Digital publishing: The deathnell for books?

Author Bijan Omrani once told me that you should buy books as if you were an immortal, and, looking around the living room (not to mention the bedroom, the bathroom, the kitchen and every other room in the flat with available wall space), it certainly looks as though we've taken this advice to heart. There is a distinct pleasure to the tangibility of books, and their presence is reassuring.

Even in my book-loving world, however, the hallowed status of books is not-so-gently being challenged. The digital revolution steals onwards with stealth and speed, culminating in the last fortnight with a selection of events and comments that have made me think hard about where publishing is actually going.

• I went home to visit my parents for the weekend and, before lunch, sat out on the patio reading. My mother, a former leading literacy teacher, book club member and avid reader, was glued to her Kindle, my brother was devouring Frankenstein (Frankenstein) on his Ipad, and I was speeding through The Great Gatsby (The Great Gatsby) on a second Kindle. There was not a physical book in sight, but at least two out of the three of us were sinking our teeth into classic novels we'd have been unlikely to buy in a book shop. 
• Max, Bijan and I had a lengthy discussion about the financial advantages of digital self-publishing for authors. The returns, we decided, were significantly better than when working for a traditional print publisher and, providing the difficulties of marketing one's own products could be overcome, print books may one day be used solely for fine art works and vanity publishing. Bijan will shortly be publishing a Kindle edition of his acclaimed book Afghanistan: A Companion and Guide (Afghanistan: A Companion and Guide (Second Edition) (Odyssey Illustrated Guides)) to put this theory to the test.
• Train journeys and flights are notoriously boring and if, like me, you tend to read quite quickly, your bag quickly fills with books, leaving little room for clothes and other essentials. On my last trip I took the brave step of leaving all books behind and traveling only with my trusty Kindle. The Great Gatsby now complete, I devoured The Book Thief (The Book Thief - enthralling book), Life of Pi (Life of Pi - very overrated)and a fair hunk of Dorian Gray (The Picture of Dorian Gray - a classic but hardly fast-moving) in a single 24-hour period. And, for a change, there was still place for a jumper and toothbrush.
• At a meeting of the editorial board for the journal Asian Affairs, we talked at length about the changing forms of subscription to the journal and how to better reach our target market. It appears that the vast majority of journal subscribers now subscribe to a digital service rather than a paper copy, and that readers are keen to pay for and download a single article (having read the initial abstract) rather than a complete issue.
• As an experiment (and given that much of my writing sits on my hard-disk undistributed), I registered an Amazon e-publishing account and trawled through the pages of instructions about how to format and upload a Kindle-compatible e-book. Although one or two things still have me stumped (specifically how to put each entry of my contents page or bibliography on a new line without the software automatically deciding I want a new paragraph and consequently indenting the text), the whole process is relatively straightforward: certainly more so than the rigmarole of preparing a print text (see my previous blog on the Bradt guide to Kazakhstan!). A few hours later, with text now more or less aligned and the numerous pictures integrated, my dissertation on the development of portraiture at the Mughal court (and specifically its use as a tool to promote imperial ideology) was uploaded, approved, and for sale. It really was as easy as that and here's the link to prove it (Mughal Painting and the Development of Imperial Portraiture 1526-1707).  

It is, of course, now time for me to sum up and give an enlightened conclusion. That's not going to happen, because I think the direction that publishing is taking is actually quite clear and there is little I can say to add. We retain a sentimental attachment to our books, in part because we've grown up with them, but there are few people who can genuinely say that digital books are not a more practical option. When one day I have children, I am certain that they will grow attached not to the physical pages of a paperback but to the multitude of stories that can be shared with them at the press of a single button. My gift to them may not be books, but it will be a library nonetheless.