!?
I like that. Its now my number one reason for buying books. I'll never own an e-reader, just as I've never owned an iPod or any number of electronic devices. Hell I only got a cell phone last year and I no longer use it.
I'll admit to having read a book or two online. I don't much enjoy it. I like the internet, P.C.'s and have on occasion used mine for video conferencing. I'm not a technophobe but I do demand to see a benefit before I rush to embrace a new wonder-gadget.
I never forget that more than two thirds of the world lives in relative poverty including a lot of folks in my own beloved USA. Farmers in Korea, reservation Indians in Arizona, most of Africa, most of southern Asia outside of the pacific coast, will not ever have an e-reader. Or many other things many here seem to think are trivial possessions.
Books get handed around, passed down, shared across millenea. The oldest book I've ever personally read was printed in the fifteen hundreds and contained marginal notes from half a dozen learned readers of the past. (It was a copy of Augustine's 'City of God'). Electronic texts are a passing fad of the times compared to print, and today's technology quite likely will not be sustained over time. Does no one here remember history? Europe after the fall of Rome? Wait for Earth a couple of centuries after the decline of capitalism. Or even fifty years after Muslim fundamentalism takes over. See how your e-text library survives that.

Short term, e-books will gain some speed. Lots of growth potential there yet. Long term? Done make me laugh.

Mike

Michael D. Turner
'Psyched Up' in _Turn the other Chick_-ed. E. Friesner-Baen books
www.baen.com
'Dutchman Rescue'in Continuum SF #6
www.continuumsciencefiction.com/orders.htm

'An Incident at Black Tongue Tavern' in _Bash Down the Door and Slice Open the Badguy_ from Fantasist Enterprises:

www.fantasistent.com/books/anthologies/BASH.php
'Pink Plastic Flamingos' in Big Pulp
www.bigpulp.com/m.html
'Stains' in Tales of the Talisman 3-1 www.zianet.com/hadrosaur/index.html
'Morning Coffee' in Every Day Fiction
www.everydayfiction.com/morning-coffee-by-michael-d-turner/
'The Jewel Below' in Flashing Swords
flashingswords.sfreader.com/issues/issue8/vol2-iss8-05.htm
'Happy Landings' in Every Day Fiction
www.everydayfiction.com/happy-landings-by-michael-d-turner/
'Teller of Tales' in Every day Fiction
www.everydayfiction.com/teller-of-tales-by-michael-d-turner/
Read 'Silver Shells' In Every Day Fiction
www.everydayfiction.com/silver-shells-by-michael-d-turner/

[SJHigbee]

While I think there will be a huge uprise in the popularity of e-books once e-readers start becoming a reasonable price - I'm with Mike on this. There is too much historical weight behind printed books - there are too many of them out there that are 'cheap as chips'. They will certainly last longer than most of the electronic forms that will mushroom in demand alongside them (in my view...). And another reason why they will persist, is that the technology that allows us to upload/download books in electronic form, is also making the production of print books more flexible and cheaper.

By the way - I don't buy into the 'printed books aren't green' mindset, either. Books are where we have stored all our knowledge as a species. And as a wiser person that I once said, 'If you think Education is expensive - try counting the cost of Ignorance...'

www.sjhigbee.com

[lin]

There was historical weight behind transporation by animals, too.
And writing books by hand on sheepskin.
And communicating with others by traveling to within earshot of them.
The idea that electronic reading is a fad that will pass away (like the lamented telephone, television, computer, etc) in favor of a future earth in which massive population does not impede the growing of trees planted to be turned into paper for disposable periodicals and paperbacks that are brittle and unreadable in ten years because of their acid content is a bizarre one.
The idea that it's somehow easier to share and pass around paper books (using transport by gasoline vehicles that take advantage of plentiful future petroleum) than to just email people ebooks to be read on their telephones or pocket readers or TV screens or whatever future technology might be available for reading them is cute and quaint. But, well, you know.....

