Writer Wednesday: The Great Divide (AKA Print vs. E-books)

So, e-books. Also known as 'those things that have the entire publishing industry in a panic', at least if the pundits are to be believed. I don't really know enough about the business end of things to comment on whether the Kindle is going to bring traditional publishing crashing to its knees (I suspect not), but I do want to bring up the other side of the e-book debate. Namely the eternal question of which is better - e-books or print.First of all, I'd like to dispel the notion that this question can or should be treated as though it had the same importance as issues of politics or religion. Fundamentally, we are talking about an issue of consumer preference. For all of our romanticized ideas of books, they are ultimately a product, and deciding between e-books and print books carries no more weight than deciding between competing types of shoe or car.That doesn't mean that I want to completely dismiss paper books, of course. They may be a product, but they are one that people care about to a perhaps unique degree. Rather, what I'm saying is that we shouldn't let our love of books overcome the entirely practical considerations that sometimes go into buying them. There is nothing wrong with choosing an e-book over a print book because it's cheaper, or because you don't feel like going down to a bookshop, or because the print version is 900 pages long and carrying it around with you would be a huge inconvenience. You are not striking a mortal blow to the integrity of the printed word if you purchase an e-book because it's just easier. Or because you happen to like them.But you can't write a blog post like this without eventually stating your own preference, so here's mine: in general, I prefer print books. I like to have a physical copy of a book to put on my shelves, I like to turn actual pages rather than pressing a button on my Kindle, and I like the whole experience of going to a bookshop, browsing through the selection and hitting upon something from a half-remembered review that I forgot I wanted to buy. That's my preference, and it is no more deep or meaningful than the preference of someone who enjoys e-books because it means he or she can read two books at once while only having to carry around something smaller (as the ads say) than a paperback.From a writer's point of view, the situation is even more cut-and-dry. Do you want to self-publish? E-books are probably the way to go. Do you want your traditionally-published book to reach a decent number of people? Make sure your publisher gets it on the Kindle. It's really as simple as that. Consumers (i.e. your readers) will largely not care about your high-minded defense of our literary heritage. If they go to Amazon and don't see a 'Kindle Edition' link on your book's page, a good portion of them will lost interest.If I was going to attempt some prognostication, I'd say that e-books will probably become the standard within a decade or two. In every other case where a digital alternative to physical media of any kind has gained widespread acceptance, it has resulted (or is resulting in) the death of that variety of physical media. I don't see any reason why books should be any different. I'll mourn the decline of paper books, make no mistake, but it won't be the death knell of human culture as so many people seem to think.