'The book industry is not the music industry'

'This analogy between music and books is something that keeps popping up. Many people are saying that digital file sharing "killed" the music industry and that if the book industry isn't careful, the same thing will happen to publishing.

But the book industry is not the music industry. One very interesting contrarian commentary I came across was an article entitled "iPad iWash" in which a bookseller talks about the difference between music and books. He states that, unless it's a live show, enjoying music has always involved another device or gadget. Books, on the other hand, are already their own device with no need for any sort of player.

He has a good point. Printed books are certainly superior in so many ways to the current entity we know as ebooks. They have dominated for over half a century, unlike the music industry which has gone through significant format changes in a short time-period: from sheet music to vinyl recordings to eight tracks to cassette tapes to CDs to MP3s.

As exciting and attractive as digital books are, the physical book is still the simplest and most efficient way to reach the broadest possible audience. That being said, this die-hard book nerd still anxiously awaits being able to buy an iPad and experience reading a book on it, all the while recognizing that while ebook reading devices come and go, books abide.

Mark Leslie in The Mark