Books a thing of the past?

After thousands of years of telling tales on a piece of paper, has the day of the book finally come to an end? E-books have starting to make a charge into the market share of the traditional paperback, and who knows where it will go from here?

The appealing aspect of the E-book is that it is cheaper than the standard version, as well as being much more convenient to obtain. Rather than going to a store and hunting down or ordering what you want, you can simply find it online and have it instantaneously. In addition, reading material online is a much more green solution than printing everything on paper.

However, is digitalizing books really what people want? Many people, especially elders would rather have a physical copy that they can take anywhere with them. Although laptops are getting smaller and smaller, with the exception of textbooks it is easier to have the book with you. In addition, for flights and car rides, E-book users are tied down by the battery capacity of their technology.

It seems that publishing companies might need to come up with another way to market their books in order to compete with each other, in addition to this new player in the marketplace. Perhaps advertising particular books or giving deals on the purchase of multiple books would entice people to stick with the physical copy.