I’m completely obsessed with efficiency. I try to be as ruthlessly efficient as I possibly can, simply because I want to get as much done as possible. If there’s a new system that saves me time, whether it’s accepting e-queries, embracing Google docs so I can work anywhere, getting an e-reader so I can read anywhere, you name it, I’ll do it.
But I’m also obsessed with efficiency in a broader sense as well, because I think it is something critically important to society and history and technology. We humans, whether we’re conscious of it or not, are all obsessed with efficiency.
Nearly every single thing that has ever been invented and achieved mass adoption has one thing in common: it’s an improvement in efficiency.
Whether it’s speech, writing, the postal service, telephone, or e-mails, we have been moving closer and closer to efficient, instantaneous communication across vast distances.
Whether it’s domesticated animals, chariots, railroads, cars, planes, we have been moving closer and closer to efficient travel across vast distances.
Whether it’s fire, windmills, steam engines, or the internal combustion engine, we have been moving closer and closer to the most efficient energy production possible.
And as we decide whether to adopt or dismiss a new inventions, nearly every consideration other than efficiency (usually) dwindles in importance.
Cars aren’t as safe as railroad travel or walking (or at least walking where there are no cars), but we’re willing to make that sacrifice because cars are efficient. Every energy technology seems to pollute more than the last, but we make the tradeoff because the other technologies are less efficient. Nothing can compare to the experience of listening to live music or, barring that, vinyl records, but we’d much rather listen to music on mp3 players because we can listen to music whenever we want.
Human beings are always scurrying around trying to find more efficient ways of doing things and freeing up time for the things we’d rather be doing. Efficiency allows us to be more productive and relax more and spend time creating still more efficiency.
And this is why I believe e-books are going to win in the end, and probably sooner than we think. It’s simply vastly more efficient to download any book you could possibly want instantaneously and read a book on a screen (even better if it’s a screen you already have, hello smartphone) than to cut down a tree, make paper, print ink on it, bind it, ship it across the country in a plane or a truck or both, and make someone walk or drive to a physical store (who may or may not have the book they want) every time they want to read a book.
I think we’ll look back on the print era and marvel about all those people who were responsible for delivering all these individual printed objects, kind of like how there used to be a fleet of milk men in every city rather than one guy driving a truck to a couple of supermarkets.
To be sure, no technology disappears completely – people still ride horses, go to plays, type on typewriters, listen to record players, and send handwritten letters. And printed books aren’t going to disappear either. All of these technologies have advantages and an associated nostalgia that people will always want to preserve and experience. There will still be printed books and physical bookstores, even if there are far fewer of them.
But things tend to move in one direction: toward greater efficiency and productivity. There’s always a delay as people adapt to the new technology, but prices come down, the technology gets better, and the efficiency spreads.
Printed books have their advantages, but they don’t win where it counts. Nature may abhor a vacuum, but human nature abhors a bottleneck.
Hunter says
I predict that the sales of pop-up books are going to be abysmal on e-readers. Beyond that, I agree completely.
Anonymous says
anon @ 1:02
Confirmation bias is a form of cognitive bias based on confirming a position or argument by overlooking or marginalizing contradictory evidence. Postpurchase confirmation bias is a material consumer version.
I bought it. I'm a savvy consumer. It must be good. Although the driver's door doesn't quite close, the engine burns oil, the radiator leaks coolant, the darned thing doesn't start on cold, wet mornings, but it gets me to work on time, mostly. Therefore, it's a great car and was a good purchase.
In the alternative;
It's the latest, greatest invention since sliced bread. I bought it hook line and sinker. I'm a savvy consumer; therefore, it must be an intelligent purchase. 8-track players, LaserDisc players, etc.
I bake my own bread because of dietary needs and financial issues. What's sliced bread?
Terry says
All this talk about efficiency. I'm going to spend the weekend on the beach with a trashy novel, lurid cover and all, just to help me forget this tsunami of technology that won't give us a breather.
Ink – Say it isn't so!:(
Anonymous says
Yup. My verdict: e-books: not so efficient in the overall scheme of things.
