Local booksellers say that the electronic book revolution hasn't yet deeply affected them, though some in Abilene say that the sea change from paper to pixels is irrevocably under way.
Amazon.com seems to think that's the case. The online retailer recently announced that it is selling more electronic books than traditional ones. Currently, for every 100 paper books Amazon sells, it sells 105 copies in its popular Kindle format.
That's interesting, but not vexing, to Kathryn LeMay, owner of The Used Book Store at 1017 Butternut St., who said she doesn't think electronic texts have hurt her business, at least so far.
"A lot of what I sell are the really old books that aren't in print anymore, and you can't even get them in e-book form," she said. "So if you want to read them, you're going to have to buy them used, and I really haven't seen that much of a decline in my customers wanting to come in and trade and buy."
The business sees "well over 100" people coming in to buy, sell and trade weekly, she said.
And LeMay said she doesn't think that the proliferation of electronic texts — an obvious problem for a store that relies on secondhand merchandise — will be a factor for some time.
"There's a whole generation of people, I'd say from the mid-40s on up, who don't like e-readers," she said.
LeMay said she has plenty of customers in their mid-60s or so who got electronic book readers for Christmas or birthdays but didn't like them.
"They've tried it, decided they didn't like it, and they're still coming in and getting books," she said. "I'm sure in 15-20 years, e-books will become really popular and probably do away with books, but it's not going to happen anytime really soon."
Carol Dromgoole, co-owner of Texas Star Trading Co., said she was "sure the e-book revolution has impacted our book business somewhat."
"If we were just a bookstore, I think we would be in trouble," she said. "But our particular business is so diversified with other gifts and gourmet (items) and things, it's not the only thing we sell."
For now, the shop plans to continue its popular book signings, and to stock print copies of various Texas-centric tomes, as usual, Dromgoole said.
"A lot of our customers are buying books as a gift for people, and we don't think that part of it is going to change," she said. "I still think people are going to buy a book to wrap up and give to a friend. And you can't get your Kindle autographed."
Andrew Elliot, acting store manager at Hastings, politely declined to discuss actual sales figures for books at the venerable Abilene retailer.
But "printed books still sell," he said flatly. "They are not dead."
The business, which also sells music, video games, movies, etc., recently changed its Sunday through Thursday closing time from 11 p.m. to 10 p.m. The entertainment retailer is still open until 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday.
Calls to Books-a-Million's corporate offices were not returned Friday.
Transforming technology
Jay Fellers, general manager at Best Buy, said that both tablet-formatted devices that can do multiple tasks and single-use e-readers already are quite popular, and he expects that popularity to absolutely explode in the upcoming holiday season.
"That's where technology is going — into the tablet form — and e-readers were kind of the birthplace," he said, noting that the business plans to carry 43 types of tablet devices around Christmas, including Apple's popular iPads and tablets based on Google's recently-released Honeycomb version of its Android operating system.
Single-use e-readers, including Amazon's Kindle and Barnes & Noble's popular Nook options, "really took off around Mother's Day," Fellers said.
Current adopters primarily are concerned about basic technical questions, he said, such as the ease with which books can be bought and various differences in delivery technology present among models, he said.
Bill Rankin, director of educational innovation at Abilene Christian University, said he thinks the big switch from traditional text to electronic literature is already happening.
"Part of it has to do with convenience: having a book with me wherever I go without having to carry all of its weight," he said. "That's huge, and something really nice."
So far, that's the primary advantage a digital copy of a book brings to the table, said Rankin, who said he believes that future, "truly digital" texts will make use of multimedia, social media and augmentation features, with some even being location-aware.
Rankin said the greener nature of electronic texts, along with the easy access of online stores, are other factors driving the change.
"Living in a place like Abilene, which has a limited number of bookstores, means that now I can get all of the books I could get in a bigger city right from my device," he said, adding that the ease of distributing electronic texts also benefits those who might not have found an audience, or even a publisher, beforehand.
But even Rankin doesn't think the traditional text is headed for extinction.
"I don't think the print book ever goes away for a variety of reasons, much like when movies came around, they didn't destroy theater," he said. "There's a different aesthetic to being at a movie than there is at a play, and I think there's a different aesthetic to reading a print book. There's always a place for that, and there will be people who want that."
But there are times when that aesthetic is not as important, and "that experience will transform," he said.
In the meantime, folks like LeMay are content to fall back on tradition.
"You don't have to worry about the batteries dying on you in the middle of a book," she said.
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