Comments on: Why Books Aren’t Dead Yet

By: Will

Will — Fri, 13 May 2011 05:59:17 +0000

It’s just like mail. Email is miles more efficient for communication, but nothing beats a handwritten letter from home…and you can send cookies.

If I have to speed read through an article before my class starts, I’ll just locate it online, but just like “Lawrence of Arabia” is better on the big screen, massive tomes like “Guns Germs and Steel” and “The Lord of the Rings” are better in brick-thick paperback form.

By: Richard Dooling

Richard Dooling — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 22:44:40 +0000

Hey, thanks to everyone who wrote in with links and suggestions for finding a copy of Rick Berg’s Traveling Cheaply. I finally found a copy at a decent price, and yes it brought back a pleasant whirr of memories.

Thanks!

By: Tracy Thompson-Przylucki

Tracy Thompson-Przylucki — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 16:45:01 +0000

Here you go! http://www.alibris.com/booksearch?qwork=425031&matches=3&keyword=traveling+cheaply&cm_sp=works*listing*title

By: Kenneth Shear

Kenneth Shear — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 06:17:32 +0000

Richard, we have a site (www.libertary.com) with a bunch of books available to read for free, no DRM, and we have forums for each book for shared comments. I personally sympathize with your views about printed books — my house is also full of them. But some people also do want to read on line, and we want to make it as easy as possible. We’re just starting out and only have about 25 books so far, but the number is growing pretty rapidly. As we move forward, we’ll provide ways for people to save their notes privately or share them. Some of the books on our site are from other publishers and some we’ve published ourselves. Our business model currently is based on evidence that free reading helps sell more printed books, both for us and for other publishers. As the site grows, perhaps we’ll also get some advertising revenue or develop some useful premium membership features. But the heart of what we’re doing is free reading.

This comment is in the way of a request. I’d certainly like to hear your reactions to our site and approach to publishing. Secondly, I notice that some of your books are available for free online. We’d be very pleased if you’d give us permission to put some (or all) of them on our site. We get a bit more traffic because we have a variety of books and we’re building something of a community around the free reading idea. We’ll link back to your site and to wherever your would like for people to buy the books.

Freedom of the Book!

By: Steve

Steve — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 20:18:24 +0000

I just finally made my first online digital music purchase recently still holding on to my CD and record collections (even though I can’t find a needle for my turntable)

I’m certainly not ready to start downloading books. I-pad or not there is nothing that beats the feel of a real book in your hands. Who doesn’t love that smell of new paper when you go to a book store. The only books I miss in my collection are the ones I ever gave away whether I liked the book or not. I still need to find out who I gave “White Man’s Grave” too, I need that one back for sure!