Friday, May 24, 2013
Long story short
by Jill Thomas
When I told a colleague I was planning a story about e-books and the upcoming release of Apple's iPad, the multimedia device called the hottest tablet since Moses came off the mountain, he laughed. First, because he was recalling the jokes he'd heard about the iPad's unfortunate name. (By now, you may have heard them, too, but just in case: "Will women send their husbands to the Apple store to buy iPads?" "Did Apple merge with Kotex?" "Will the next version of the iPad come with wings?")
But once that was out of our systems, he said he was laughing because years before, when movies first came out on VHS, he'd predicted no one would watch them more than once, and that they'd go the way of 8-track tapes and quadraphonics.
There are plenty of opinions about how the iPad and similar devices could change the future of publishing. Some say e-books will become so convenient we'll read more than ever. Others insist pirated e-books will put an end to many an author's career.
See what experts in Colorado say, in the story here. And don't miss Bill Forman's companion piece here, a revealing interview with highly lauded local author Kirk Farber, about Farber's new book Postcards From a Dead Girl, his thoughts on e-readers, and his encounters with survivalist postal workers.
Related Stories
-
Apple's new iPad is poised to change the world of publishing — possibly
I can't tell you definitively whether or not the device will, in fact, change the future of publishing, or save newspapers and magazines, or, on the flip side, decimate bookstores and libraries. No one knows. Yet.
- Mar 25, 2010
-
Author Kirk Farber on rock tours, e-books and Postcards From a Dead Girl
In this interview, Farber talks about his literary breakthrough, how the novel's premise evolved while touring with his former band, and the future of the publishing industry in an age of electronic uncertainty.
- Mar 25, 2010
-
'You're a weird one'
An excerpt from Postcards From a Dead Girl
- Mar 25, 2010
