One way or another as fewer people read books now, there may be less hard copy books than ever - The End of the Book?

I still prefer hardcover books, but I am from another time and place and I ride a horse nearly every day. I still won't tweet nor facebook, but the electronic book is partly in my life. My books are really out of hand. So things change for expediency. When I was growing up, many of my friend's parents refused to have a television in their homes. The last hold out bought a TV to watch the first men walk on the moon. ♘

The End of the Book? — The American Magazine

By John Steele Gordon Saturday, May 21, 2011The book business will go through a transformation in the next decade or so more profound than any it has seen since Johannes Gutenberg introduced printing from moveable type in the 1450s.

Amazon, by far the largest bookseller in the country,reported on May 19 that it is now selling more books in its electronic Kindle format than in the old paper-and-ink format. That is remarkable, considering that the Kindle has only been around for four years. E-books now account for 14 percent of all book sales in this country and are increasing far faster than overall book sales. E-book sales are up 146 percent over last year, while hardback sales increased 6 percent and paperbacks decreased 8 percent.

Does this spell the doom of the physical book? Certainly not immediately, and perhaps not at all. What it does mean is that the book business will go through a transformation in the next decade or so more profound than any it has seen since Gutenberg introduced printing from moveable type in the 1450s.

Physical books will surely become much rarer in the marketplace. Mass market paperbacks, which have been declining for years anyway, will probably disappear, as will hardbacks for mysteries, thrillers, "romance fiction," etc. Such books, which only rarely end up in permanent collections either private or public, will probably only be available as e-books within a few years. Hardback and trade paperbacks for "serious" nonfiction and fiction will surely last longer. Perhaps it will become the mark of an author to reckon with that he or she is still published in hard copy.

Read on:http://www.american.com/archive/2011/may/the-end-of-the-book