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By Chris Meadows

booksvsebooks[1] You know that “print vs. e-books” debate we’re always covering here? The New York Times has an interesting article looking at it from a novel new angle: what happens in households where one person favors print and the other prefers e-books.

In looking at these little “toilet seat up or down” style disputes, the article is often rather amusing.

“[My wife] talks about the smell of the paper and the feeling of holding it in your hands,” said Mr. de Halleux, 32, who says he thinks the substance is the same regardless of medium. He added, sounding mildly piqued, “She uses the word ‘real.’ ”

The e-book device industry is taking note of these mixed couples, and trying to figure out how to convert the print-book-only holdout to an e-reader, too (“One of us! One of us!”) or else fit both parties with a single deal, e.g., print-plus-e-book bundling.

The article quotes Mike Shatzkin on the more emotional attachment people often feel to printed books, and provides a few examples in that vein of the odd, irrational way that books vs. e-books affects some people.

“I brought a book with me and I barely read it,” said Ms. Muskat, a media consultant. “We used to go to the beach and we’d both take out books, but [my husband] had an iPad, and it was almost distracting because it didn’t feel like he was reading with me.”

It highlights the uphill battle that e-book vendors have in some way—it’s easy to come out with feature after feature, and even tell the customer how a feature actually benefits them rather than just enumerating what it is (a sales technique I learned about in the sales classes that went with my tech support position). But it’s hard to fight an irrational attitude because by its very nature it simply doesn’t respond to logic.

It may well be that e-books will never fully take over until the adulthood of today’s younger generations, who will have never known life without them.

 
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