Malia Sutton says
"Yes, they store what you bought in perpetuity."
Now that's what I call agent talk 🙂
Anonymous says
This goes for both the anons and nathan: Don't take this the wrong way, but the green vs. not green debate is highly technical, and unless you're an experiend environmental engineer, electrical engineer, petroleum geologist and an MBA specializing in supply chain management rolled into one, none of you are qualified to specualte on which device or system is more environmentall friendly.
Writing vampire books–okay, but environmental enginnering? Doubtful.
Anonymous says
I think a lot of people will use eReaders in the future. Everyone I work with has one. I think the real question is when will publishers make more of their books available on eReaders. When will the publishers embrace electronic books?
And how will pricing work with the current DRM technology? If I have a Kindle from amazon and the book I want costs $10, but I can buy the same book for the Nook for $7, am I really going to have two devices, or am I just stuck? We are in an environment now like the blueray versus HD-DVD. This is another obstacle that needs to be overcome before more people embrace the technology.
Anonymous says
I've looked at and studied environmental issues in a formal academic setting.
None of the studies favoring e-readers as more environmentally sustainable take into account all the real world costs. Not knowing all the facts of e-reader environmental impact, my sole conclusion is that the studies are biased. Bias to me means that there's something hidden. What are the hidden real world costs? And by costs I mean every value of every impact.
We're only lately coming into a carbon setoff economy. My electric company started offering carbon setoffs this month.
Anne Lyken-Garner says
What can I say? Everything has already been said, I'm sure. I haven't read all the comments here, though I did glance at one that said;
"Anonymous said…
Sorry, but I respectfully disagree. I like books, I like paper, and though it may take awhile, I don't believe those will be extinct anytime soon."
I don't think you said this at all, but anyway…
Yeah, what you said. E-books rock, even though hard copies are valuable too. Smartphones should thank you for the plug. At least 100 of us have seen it now.:-)
Nathan Bransford says
anon@1:20-
I'm just going off of the studies I've read.
Lisa Schroeder says
Hmmmm…but…
BUT, while it's more efficient to have a movie delivered to your house via netflix, guess what? People still go to the movies. It's a different experience, and they're willing to pay for it.
So, what can bookstores do to help make it an experience people aren't willing to give up? Sell $10.00 popcorn perhaps?
Nick F. says
While I'm sure some form of e-reader will someday surpass print books, I'm hopeful, and rather certain in my hope, that it won't happen until I'm a fair deal older. Partially because they are certainly gathering sales, but right now the state of the e-reader market, at least with what (no doubt infinitesimal piece) I know of it, reminds me a lot of Blu-Ray at the moment. There's a lovely article I read somewhere a couple of weeks ago that compares Blu-Ray to LaserDisc. Sure, the HD revolution is coming, but BR won't be it. I have a feeling e-readers, as they are now, is the LaserDisc of the publishing world.
Anonymous says
What's going to piss people off about ebooks is that companies will be overly aggressive in rolling out new ones so fast that customers will be frustrated that the model they bought last year is obsolete. Also, and I don't have one so let me know–do ebooks pester you for "updates" the same way windows does? I need more of that b.s. like I need a hole in my head.
So until the whole thing stablizes I think the demand will be lukewarm.
Jen says
I was fortunate to attend a webinar just yesterday on the future of eBooks. One of the take-away points from the meeting is to make an effort to stop focusing on eReaders such as Kindle, Sony and so on and focus on eReadING. The highest percentage of ereading takes place on pc, laptop, netbook. And the technology being talked about for eReading going forward includes ebook ready PlayStations and Nintendo DS. Flexible products (that you can roll up and tuck in your purse or pocket) are also in development. So what we're seeing today in eReaders and their early adoption is only a hint of what's coming in the next couple of years. Too often discussions of ebooks focus on the device used to read them, when really what needs to be looked at is the ebook itself.
Anonymous says
Publishers should start giving the e-readers away with a purchase of ten books or something. (Like cell phones that come free with signing up for X amount of months.) It would be great for e-book business.
