The End of the Hard Copy PhilosophyNow Magazine

[Arising_uk]

And yet more books are being printed than ever before.

One good solar flare or a few large EMP bursts and that's a fair chunk of the digital world gone blooey. Better hope someone kept a paper record somewhere.

[Dalek Prime]

And yet more books are being printed than ever before.

One good solar flare or a few large EMP bursts and that's a fair chunk of the digital world gone blooey. Better hope someone kept a paper record somewhere.

True. But I can't tell you how great it is to carry a whole library in my hand. And the clarity in bright day, or dark night, is awesome.

[Arising_uk]

True. But I can't tell you how great it is to carry a whole library in my hand. And the clarity in bright day, or dark night, is awesome.

No argument there. Got one myself.

[Bill Wiltrack]

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One cannot embrace the future without first letting go of the past.
~~~ Bill Wiltrack ~~~





Let Go!............................ LET GO YOU !!!









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[Bill Wiltrack]

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One good solar flare or a few large EMP bursts and that's a fair chunk of the digital world gone blooey. Better hope someone kept a paper record somewhere.

- Please tell me you are kidding...




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[Arising_uk]

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Let Go!............................ LET GO YOU !!!.

Lmao! That's good coming from you Bill. You should take your own advice and lose the theistic baggage you still obviously carry around with you.

[Arising_uk]

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- Please tell me you are kidding...[/size]

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You think war is over?

You think the Sun is inactive?

[Bill Wiltrack]

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Just please...FOR YOUR OWN SAKE. Think about that statement of yours.

It's making your avatar look even worse than the tarnish you've heaped upon it up until this point.

I deserve a stronger adversary.




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[Arising_uk]

Think about time and history Bill.

Think about the fact that digital mediums have mean-time failure rates and compare them to paper.

Think about the fact that we're printing more books than ever.

[Bill Wiltrack]

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Losing information en mass due to the fact that the internet will be temporarily destroyed on a world-wide basis - is flat-out asinine.


PLEASE don't tell me your inner light has grown so dim that you believe your earlier statement in relation to this. I'll give you an out - just don't try to support your earlier statement in relation to this and I promise I will TRY to forget you stated anything in relation to this.


As for your sophomoric statement, Were printing more books than ever - that is foolish & deceptive.


First - Book industry sales are declining, despite the explosion of books published.

Book sales in the U.S. peaked in 2007 and then fell by nearly five percent between 2007 and 2009, according to the Association of American Publishers. Similarly, bookstore sales peaked in 2007 and have fallen since, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The major bookstore chains have been especially hard hit, with a 12 percent sales decline between 2007 and 2009.


Second - Average book sales are shockingly small, and falling fast.


Third - The number of books being published in the U.S. has exploded.

Bowker reports that over one million (1,052,803) books were published in the U.S. in 2009, which is more than triple the number of books published four years earlier (2005) in the U.S.. More than two thirds of these books are self-published books, reprints of public domain works, and other print-on-demand books, which is where most of the growth in recent years has taken place. In addition, hundreds of thousands of English-language books are published each year in other countries.


Further -It is getting harder and harder every year to sell books.

Most books today are selling only to the authors’ and publishers’ communities.






So, your statement, Were printing more books than ever. Is superficially true upon one level. The statement is misleading for ALL the reasons above & more.

Progressive humanity is entering into the digital age. THERE WILL ALWAYS BE the printed word, on paper.

Printed books on paper have reached their equinox and ARE WANING fast. The digital publishing industry IS EXPLODING. PERIOD.







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[Dalek Prime]

Bill: Losing information en mass due to the fact that the internet will be temporarily destroyed on a world-wide basis - is flat-out asinine

Not really. The Carrington Event of 1859 destroyed much telegraphy equipment.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... t-science/

[Bill Wiltrack]

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With the influx of renewable energy & the massive amounts of communication satellites that now orbit the globe I doubt if a solar flare would have much effect upon humanity at all. I read the related articles. They seem to exaggerate & really don't appear grounded in reality. Believe whatever you want.




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[Dalek Prime]

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With the influx of renewable energy & the massive amounts of communication satellites that now orbit the globe I doubt if a solar flare would have much effect upon humanity at all. I read the related articles. They seem to exaggerate & really don't appear grounded in reality. Believe whatever you want.




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Thank you for the permission.

[Arising_uk]

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Losing information en mass due to the fact that the internet will be temporarily destroyed on a world-wide basis - is flat-out asinine.

If it happens Bill it won't be temporarily.

PLEASE don't tell me your inner light has grown so dim that you believe your earlier statement in relation to this. I'll give you an out - just don't try to support your earlier statement in relation to this and I promise I will TRY to forget you stated anything in relation to this.

I give two-shits for your memory.

As for your sophomoric statement, Were printing more books than ever - that is foolish & deceptive.

First - Book industry sales are declining, despite the explosion of books published.

Book sales in the U.S. peaked in 2007 and then fell by nearly five percent between 2007 and 2009, according to the Association of American Publishers. Similarly, bookstore sales peaked in 2007 and have fallen since, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The major bookstore chains have been especially hard hit, with a 12 percent sales decline between 2007 and 2009.


Second - Average book sales are shockingly small, and falling fast.


Third - The number of books being published in the U.S. has exploded.

Bowker reports that over one million (1,052,803) books were published in the U.S. in 2009, which is more than triple the number of books published four years earlier (2005) in the U.S.. More than two thirds of these books are self-published books, reprints of public domain works, and other print-on-demand books, which is where most of the growth in recent years has taken place. In addition, hundreds of thousands of English-language books are published each year in other countries.


Further -It is getting harder and harder every year to sell books.

Most books today are selling only to the authors’ and publishers’ communities.

So, your statement, Were printing more books than ever. Is superficially true upon one level. The statement is misleading for ALL the reasons above & more.

Progressive humanity is entering into the digital age. THERE WILL ALWAYS BE the printed word, on paper.

Printed books on paper have reached their equinox and ARE WANING fast. The digital publishing industry IS EXPLODING. PERIOD.

Your problem is the usual Yank one, you think America is the world and you also confuse the novel with books. You think the billions in the world will all have e-readers in the near future? You think schools, universities, etc will be able to supply electronics to all their students? You think we even have enough of the rare metals to meet the predicted battery demand?

[RickLewis]

Here Rick...take my hand. Together let's walk into the future, into the digital age.

There IS no more hard copy - OF ANYTHING!

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Cheers Bill, but we're already walking into that digital future, with at least five digital editions of the magazine now on sale:

https://philosophynow.org/digital

(Have you tried any of them yet?)

However, as of now we still sell more copies of the paper edition than of the digital one, and our paper magazine sales are rising steadily. Under those circumstance, I think we'd be crazy to stop printing it!

Did you hear about Newsweek? They announced a couple of years back that they were going digital-only. I bought their last ever print edition from a newsstand at the airport, as a souvenir.

Except that it wasn't. Six months later they changed their minds and re-launched their paper edition. Can't have done them any good in terms of sales to be out of the retail distribution system for so long, either.