Books on the way up (Peter Osnos)—or down (Larry McMurty)? Take your pick
“Instead of books disappearing, they will be vastly more accessible than they ever were—and significantly, in contrast with the increasingly strapped newspaper and magazine industries, a business model is emerging for paying the creators and distributors of the content.” – Peter Osnos in Who Says the Book Business Is Dead?, a Daily Beast article where he notes the rise of the Kindle and iPhone as reading gizmos.
“I think little kids love to have stories read to them, but when they get to 10 or 11 or 12, they run into this tsunami of technology: iPod, iPhone, Blackberries. They don’t resist it, and it’s normal that they wouldn’t; it’s their culture. I’m not so sure they ever come back to reading. Some will, but most won’t.” – Larry McMurty, novelist and bookstore owner on “the end of the culture of the book.”
Related: Osnos’s pro-e-book sentiments as expressed in a column the Century Foundation. I just wish he’d get more into format and DRM issues with genuine consumer preferences in mind.
(Thanks to Court Merrigan for the Osnos pointer and Jon Noring for the McMurty one. Osnos is in the left photo. Photo to right is from Wikipedia and shows a bookstore owned by McMurty.)
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