Digital Books Are On The Rise

Dismissing eBooks because the standalone devices didn’t catch on would be a mistake. No matter what you call a book published digitally, the concept is far from dead on arrival. Digital book sales are rising and could outstrip paperback sales within a decade. Digital text books are gaining in popularity. John Blossom pulls it all together to make the case for premium digital publishing keying off the book format. Among his suggestions: think of a book as a database to go. “The electronic book is likely to evolve into a multi-faceted digital content object which allows authors to ship off content to users with some hope of meaningful payment coming their way but with a great deal of downstream flexibility in how its content gets shaped into a package that has meaning to its users.”
I’m not too thrilled with the “content object” jargon but digital technology is already being used to extend the value of some books and could be taken farther. Publishers — please keep in mind that not every book needs to be enhanced beyond a feature that changes the font size.

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