A Book in the Hand

I knew it. E-books and printed books are similar but not equal. I have a proof copy of my novel, Carico Trails, in hand, and it finally feels real. I can see it lying on the table or hand it to someone. It has substance. The story hasn't changed from the e-book version. Same characters, same setting, same plot. For now at least, I believe printed books have a future along with their new, electronic siblings, if only to satisfy those of us who expect a book to have a physical existence.

Knowledge and information have accumulated at an unbelievable rate in recent years. Data storage in electronic format is very new and so intangible. I have books and photographs that are over 100 years old. Will an e-book survive that long? Will an e-book reader with the right software be available then? And how about all those digital photos? We don't know. We can't know that digital storage will survive and still be available. Do you have something, a movie maybe, that you can't use anymore because you don't have the right almost-obsolete player? Remember wire recorders? 8-track tapes? Floppy disks? VHS tapes? It's already getting harder to find a machine to read a DVD or a CD-ROM? The way we store information, other than in print, changes in a blink.

I don't trust that today's e-books will survive a century of changes in technology. Of course, the chance that a print copy of Carico Trails will still exist is pretty slim too. But I know it could.