I worry that (like cell phones) these readers will get a chip inserted that will only let you read a certain publishing group's books though. Yucko.
I read that the best thing we can do for the environment is not procreate. (Doesn't sound like as much fun as procreating though.)
Marilyn Peake says
Nathan,
Don’t you think it’s important to have people who continue to produce older forms of art and preserve older ways of life, even while the larger world allows itself to be pushed into the future based on efficiency? The people who decried moving so many jobs overseas, for example, may have important insights into how to bolster the United States’ economy even as China’s economy ascends into an influential position in the global market. Audrey Niffenegger, author of THE TIME TRAVELER’S WIFE and HER FEARFUL SYMMETRY, is also an artist who loves illustrated paper books and works for an institute to preserve them. As much as I love eBooks, I feel her work to preserve the art of creating beautifully illustrated paper books is extremely valuable.
Nathan Bransford says
marilyn-
Definitely, that's why I don't think printed books and bookstores are going to go away entirely. Printed books will always be around, just like all the other technologies that have mainly been replaced. There's absolutely a place for them, and I'm not trying to suggest that they should or will be done away with.
But in terms of the majority of books – I think we'll be reading e-books.
Like Jen, I think it's important to look past the devices currently on the market. They're almost instantly out of date and certainly not an ideal experience.
But another couple generations of smartphones and tablets and dedicated e-readers will come along, things will get more affordable, and all of a sudden e-books are going to look much more of a no-brainer and we'll look back and think it was all inevitable.
Lena says
Interesting thing… According to the teenreads.com survey, as seen in Publishers Weekly, teens have not (yet) embraced ebooks. The vast majority got their books from the library or bought hardcopies (or their parents did for them).
I'm sure the time is coming, but I find it kind of refreshing to hear that people still like to go to the library. (It's one of my favorite places.)
PW article
Violet Baudelaire says
we still have milkmen where i live.
Nick F. says
Whoops, just realized I never finished my earlier comment before hitting the publish button (why can't book writing have one of those?). Anyway, another reason why I'm hopeful e-readers won't catch on too terribly quickly, and no doubt one I've said before, I love books.
I have somewhere between 300-370 books in my bedroom right now, and I would have so many more if this were my house and I were free to arrange things as I see fit. I have books in my room which have been sitting there for years, never so little as opened to the first page, and will very probably go unread until the day I die. I tell some people this, and they assume I just like having books for decoration.
I don't. I love books. There's nothing quite like the feeling of being surrounded by them, browsing them, kicking up in a comfy leather armchair by the window and just reading all morning. The sound and smell of the pages, everything about it is like a drug for me, really.
Conversely, because I am B-R-O-K-E (okay, well, not really, I have $100 but I'm saving it, therefore it doesn't exist as far as I'm concerned) I don't have the money to go out and buy Psychopathia Sexualis right now. I found a free-to-read copy online and have been working my way through it since Sunday evening. It's still a very stimulating read, but I get nowhere near the same level of enjoyment as I do reading print copies. It's been the same way for every e-book I've read.
Horses for courses, I suppose.
Scott says
I agree to an extent outside of those things that bring us pleasure or a deeper sense of experience, because it's impossible to quantify. I mean, imagine if your philosophy were applied to the bedroom. :^P
Books aren't always to "get through". To make more efficient the rest of your life so that you might spend more time with them makes sense, but I notice that a significant proportion of avid readers either reject e-books for failing to satisfy them in a tactile sense, or they're not all that bothered to start.
The concept of rush kills a lot of stuff, for me. I think there will always be those who promote activities done inefficiently, because it's in those spaces we discover things we don't always expect. Yoga is another example of an activity that comes to mind. Why not just run off those calories in fifteen minutes or tone those muscles with some weight training? Because there's something to be gained by the individual experience of taking one's time.
For me, e-books will be great for information. But when I want something more than just info, I'll always pine for paper.
Sam Hranac says
GOD I miss fresh milk.