Not buying into the 'printed books aren't green' mindset??????????????
Let's see, you use acres of monoculture trees to produce paper that is laces with acid and chemicals, then printed with toxic inks, using power-hungry presses. You then move these books from printer to warehouse to store to home to landfill using gasoline-burning vehicles.
And that isn't as 'green' as creating an electronic file stored on a drive and delivered by email?
Can you explain why not?

As far as storing knowlege as a species, books were an innovation in information storage, supplanting earlier methods that weren't as effieicent, durable, useable, transportable, and storable. Storing information as pure information (that is searchable) is a much greater step up on that. Any book in existance can be stored electronically. The idea that the book medium is more 'sacred' than the information itself amounts, I would say, to a fetish.

I remember similar discussiona about LP records. People ranting and raving about how digital storage wouldn't last and clinging desperately to storing music on a medium that depended on a delicate, expensive device dragging a diamond across complex plastic to access the information. There are still LP's out there. There will probably always be books. Just like people continue to ride horses and shoot bows and arrows and go to Mass.
But come ON....

LINTON ROBINSON.com</font>

MAKE YOUR OWN BOOK PROMO VIDEOS FOR FREE</font>

[lin]

Why would an etext library, by the way (which can be carried around in a device the size of a matchbox) be destroyed by these future upheavals, but not libraries of paper books?

Like the ones in Babylon and Carthage and Alexandria and Tenochtitlan?

LINTON ROBINSON.com</font>

MAKE YOUR OWN BOOK PROMO VIDEOS FOR FREE</font>

[SilviaMG]

One of the biggest problems right now is whether e-books will go extinct, etc, etc: it's switching 'old' books into new e-formats. For example, we've got more than 50 years worth of microfiches at my place of work. If those are not translated into a new e-format, they might eventually be lost if we continue to go 'paperless' like we do at my job.

The big issue is also backwards compatibility: so you indexed and classified all the microfiches and turned them into PDFs. And then it's 10 years later an PDFs are obsolette. Paper is paper. It doesn't go obsolete. Specially for little organizations, like my own, if a format goes obsolete in the short term then it means we'll probably just give up on that information.

As for print books and magazines, I am sure they will continue to exist in print form but there will be many, probably much more e-texts. It is extremely likely that people would pay for a 'special' paper edition of a book, beautifully designed. After all, books are not only things we read: we collect, store and display them. They go beyond the functional.

Silvia's online at silviamoreno-garcia.com



Innsmouth Free Press

[darkbow]

I think e-books will eventually catch on, and paper books will likely go the way of vinyl records. They'll be there, but not real easy to find. But I'm talking 10 to 20 years from now, if then.

Kindle and similar technology are already catching on with people who are heavy readers, but I just don't see the casual reader (2 or 3 books a year) wanting to spend money on ebook technology, at least not at current prices. Once Kindle get down to $50 or so, maybe $100, then it'll catch on in a big, big way.

My biggest concern with ebooks is actually a political/ethical one. Erazmus touched on it. What's going to happen to the parts of the world that have no access to or can't afford ebook technology?

"Beneath a Persian Sun" upcoming in Carnivah House's "Infinity Swords" anthology
"Zombie Tears" upcoming at Dark Fire

"Interlude in Lombardy" at Noctober, "The Death of Lester Williams" in the anthology Deadlines, "Ogre" at The Absent Willow Review, "Peter Piker the Pankin Man" at Big Pulp, "Day Trip" at Demonic Tome, "Deep in the Land of the Ice and Snow" in "The Return of the Sword" anthology, "The Note" at Every Day Fiction, "Walking Between the Rain" at Every Day Fiction, "The Unconquered Mage" at Static Movement, "A Dragon's Tale" at Aphelion, "Terror in the Flare Lights" at The Tiny Globule, "Killing Just for Fun" at Demonic Tome, "Zombie Tears" at Tales of the Zombie War, "Steven Spielberg and The Magic Box" at The Ranfurly Review, "The Death of Lester Williams" at Crimson Highway, "Hot Off the Press" at Ray Gun Revival, "A Dragon's Tale" in Issue 22 of Beyond Centauri, "August" at Demonic Tome

www.tyjohnston.blogspot.com</A></A>