How Technology is Changing Our Reading Habits

The reading culture has changed over the last few years thanks to the rising trend of e-books and reading apps that have become popular in our market today. Back in the day, reading books was tasking; the only way one could to read a book was to be in a well-lit room, use both hands if the book is heavy, carry a book at a time, and a working table would be necessary if you needed to write notes while reading a book.

The reading culture has changed. We have moved from reading physical books with bookmarks to reading a book through the mobile device. With digital devices, you can store several books in one device, and you can read digital advance copies of books through websites like Edelweiss or NetGalley to critic digital copies of books before they are published.

E-books have become popular because they have navigation features that make it easy for readers to use. For instance, it is easy to search for some facts; you can also store your highlights and notes, making it easy to look for some content when you are writing.

How Technology Has Changed The Publishing Industry

When Amazon produced its e-reader, there was a massive panic in the publishing industry because digital books were going to take over the industry. If you think about it, they had reason to panic. The uptake of e-books was huge; bookstores made losses and print sales dropped.

People could publish their books which threatened the traditional printing industry. After a couple of years after the advent of e-books, a surprising reversal happened. The printing business took center stage, and e-book sales started to slow down.

The reason for the sales reversal was because of the rise of e-books which in some way were higher than printed books. The other reason could have been the fatigue of consistently reading books on a screen. Another possible theory is that some readers have drifted to audio books which enables them to multi-task, making it the faster-growing book format industry.

The Rise of Self-Publishers

There has been an increase in the number of self-publishers in this industry, recording some successful self-published authors who have gone ahead to start publishing companies to help other self-published authors. We are going to see more of this as more self-publishers consolidate their efforts to publish more books without the need for traditional publishing companies.

Even though traditional publishers have been affected, there is a rise in print books which has made more bookstores to spring up. These stores have grown to setup mini-chains across the country to ensure that books are available to the citizens in all areas.

Companies like Amazon who brought the e-books to the world have evolved to setting up bookstores. The bookstores look exactly like the company’s website, having book covers facing out and the curate sections reflect the most popular books purchased by Amazon customers.

Even though these bookshops were experimental, they seem to be working perfectly as they are opening shops across the united states. Additionally, there are more digital e-book companies who are opening up physical bookstores like the Canadian company Indigo Books which is planning to expand to the USA, after getting some go-ahead from different authorities who will enlist them in the dod approved software list.

Conclusion

We don’t have to own a book to get knowledge anymore; there are ways in which one can read articles, books, and other written material. There is also the availability of different screens to interact with different content, from smartphones, e-book readers, and tablets.

Even though technology has changed the reading culture, printed books are still on the rise as demand for hard copies is present and strong. It is safe to say that even if the technology is changing our reading habits, the transformational effect rests primarily on the control of the readers.