Paul Krugman in the New York Times has a fascinating/appalling treatment of the future of the book. As in, not much of a future.
His message, that the Kindle e-book-reader is good, confirms a report I recently received from a friend from college. What does this mean economically for writers? Nothing good. At least not under my publishing contracts.
I think books should survive in some form. My father’s cousin, a futurist, once said that if the cigarette lighter had been invented first, the match would have revolutionized fire-starting. In other words, both matches and lighters have advantages. For lots of reasons, I hope that’s true of e-books and books.