Nathan Bransford says
scott-
But it's not about speeding up the reading experience (yet – books beamed directly to head come on I'm ready!!), it's about speeding up the acquisition of the book.
And I know, libraries and bookstores = great and all that, but so were soda fountains and record stores and video stores and and and and
Dara says
E-books and eReaders are nice…but will be even better when you can use one to get books from the library. And not just the ridiculously small number that are available now on library eBook catalogs; there has to be a significant amount of books that I can borrow just like I can from the library now.
I know I mention this nearly every time eBooks and eReaders are brought up 😛 But I won't even consider an eReader until there's a wider selection of loanable books from the library AND when it goes below $200.
Sarah says
I dunno, man. People adopted 8-tracks and then cassettes and then CDs and then mp3s not because of efficiency, but because of increased quality. An e-reader – for the people who have them – may be more efficient, but there's no arguing that the quality is higher. People love the physical act of turning pages. A book dropped in the bath will recover; a Kindle won't. I think e-readers have to offer something beyond convenience to really sway the (many) people who claim they'll go down swinging for print.
As someone who's worked extensively with people with disabilities, I say yay to the increasing availability of digital text. It makes so many things easier on so many levels. And I'm sure that the printed book is going to keep waning, but slowly – the radio, after all, still exists in tandem with television, and as much as I love my iPod touch it hurts my bloody eyes.
You must have read Nicholson Baker's Kindle 2 review in The New Yorker – I thought it was tremendously insightful. There are diehards who won't give up their typewriters, but we see them as eccentric or wacky. Not so with book lovers. I want Amazon to tell me how I'm supposed to decorate my bloody house if all my books are on a gizmo the size of my hand. I'm too in love with the technology of books – the technology of print – to give them up in my lifetime. I'll go for an e-reader when it gets cheap enough, but never at the expense of print.
PRINT FOREVER &c.
ella144 says
Thank you, Nathan. This is what I've been saying all along.
As much as I LOVE the sensory experience of holding a book in my hand and seeing it on my shelf, e-books provide instant gratification and are mobile.
As you say, all the kinks will work their way out of the system.
Or contrary-wise, they'll become ingrained and accepted, and the shouts and fist-waving will become quiet grumbles forgotten before they can be blogged, though they will probably be Twittered.
(I drastically cut my comment due to an excess of rant (it was just super-long, not angry), and posted the full text on my blog if anyone is interested.)
Colette says
I'm not sure…. I do think e-books will become a bigger part of the market. But are they always more efficient? That depends on what your needs are.
Let me ask you this. I think we'd all say the digital music has arrived (iPods, music downloads etc.) Do you ever buy an actual physical CD anymore? I do — unless I just want a couple songs.
Do you really think it's possible that we'll have libraries that have no books in them? Or bookshelves with no books? Don't you love walking into the bookstore and browsing — picking up the books, reading the copy?
SZ says
Just wanted to add part of what I wrote to Gordons response yesterday as it seems to tie into today. Then I will try an be quiet lol ~
I miss my paper. Especially Sunday. I have comics I cut out from as far as 1980. Gary Larsons The Farside =} I miss holding the paper and falling asleep on it only to wake up later with ink all over my face ! I enjoy not knowing a word, and not knowing NOW. I tend to look them up later in mass when I am done with the book. It sort of lets you enjoy parts of the book a second time.
Reading a book is not my job. I get to read when there is time and it is a "fun" break for me. As todays efficiency blog continues, the day I have to effectively have efficient fun, it will no longer be fun.
Anonymous says
On efficiency, I think the days of dedicated devices, period, are about over. A gadget that only plas music? Silly. A gadget that only displays books–what?! A gadget only for phone calls/email-huh? So I gotta carry around 3 devices + a laptop/netbook if I have one?
It's laughably inefficient these days if you ask me.
Someone is going to come along with 1 sleek cell-phone sized device that does it all–and they will dominate.
Joseph L. Selby says
I sometimes read on my Blackberry and I'm not a fan. perhaps if I had a full-device screen like an iPhone or a Droid, it would be more enjoyable, but not so much with the Blackberry. It's not bad, mind you, but I'd prefer a nook.
