someone posted in an intro about being a bookworm which got me thinking ( stop shaking yer head LiB !! )

it's already been determined that video killed the radio star, but...

has, or will, Kindle et.al., kill the paper back book?

Kindles are a feasible option for paperbooks but I don't see it as a possible longterm competition unless schools around the world (or in the US) are endorsing it. For one, paperbooks can take the banging inside of a bagpack and you're able to scribble random notes in it. Also, there is a certain feel to reading a paperbook (and by that, I don't mean your extensive collection of smut literature grynch ).

btw... you still havent returned my original edition of "Fritz the Cat" It's seriously overdue now.

For me it's quite clear at the moment. As a regular library go-er I don't have to spend much money on books and still get sufficient choice. The Pestalozzi Library in Oerlikon has a good choice of English fiction.

But the outcome of the coming March vote on Buchpreisbindung will probably not reflect in any way the coming years as the Kindle will (I think) almost certainly damage the present retail market.

'How to Do' books will be taken over by You Tube, technical reference books by Google and Wipikedia will replace the market for many other information sources.

So the paper, printing, storage and transport industries are doomed as far as books are concerned - and I'm pretty sure that libraries will also become few and far between.

(playing devil's advocate)

however if you read the case of mrShev a week or so ago ... he is an author and (I presume) wasn't able to get his book published in paper but has had some success by publishing direct to Kindle...so... could in fact Kindle be a boon to aspiring writers?

Never.

As your pic says: Get in bath/read a normal book/drop book accidentally in water/no problem.

If is a kindle, its f****d


Plus with a normal book, you can go back to your favorite chapter easily. With a kindle you need to turn the pages one by one by one....

if you hit the outside left/right of the 5 way controller it will usually go to chapter headings

Necessity is the mother of invention

True. But when you know your favorite passage is around the one third of the book but not exactly were, and reading some sentences will help you pinpoint it nothing is better than a book.

Plus the thrill of finding that book you are looking for for 2 francs on a local sale is great

kindle is a good option for some people, but i prefer books..

So all the pages are soaked, stuck together and even if you dry it out successfully is never really fit for use again? That's what I called FUBARed.

Just like the paper one then.

As it happens, I read in the bath all the time, using a kindle for the last year or so. I find that the kindle, light and rigid as it is, is much less likely to be dropped than a book anyway. Well, I've never done it, nor even had a close call.
Have you ever actually used one? To be fair, you can't just flick through the pages and stop wherever you fancy, but you can goto chapters, particular bookmarks, or relative points within a book, with just a couple of button presses.

And more importantly, when you reopen the book, it automatically opens at the point you were last reading, so you don't need to.

So in answer to the OP: I predict that e-books will shrink the paper book market by something in the order of 70-90% over the next decade or two. Book sellers will have to deal with this in whatever way they can, and I expect that lending libraries will start in some way to sell one-use-only e-books at some future point.

may be it will save some trees...

I like it. Where did you find it?

just as a side note... I enjoy my kindle but havent yet been brave enuf to take it into the bath.

and... I still enjoy "real" books and browse in "real bookshops" but I find that I am sneaking pictures of covers of books as often as I am buying them.

Do they have this for paperbooks as well?

For me, a clear 'no'.

The experience just isn't the same. I like the feel of a book in my hand, the weight and heft. I like to look up at my bookshelves, surrounded by 'old friends'. Nothing better than curling up with a good book - but curling up with a Kindle? No, it just doesn't feel... right.

For me, a Kindle/reading gadget is just too cold, too work-like to incorporate into my favorite hobby. And I find the glare off the screen distracting.

But then, I'm a hopelessly old fashioned Luddite.


Now... if the range of rare titles were expanded I might become a convert. It seems a natural - titles that might not justify a reprint would be perfect for an e-reader. But e-readers still seem to cater more to the bestseller lists; seems they are missing a significant niche.

Ebay has plenty

You may just be looking in the wrong place. At the moment the copyright police haven't taken much notice, but there are scanned copies of thousands of books, old and new, readily available for free on the interweb, if you know where to look

I love, love, love books. Whenever I had to move, the biggest issue was with the books. I had to leave a lot of them at my parents’ house and I hope we will be reunited one day. It’s such a cliché, but I do have a personal relationship with my books; I feel there is life in them and I refuse to treat them as inanimate objects.
I’m going to get my first Kindle soon, though. I’ve come to a conclusion that not every book of mine needs to be in paper form, just the most important ones that I like to reread. I prefer these ones to be old with yellowed pages and a comforting smell.

..not while kindle books are more expensive than paper books including delivery.