The Fate of Paper Books

As you can probably tell from some of the information on this blog I am not exactly a Millenial. I grew up when telephones still had rotary dials and music was on vinyl. Books, all books, were printed on paper. I had (and still have) thousands of these relics.

Someone famously asked how will kids find new music artists, share with their parents or friends when there are no boxes of albums to thumb through, to explore kinesthetically, visually and then, finally, aurally? The same can be said of books. I still scan through the bookshelves when I go to parties or visit a friend. I love flipping through books at yard sales and charity sales.

The yard sales and charity sales, I see, as a vanishing event for written material. However, the physical book does not seem to be disappearing, just changing. Children's books are actually still strong, a hopeful sign for a literate future generation who can stay focused on one thing for more than a few seconds.

And I worry less now about the flipping through old albums scenario. You can do the same thing by flipping through the titles on my Kindle or my cloud library. Even if I'd rather hold the paper and smell the ink, the core of the book is still there in the electrons flitting about. The ideas, the adventure, the imagination, the knowledge is all still there. The form shows new options, without completely losing the old ones.

Each has its place as we move forward.

OMG OMG OMG!

I realize I have not been very consistent recently. For anyone who checks the blog, I apologize.

I am about six weeks into a massive project to reduce my 43,000 book on-line sales inventory of physical, paper, pre-owned books to somewhere in the 3-6,000 range. Or maybe zero.

For the last 11 years I have been selling books. Nothing fancy, not collectible or old or worth hundreds of dollars. Regular books for people who like to read. Books that are no longer in print, because the publication status doesn't change the contents. Books of all genres. It was a dream of mine since I was very young and found that I could live vicariously in the books and travel to places fantastic and mundane by simply opening them up.

Yes, I have a Kindle and yes, it is very convenient. But there is something about the weight and the physical process of flipping a page that I can't shake; I like to read and hold paper books. But it has become clear I am in the decided minority.

When I started a paperback would routinely fetch $5 and the shipping was only $2.13. Now I have a hard time selling that same paperback for $3.50 and the shipping is $2.69. The websites on which I sell are more expensive to use and the shipping materials more expensive, etc.

So I am getting out. I can't afford to do it because I like it. I don't have the time to do it for a few pennies a sale. Maybe I'll keep a few and keep a toe in, like a hobby, but I'll give up my storage space and stop donating to charities. We'll see when the first 80% are gone.

There will be a few "last hurrahs". I do a church fair in November. 6,000 will go there. I'm having sales on the sites where I sell; maybe a few more will sell. I'll hand over another thousand to Head Start. Then there will be just the few I want to keep; my best inanimate friends.

Feature and Follow - Books of 2014

The question of the week is what are your favorite books of 2014 so far.

It occurs to me this is a terrible question for me since I've only read two books published in 2014. One, Birth of an Assassin by Rik Stone, was reviewed here in April. The other, Memories, I wrote.

I have been reading (see other reviews here as well as my GoodReads list), but they are all from my TBR pile which stretches back for years!

I am sure, after this hop, that the pile will be even taller.

Staying Connected

When I was a small child I can remember telephones with rotary dials and party lines, things that at least half my followers never experienced. So I find it "progress" that I feel compelled, as Google purports to shut down Google Friend Connect (GFC), to encourage everyone to also follow me on one (or more) of the following : Bloglovin', Google+, or an RSS feed of your choice. Buttons for the first two can be found on the right panel.
Follow my blog with Bloglovin
I have taken to following people on Bloglovin'. If I am not following you there yet, I will be.

On an entirely different note, I have been selected as a featured seller on Abebooks for the month of July. My entire inventory (about 19,000 books) will be 15% off on Abe from July 2 to July 31.

Paper books in the age of Kindle, Nook and the rest

I do not have an e-reader, so far by choice, though I do see the utility. Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth is much more convenient to lug around on an e-reader than its massive paper form.  My reason, so far valid, is that I still own so many paper books that I want to read that I don’t need to buy any, in any form. That said, I am sure I will eventually break down.

But that does not mean I will abandon paper books, ever. I am one of those people who enjoy the smell of the ink and paper and the heft of the paper in my hands and even the changing distribution of the weight as I read; the weight shifting from the right to the left. One other big reason – I am an eclectic reader. I like old stories as well as new ones. Many of the books I am interested in are not available in electronic format, and may not be in my lifetime.

And therein lies the rub for any reader. You find a new, to you, author and you want to read their earlier works. Or you want to re-read a book from your past. Or you get a recommendation from a friend for a book published before the advent of the e-reader. In all these cases the paper is often the only choice.

In this increasingly digital marketplace this means that used (“pre-read” or “pre-owned”) books take on a greater importance as they become the only option as even libraries reduce the amount of old paper books on their shelves.

I hope that many new horizons will open to you and that paper books will continue to be a part as I know they will for me.