Also, I wish the other agents at Curtis Brown would embrace email submissions. I dislike having to mail paper submissions for a variety of reasons.
You did put one thing in perspective for me. When you said, "some people still go to the theatre," I had to stop myself from unleashing my indignation. A theatrical performance creates a different, more visceral experience than a movie. And I realized, some people have a similar experience with a book. That's why they're always talking about the feel of the paper and the smell and blah blah blah. I don't have that experience. I want the story. I don't care if it's on paper or on a screen. So now I get it.
Still, theatre is better than movies. 😉
Joseph L. Selby says
Looking at all the Nathan responses. Someone have a half-day did he? 😉
The Storylady says
I wonder if it's possibly that MORE books will be published since publishing costs will go down. Without having to pay for the paper, ink and shipping costs, maybe publishers will be more willing to take a chance on some of us aspiring and unpublished writers.
Anonymous says
1 possible game-changer that could lead to what anon 1:56 is talking about is the projection screen. Cuz no one wants to lug around a big device or more than 1 device, but at the same time it's no fun to read a book on a cell-phone sized screen. the solution is the projeciton screen–a cell-phone size gadget that has a built-in projector so that you can beam the content onto a screen or wall (I don't know what you do if ytou're riding a bus or something). But that seems interesting.
Nick says
"it's about speeding up the acquisition of the book."
But is it really necessary to speed up the acquisition? To me that just screams of a lot of what I find wrong with today's world. Everything is go-go-go. When was the last time you woke up at 6:13 on a Saturday morning and just went and sat down in the middle of the woods, and I mean just sat there? Or the last time you went walking somewhere with no destination in mind until you reached a point where you absolutely had to turn back? Maybe it's because I live up in the Northeast, which is rapidly urbanizing, and in one of the more rapidly urbanizing areas of the Northeast at that, but it seems to me no one stops to enjoy life. It's all "School! Work! Sex! iPods! McDonald's! What? What's this park doing here? Tear it down and put up an office park straight away! Back to work you dogs! Yes, good little monkeys. Drink the coffee, that's right…" Okay maybe that's taking things too far, but you catch my drift. Personally I'm not a big fan of speeding most things up. I'd rather spend the entire afternoon mucking out the barn where I board my horse than buy some machine which could clean it all in ten minutes (which, so far as I am aware, does not exist…yet). Hell, I refuse to use common day-to-day things like the dishwasher, something most people use rather unconsciously. A sort of personal rebellion against the Information Age, I guess.
Anonymous says
"When was the last time you woke up at 6:13 on a Saturday morning and just went and sat down in the middle of the woods…"
What are these "woods" of which you speak?
I remember the last time I woke up at 6:13 Sat AM and I had wood, but that's a different story…
Anonymous says
Personally,as long as it comes in print, that is what I will buy. No one can take those away from me or make me rebuy the books when they change the technology. And yes I go back and re-read books I bought 20 years ago.
Ink says
Nick,
This book was written just for you.
Marilyn Peake says
Nathan @ 1:39 PM,
I agree with you completely. I’ve seen people skeptical about eBooks become instant converts after receiving a Kindle as a gift. I went from dreading learning how to use the Internet to … well, here I am. I resisted using the early digital cameras because I loved the clarity of 35-mm. photographs. Once digital cameras came along that have manual as well as automatic settings and clarity as good as 35-mm., I bought one and started using it. I wish all my photographs were digital! My older photos – thousands of them – are sitting in bins, some of them have fading colors, I can’t digitally email them and most of the time I can’t even locate specific photographs. I’m beginning to really appreciate the efficiency of digital.
Nick says
Also, one more point regarding the speeding-up of acquisition and why I don't much care for it. Aside from plenty of other objections I could raise, I love it when I go to Borders and find there's only one copy left on the shelf of a book that interests me. It's like a tiny little victory that just makes me so inexplicably happy for the rest of the evening. And I'm only that way with books. Last copy of a game or a movie? Eh. I still got the game or movie. But books, man. Something about getting the very last one on a shelf…And e-reading just doesn't allow that. It's pretty much in infinite supply unless the source goes down.
