Thursday, March 1, 2007

Page to New Age

So again, in an attempts to find a topic to address in this post, I went to cnn.com's Tech section and came across this article: http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/internet/02/28/book.browsing.reut/index.html.
It is about two very large Publishing companies, Random House and HarperCollins, now allowing customers to look at actual pages of the book online.

In a way, this seems really silly to me that this is big news. I mean, you can go to any library or bookstore in the world and they want you to look through the books. Why would this be that much different?

And yet, as an aspiring editor and author, it makes me nervous. I'm only 20, yet my career area has changed so much in the past few years that I'm worried I won't be able to keep up. My traditional sense of books, editing, and publishing are going to need to drastically alter if I am to keep up in this internet-based world. In a way, it makes me sad, and I really hope that books will not fade out. Having a book in my hand isn't the greatest joy in my life, but I couldn't imagine it being any other way. I've tried to read books online before and I'd rather just go to the store and buy it then read it for free online. Really, I'm not sure why, go hire a psychologist, I just know that I prefer the books. There's something about going home and looking at my crammed-full bookcase that gives me a wonderful feeling inside (as corny as that is) and I know no amount of book-files could compare to the thick spines of my adored books. I am way too possessive of my books, for reasons unknown to me, to the point where I yelled at my boyfriend for accidentally tearing a page in one. It wasn't even a big tear either, just a small little rip that most other people probably wouldn't have noticed.

So in the technological scheme of things, this step for the publishing companies seems logical and intelligent business-wise. Emotionally, however, we'll see how I cope.

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