PAPER is FOREVER (?)

 

As we stand now, in mid-2026, printed paper books still reign supreme in Kidlit.

 

Children, as it turns out, haven’t flocked to eBooks as predicted.  Children’s books haven’t flourished as self-published books, either. Both spheres, predicted with unwarranted assurance twenty years ago, have had a generation to take hold and----- 

THEY DID NOT.

 

There is clearly a strong market for the self-published in romance/erotica and mystery books for adults. There is an ever-growing market for audio books for adults, also.

But children are different. It isn’t surprising the self-published haven’t flourished (or made a dent) in books for young readers. Librarians and teachers have a lot of sway there, and they do little with that segment, relying heavily on traditional publishers' catalogues.

 

But, you may wonder, how is it that the first generation growing up with cell phones, tablets, and computer games, not prefer eBooks?

 

This article by a veteran agent makes a cogent point. In fact, it makes a few points.

 

I’ve always been skeptical of futuristic declarations. That whole other genre of both fiction and nonfiction that will turn up a myriad of never-to-be prophesies. But I did buy into the notion that eBooks will take over the younger people’s market.

 

Turns out the very old and the very young are more similar than all whose ages that lie in between.

WORLDS GONE TO ETHER

 

A dear friend told me more than ten years ago that her physical bookshelves were emptying. For reasons of space saving, she had gone from squeezing in more volumes to replacing them with eBooks. She’s an avid reader, for whom books are not an occasional pastime or a distraction. Books are her passion.

 

 Mind you, she’s also a librarian.

 

The day a librarian is giving up her stacks of physical paper books is also the day our reality has moved to the ethernet.

 

That day is almost here.

 

Has your bank been imploring you to forgo paper statements? Have your utility companies stopped sending paper bills and even offered discounted bills if you go to “autopay?” Has your doctor been sending medical test orders to the lab virtually, no paper orders anywhere? Have your plane/train/bus tickets gone to an app on your phone with no paper backup needed?

 

You know what I’m saying.

It saves some trees. Hooray. It also saves space. It moves records of reality from our physical spaces to another realm, one that is microscopic by comparison.

 

This post from some months ago got me thinking about my post today. Even traditional publishers have realized the precious space of weatherized warehouses need not be, because POD books (Print On Demand) have become indistinguishable in quality and will do for those who like to hold a physical paper book. They print a physical book only after it’s ordered and paid for/sold.

 

Despite the title of this post, it is not about the afterlife. It is about the digital world replacing the physical in many spheres. This leaves more room for us, wretched creatures, while we’re still inhabiting the physical.

A New Way to STORY

After some prodding, I finally relented to DS ‘s urging me to try playing a computer game he insisted he knew I would like.

It was a revelation.

Don’t get me wrong; I’ve seen computer games, read about computer games, and even critiqued a colleague’s MG book that was in essence a tale taking place in the mind of a MC playing a computer game. But I have never experienced one such as this, where I found myself the protagonist of a surrealistic philosophical story, experiencing first-hand the anxiety, despair and elation of a full-fledged existential crisis.

It was like reading a novel, only I wasn’t identifying with the main character, I was the main character.

It was wrenching. It was stressful. It was amazing.

 

I’m still old-school, and this will not replace good reading for me. But it got me thinking about the dawning of a new age of writing. The possibilities that will come with electronic books, when they finally realize they don’t have to just be cheap versions of print, are almost here. They can tell a story in a new way, merging what literary narration and technology they are capable of, to give the deep personal experience readers seek.

We can use games such as Wii to play virtual athletic games, waving our arms and watching a screen. But can we enter fully-fledged stories? I can see it now.

The death of the novel has been predicted for a long time. I don’t foresee death, but a re-birth with new dimensions.

 

 

What EBooks Could Be

Some bloggers have been lamenting the EBook bust.

As one who writes for younger readers, I observed that the EBook boom never happened for them. Neither picture books nor novels for pre-teens have been great sellers in that format.

Why? Aren’t young’uns crazy about devices? Don’t they want their books on a handy-dandy virtual page, like the rest of their social life?

A writing friend commented that the problem with EBooks is that they fail to use, really use, the electronic features they are capable of having that would have made them different.

EBooks, as they are now, are just computer files with nothing more than the print text and the ability to enlarge it, or even find certain words.

The capability that we have come to expect from any website or digital article would make books better, in ways, than print. Digitized text could be made to have "extra layers" not only in the way DVDs contained more features than the film, but so much more. EBooks could have highlighted words that would take the reader to side videos, moving clips, or extra material, which includes sound.

This would mean higher production costs, but publishers get a near-free ride with EBooks as they are now. No warehousing, shipping, printing or dealing with worn returns. For a single process of file conversion they have a product that costs pennies, with a few more to the distributor, (mostly Amazon) and is “in print” forever. It behooves publishers to make a different and distinctive product if they really want to make true “electronic books,” or EBooks.

But we are so not there yet. As it is now, there is no compelling reason to read on kindle even if the price is right and you can haul a whole bunch of books in one light device. Few kids read a whole bunch of books at once anyhow.

Where they do use it, increasingly, is for textbooks. As school systems force this conversion, kids don’t mind not having to haul those books. But this is different from pleasure reading.

And no matter what, you can’t hug your favorite volume, your most beloved book, if it’s a file on an E-reader. That is why they need to give us something more in exchange.