The New Face of Literature

The feud between book publishers and consumers is heating up. The price of new release and best selling electronic books is about to go up from $9.99 to $14.99 and the majority of E-book readers are not pleased. Publishers have recently negotiated a deal with Apple and Amazon to raise the prices of the electronic books and according to New York Times journalists Motoko Rich and Brad Stone, we can expect a retaliatory response from consumers. Rich and Stone describe how readers of e-books have shown a reflexive hostility to prices higher than the $9.99 set by Amazon.com and other online retailers for popular titles. When these prices are too high or publisher’s delay releasing electronic copies, readers go onto websites like Amazon and Barnes and Nobles and give one star ratings as well as leave negative comments about the books and the authors. Consumers argue that the price of these electronic books should be much less because the publishing companies aren’t paying to print pages. As far as I’m concerned, Amazon has committed to the $9.99 price,” said Wilma Sanders, a 70-year-old retiree who has homes in Plymouth, Mass., and Marco Island, Fla. She said that if e-book prices rose, she would stop buying. “I’m still a library-goer. There are enough good books out there that I don’t need to pay more than I want to. I already can’t keep up with what I have.” She’s not alone either. The article mentions quotes many people who say if the prices continue to rise, they will find alternatives.

The recent invention of “Kindles” and “Readers” and electronic books has exploded onto popular culture. With the recent release of the Apple I-Pad, electronic books are likely to grow in population even more. Media scholars often look at the content of media and how it affects general public. But we often ignore the importance of the medium in which media industries rely on. These readers are revolutionizing how people are reading books. So what? Does this matter? Well according to Canadian literary scholar Marshall McLuhan, it matters. McLuhan argues that the medium is the message. We’re accustomed to thinking of the message as separate from the medium itself. McLuhan blurred the distinction between the message and the medium. He argues that we focus on the content and overlook the medium and that you can’t do this because content doesn’t exist outside of the way it’s mediated. So when we change from a hardcopy to an electronic copy the message changes. Our reading experience is altered.

So why does this matter? Well according to Stephen Cole, managing director of eBooks, “Five years out, the total e-book market will be between $3 billion and $5 billion.” These numbers are evidence of the popularity of this recent phenomenon. The face of books is changing. No longer are people going to bookstores or drugstores and looking through the bestsellers rack. Instead they are going on websites, buying, downloading, and reading. As stated above, our reading experience is being changed. For better or worse, well that’s for you to decide.



http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/11/technology/11reader.html?ref=media