The Fate of Books2

By Brittany Frederick, Sep 22, 2011 in Show News, Verse

Last week, we brought you the backstory of KoldCast’s murder-mystery series, Verse. Verse tells the true story of the murder of poet Claire Wilks – and how it was solved thirty-six years later when a bike messenger named Jon Sands stumbled upon one of Wilks’ manuscripts and decided to probe further. The series raises an interesting tangential question – just how important are physical books and what’s their future in a technology-dominated world?

Verse: A Murder Mystery – Chapter 1

With the rise of e-readers and interest moving away from print to more visual mediums, books and bookstores have found themselves in a struggle to hold onto readers. In 2011, Borders Group filed for bankruptcy and liquidated all of its bookstores after unsuccessfully changing its business plan to include in-store coffee shops in 2004 and electronics in 2008. Competitor Barnes & Noble considered a sale of its company in August 2010.

E-readers began to take on physical books beginning in 2007 when the Amazon Kindle arrived followed in short order by other options like the Barnes & Noble Nook and Apple’s iBooks application for the iPad. In July 2012, Amazon.com reported that sales of e-books surpassed sales of physical books on their website.

With rising electronic sales and failing brick and mortar bookstores, is it the end for the printed text? Maybe and maybe not. E-books have allowed renewed access to many titles that are out of print and will continue to do so for countless titles in the future. Once you get past the cost of purchasing an e-reader (which is usually in the triple digits), many e-books are cheaper than hardcover new releases. They are also far more portable for the on-the-go reader than a physical text.

Still, an e-book cannot replace the physical sensation of holding a book in your hand or giving it as a gift to a loved one. Physical books don’t ever turn off, or run out of power, or lose data. Furthermore, many e-books involve some form of digital rights management, meaning that you can’t loan an e-book to a friend the same way that you would a paperback. In fact, should the company providing the service ever decide to go out of business, you may lose access to an e-book altogether. This isn’t so for that hardcover sitting on your shelf.

While electronic books – and electronic media – continue to compete with their physical counterparts for public attention, perhaps the greatest threat is simple ambivalence. This writer can speak to one former coworker who boasted that she hadn’t read a book voluntarily since high school – that’s in addition to the many friends who say they just don’t have the time to finish a book with their busy schedules.

Reading a book can take several hours – hours that you can fill with any multitude of activities. So perhaps the real culprit is technology itself, providing us with a plethora of shiny objects to chase on our downtime.

Verse: A Murder Mystery – Chapter 2

Verse: A Murder Mystery – Chapter 3

Watch more episodes of murder mystery series VERSE

Brittany Frederick, is an award-winning freelance entertainment journalist who reaches millions of people around the world every day with her unique blend of sophisticated analysis, sarcastic humor, and varied life experience. She maintains her own blog (DigitalAirwaves.net) and you can follow her on Twitter (@tvbrittanyf).