Can E-book Lead to the Disappearance of Hardbacks or Newspapers?

What's black and white and read all over? Not newspapers, at least not anymore. In fact, if you're like most young people, you probably don't read the newspaper at all. In one recent survey, just 19 percent of 18-to-34-year-olds said they read a newspaper every day. In contrast, 37 percent watch local TV news and 44 percent visit Internet news sites daily. As people turn more and more to new technologies, they turn the pages of newspapers less and less. Just a generation or two ago, the newspaper was the main way in which many people got their news. Now, nearly every home has at least one TV set. There's high-speed, wireless Internet access in many cafes. Cell phones handle text messages and can take pictures and download e-mails. You no longer have to wait for a bundle of newsprint to arrive on your doorstep every morning. Thanks to new technology, if you want to know what's going on in the world, you can get breaking news instantly in more ways than one. Arnaud Nourry, chief executive of French publishing group Hachette warned that Hardback books could be killed off if Amazon's e-books and Google's digital library force publishers to slash prices. Mr Nourry said unilateral pricing by Google, Amazon and other e-book retailers such as Barnes & Noble could destroy publishers' profits. Moreover, Google has planned to put millions of out-of-copyright books online for public use. “On the one hand, you have millions of books for free where there is no longer an author to pay and, on the other hand, there are very recent books, bestsellers at $9.99, which means that all the rest will have to be sold at between zero and $9.99,” Mr Nourry said. There was a real and “muscular” debate in the industry in the US, he added. Retailers were paying publishers more than $9.99 for each e-book, so were selling them at a loss: “That cannot last . . . Amazon is not in the business of losing money. So, one day, they are going to come to the publishers and say: by the way, we are cutting the price we pay. If that happens, after paying the authors, there will be nothing left for the publishers .” However, some people don't think hardbacks and newspapers would disappear. In their opinions, some newspapers can take the advantage of new technologies despite the challenges. Their reporters can carry camera cell phones, so that news can be posted immediately as it happens. They should keep track of the newest of the new technologies and find creative ways to use them. Clearly, however, newspapers need to try harder to take advantage of new technologies to tell their stories in ways that attract and involve readers, young or old.

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