Why resistance to e-books is futile

For now, ebooks may not hurt sales of print books. But what about in the (perhaps near) future, when people do more and more of their reading on an electronic device?

When more and more people have something they keep with them all the time that has a screen large enough for comfortable reading, ebooks absolutely will hurt sales of paper books.

It’s going to happen. The questions are when, and who will be prepared.

@Jon: Eric Flint looked at that possibility in one of his Salvos Against Big Brother columns. He doesn’t think there’s any need to worry.

I am a little sick of this whole ‘ebook sales will hurt the sale of print books’ argument. Progress may bring changes, but it brings opportunities too. Touch-tone phones affected the sales of rotary phones. Electric washing machines affected the sales of hand-wringer ones. But the people who made those products still seemed to find ways to profit off the new marketplace.

There are some types of books I do prefer to read in print, but for fairly disposable best-seller fiction, e is more than fine for me. I wish just *one* publisher would be visionary enough to embrace e—really embrace it, with proper publicity and all that jazz—and show the rest of them that there is *money* to be made in the digital frontier, and without burdening your customers with inflated prices and unreasonable DRM schemes.

@Chris: After you look past the giant tip jar at the top of that page, and the occasional off-topic rambling, that’s a pretty interesting article.

It is always scary when your industry and the way to make money from it starts to change. And there will always be some (most?) who fight it, and in the end they will lose. Someone will figure out the new ways for authors to make a living, and some will be fine.

@ficbot: Publisher really embracing e? You mean like Baen?