Kelly Bryson says
I like the milkman analogy. Feels true. Think of all of the saved marriages since the milkmen stopped knocking on the back door. There could be some social implications here.
Mary Anne says
I agree completely. I think the publishing revolution has been a long time coming. Writers can get their work directly to readers. The market, instead of a big NY company, will decide whether a book is marketable.
I think smart writers will still want agents because – after all – writers would rather write than deal with the business end of things!
Anonymous says
I LOOOVVVE technology!!! Love it, love it, love it!!!! I can't wait for someone to improve my movie, gaming, listening experience, but I hate have all of those old devices sitting around because they are obsolete. My old stuff unusable because someone perked it. Going through shelves picking out a book that looks good, smelling the fancy coffees, re-reading same book 5 years later. PRICELESS!!!!
Jade says
You have a point but I still prefer printed books. Perhaps one day it will be eccentric to read printed books, kind of like writing a letter and sending by post. Do people still do that?
Speaking of inventions, I'm working on one called the Awesome I-Write robot. It's going to write my synopsis for me. The upgrade will also do mad query letters. It's going to take the world by storm.
Lena says
PS on the flip side to my comment about teens not embracing e-books (yet), I really wish they would. I'd love to e-pub some YA short fiction and put it up on my website. I just… hesitate.
Also, I love my Sony Reader. It's great for reading manuscripts on the go. And it saves the eyes from computer-screen-burn-out. The iTouch/iPhone reading experience isn't all that bad either, for short reading stints anyway…
Karen McQ. says
Great post, Nathan! Last week I did a NPR commentary detailing how I self-published on Kindle, and I mentioned a few of the points you made. Great minds and all that.
You can embrace change or ignore it, but you can't stop it.
https://tiny.cc/Klh21
Diana says
I disagree. It isn't faster and easier to download a book and read it on your computer, because you have to be able to find the book that you want. When I go shopping for books, I do not go on Amazon or any of the other online bookshops. I get in my car, drive down to the bookstore, happily browse through thousands and thousands of printed books before walking out with a hundred dollars worth of brand new books and driving home. In the same time that it takes me to do that, you can maybe surf through a few hundred books on Amazon and you will not run across books that you didn't know existed because you would have never thought to search for it. You don't discover new authors as readily. You will be limited to what you have bought or searched for previously. And it will take you longer to find and get your ebook than it does for me to go down and buy a printed book.
As a source of information the internet sucks. The original purpose of the internet was to be able to quickly and easily share quality information. It has degenerated to the point, that it is faster and easier for me to go down to the library and check out a book on the topic that I am interested in instead of staying home and surfing the internet for a reliable source of information.
As an efficient means of marketing a quantity of books, the internet is not where it's at.
Amazon and the other online book retailers are good for finding titles that are specialty books or are out of print, but for general book buying it's faster to go down to the brick and mortar store.
Nathan Bransford says
diana-
As a source of information the internet sucks?!!
Kristi says
Bryan – I'm so sorry about your book store. My favorite place in Denver is the Tattered Cover and I'll be beyond sad if all the indie book stores go under.
Vacuum Queen says
So…with the ebook future, do you think the "self publish to ereader" will also go up in popularity? I think it'll be hard to choose what to buy. At a land book store…will there be posters? Fake books so we can read a cover and then know what to buy? I feel like that part would need to "look" the same. ??
Bethany Mason says
I would agree that society today does seem obsessed with efficiency; but I would also say that comfort is high on the list as well. The problem with reading off a screen is the headaches awkwardness it causes – sure, if a piece of literature is designed to be read on a screen, then it may become a more accepted form. But overall I think that unless writers embrace the form in that way, books will ultimately win. (Not to mention the fact that the more efficient the technology, the more likely it is to break or crash – infuriating if you're in the middle of reading something that you then cannot retrieve.)