First off no books were harmed while writing this article. Sure some got their feelings hurt but hey it happens.

It all started last week when I bought my new iPad. I must say I love it and it’s given me some new insights after I saw how easy it was to use.  I’ve downloaded many books on to it already and love the convenience of digital downloads.  So when my wife wanted to run to the local book store I laughed at the idea, yes bookstores so primitive. Well we went, and it was sort of like going into a museum, all those paper products lining the shelves. My wife was looking for a particular section and we had some issues finding it, walked up and down every aisle and finally she found it after much looking. We spent about $50 on a few different books and during the checkout was asked if we wanted to join the Books a million discount club for $20, if we did today we could save $3…. So I would essentially pay $17 more for some reason. I guess if I came back many times it would eventually pay for itself, but it made me think…. Will I come back not just to this book store but any bookstore?

See the push for digital media is huge right now. With the release of Apple’s iPad it may just be the device to bring consumer content consumption devices to the masses and make distributors realize the value in digital media once and for all.  After all, the profit margin on a digital book has to far exceed the profit from a paper book, mainly because the overhead is far cheaper to produce e-copies then physical paper copies. Publishers could shut down entire publishing centers, cancel their maintenance contracts on the printing presses, cancel truck and shipping contracts. Publishers would replace all of their machinery with a handful of servers to serve up the digital media at a fraction of the price.

But why would  the everyday consumer want digital versus physical? In my eyes it’s convenience.  See I have an iPad and this is the same for anyone with a Kindle, nook or any other eReader. For us the ability to browse a virtual bookstore by category and select our titles is nice, but the greatest thing is the search feature. When my wife and I were walking around Books a million looking for a category section we wasted some time. As we walked around I pulled my iphone out, searched the kindle book store and found the book she wanted within a minute, I didn’t buy it because she wanted a physical book but had that been her choice we would have been able to get the book in a minute, without even leaving the house!

As a consumer we spend a lot of money on our way to and from shopping centers. I know many people that would go out to buy one item on sale somewhere just to save a few bucks. But most consumers don’t add the true cost of a purchase up. See it’s not the sales price, if you figure that’s all you pay you really are short changing your life. You most likely paid for gas to drive to the store, that cost money plus had extra wear and tear on your car which leads to more expenses. You had to get ready which used water or personal health products, clothes, etc. You spent an hour or so of your time which time is ultimately money so that cost.

And no I’m not saying with digital downloads you would never have to shower or get dressed, but if you lounge around the house and get ready for the main reason of going to the store, then you have to consider that as a cost factor. So your journey to save $10 or $20 on an item is mitigated by all the other expenses you incur.

So the push for digital media has many benefits.

For the consumer:

1. It saves you time by allowing instant access to the items you are looking for.
2. It saves you money, digital content has less overhead then printed material so it’s cheaper to produce.
3. You have choices, right now for books there is apples book store and amazon’s book store. I’m sure there are others, but those are the big ones.

For the content creator and/or publisher:

1. Saves them money, no more distribution centers, fuel surcharges, toll’s, hourly wages, etc. Publishers printing presses could be closed and replaced with low cost data centers.
2. Allows quick revisions and releases. Books with typos or other issues could be resolved quickly rather then having to recall books.
3. Allows more authors to bring books forward, after all publishers will have far less in publishing a book so they could publish more books without spending added capital advertising.

For personal/government:

1. Schools could purchase eReaders (or students are required to have one) and text books could be downloaded to their devices for a small fee rather then forcing school districts to reuse old, outdated text books.
2. Businesses could use the books to quickly disperse training materials at low cost.
3. Digital libraries could be created (or physical libraries) where you bring your device in and check out the latest book, after the week long checkout process the book is returned and you have to recheck it out if you want it.
4. Government could share urgent information if we were ever attacked or had critical health or other info that had to be distributed quickly to all people.  What about digital delivery of census letters instead of wasting billions mailing us “coming soon” letters (sore spot with me, waste of MY tax dollars.

Anyways, I foresee a future where there won’t be paper books. Not only does it cost more to make then digital but it’s not environmentally green and yes  know the debate over that one so don’t start with me. But a world where students don’t have 40 pounds of books in their bags and instead one eReader. A world where instead of a bookstore you buy the book directly from the device. Or who knows, businesses can adapt and have book stores still where you can buy the digital copies, this makes little sense to me but maybe it will happen.  A world where the Sunday paper is digitally delivered to your device first thing in the morning rather then having it thrown at your house.

To me the question isn’t “if” books will ever be totally electronic, the question to me is when? I believe that sometime in the next 10 years we are going to see schools start using eReaders, and in the next 15-20 years paper books will begin to be phased out if not eliminated all together.

I will admit there are a few cons I can think of for digital downloads:

1. A lot of jobs in printing houses will be lost as those people are no longer needed. Sad, but true.
2. consumers will need to always have charged devices to be able to read and consume the content. Longer battery life can make this happen.
3. No more paper cuts, and we all love paper cuts.
4. The nostalgia of an old book, personally I hate the smell of old books but some long for it.

Digital really is the way of the future.