Jeffery Archer, Kindles and eBooks

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A chance encounter with Jeffrey Archer leads Farhad to ponder the future of traditional publishing.

I had the privilege of meeting Jeffrey Archer recently - for those of you who don’t know him, he is an international best-selling author of novels such as Kane & Able and Honour Among Thieves. It was a brief but fascinating encounter, during which I asked his opinion about eBooks and the future of traditional publishing. It seemed to hit a nerve because he immediately started to rattle off a number of statistics describing the surge in electronic book sales and the impending doom of the publishing world. At the end of the conversation he asked me if I prefer “real” books to which I stated that I honestly did. “Good man!” he yelled, after which he moved on to talk to someone else.
 
The encounter made me think a lot more about the emerging popularity of electronic books and eReaders, such as the Kindle. After much deliberating, I decided that I needed to purchase a Kindle although I firmly believed a “real” book would be much better. I've now had the Kindle for about a month and I must say I like it. It has built in internet access, meaning you don’t need a SIM card. This enables you to basically download a book wherever you are in the world. Another nice feature is the way it links directly in to your Amazon account allowing you to order in one click without having to input your credit card details. I recall listening to someone speaking on the radio the other day about the release of their new book, so when I got home, I looked it up on my Kindle and downloaded it in about in about 30 seconds. What’s more is that it has a brilliant screen which makes reading easy on the eyes.
 
This also made me think honestly about how long traditional print-based books will be around. A recent study found that adoption of eReaders is growing steadily with slightly more popularity with older audiences (over 55) than younger (18-24). It also listed the top 3 eReaders as the Kindle, followed by the iPad and then the Sony Reader. Another study showed that sales of eReaders had climbed to 12.8 million units in 2010. Further, in July of 2010 Amazon announced that eBook sales had outpaced hard-cover sales by 2 to 1 (with a total of 22 million eBooks sold that year up to July).
 
It's all pretty impressive and I must say that when it comes to convenience, speed and access: eBooks are pretty great. But there is a downside. For example, you can’t share an eBook easily like you can a hard-cover, passing it on to friends and family. eReaders are also relatively expensive and the technology is proprietary to the maker. Also, I find that eBooks have no identity. When I think back to the books I have read, I often remember the cover and size of the book and where I read it. I don’t seem to have the same sense of identity with eBooks. I recall the content but not the context in which I read it, which makes the experience a little less special.
 
So yes - I admit that eReaders are very appealing but I still like “real” books more. Having a book collection at home is something great and visiting a good book store on the weekend remains one of my favourite things to do. That said, I am getting older (!) and perhaps, the younger generations will think differently (although I certainly hope not). One thing I have noticed though, is that the term ‘eBook’ is being used less as more people are becoming comfortable referring to both physical and electronic copies as just ‘books’.