
The Future of the Humanities: Reading - walterbell
http://www.psmag.com/books-and-culture/the-future-of-the-humanities-reading
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wallacoloo
My observations, having begun actively using a kindle about 3 years ago:

\- Digital publishing has a lower barrier of entry.

\- The lengths of digital books I read has a much larger variation than that
of physical books. It doesn't make sense to physically publish a lone short
story in paper, and really long stories previously had to either be culled to
fit in one binding, or split into a multi-part series. Digital works are
_less_ susceptible to this.

\- It's easier to keep up-to-date on my favorite authors when they publish
digitally. In some circumstances (writing boards), I get to read each chapter
as the writer completes them, rather than waiting until the entire book is
complete.

In stark contrast to my reading habits from 5 years ago, I now almost
exclusively read self-published works. #1 and #2 have led to me reading some
stories that were completely different from anything I've ever seen in print
form, like some really snarky story told from the point of view of a rock,
only he had no opinions or thoughts, because he was a rock. In general,
there's _no_ cost for experimentation (besides time).

Relatedly, I know at least one person who has actually just published their
first book in physical form. He only did this _after_ amassing a decent base
of fans via his digital publications.

These are just my observations. I'm not necessarily putting one form above the
other - I think they actually work pretty well together _currently_. I see
quite a similarity between physical vs digital books and CDs vs digital music
downloads. However, the book is intrinsically usable, whereas the CD requires
an additional piece of technology to be used.

