Books, Blogs, Authors and More discussion

Some years ago I lost my copy of Anthony Trollope’s “The Last Chronicle of Barset” and I went to a bookstore to get a fresh copy. There were none on the shelves, but they eventually found me a copy. It cost about $ 15. A few months later I bought a Kindle and discovered that I could download the eBook version of this book for free.

There are voluntary, non-profit organisations that have uploaded 19th century and some early 20th century books into the internet that can be downloaded free. They are books in the public domain. You can even download free, audio versions of many of these books.

Though many might like to read off physical books, can they afford this luxury when eBooks are available for free? Hence, the demand for physical books that are in the public domain will diminish and it may become economically unfeasible for publishers to print these books.

Hence, the big question: will the classics soon go out of print?

Terrence wrote: "Some years ago I lost my copy of Anthony Trollope’s “The Last Chronicle of Barset” and I went to a bookstore to get a fresh copy. There were none on the shelves, but they eventually found me a copy..."

Thankfully there are still many people who enjoy classics, though the amount who have the patience to read them may be diminishing. In addition many of these prefer physical books. It is worth noting recent surveys have shown an increasing amount of younger people are returning to physical books in preference to digital. The price of an e-book may be less and there are free downloadable editions however, popularity and consequent sales should enable publishers to keep the price at a sensible level. They would still be able to make a profit but if the price is set too high would not.