http://www.pewresearch.org/
We often hear that people aren’t reading much these days. Is the death of books eminent? New research by the Pew Center points out that people are still reading paperback and even hardcover books – in fact, often preferring them to e-books. It startled me into recalling a conference I attended while still a book editor in publishing – I seem to recall 1981 as the year – entitled “The Death of Books.”
Hah.
People read books and e-books. More people are listening to audiobooks. We have many more choices in how we consume the stories between book covers, even as we discover more and more sophisticated ways to acquire information.
Here’s an interesting article about how reading real books is still pervasive.
And here’s another about the growing interest in audiobooks, which is why we podcast for you each month.
Books are here to stay!
I think part of it is that with the explosion of printing on demand and self publishing, more stories are getting out there. With the diversity of the reading selection we have now, people don’t have to struggle so much to identify with a story or author; they can sift through the sea of books until they find stories with which they can truly relate. Social media and book review blogs also make that sifting process less arduous.