E-books vs Real Books: What’s the verdict?

Real Books vs E-Books
credit: ginnerobot

Like many other bloggers I’m a big fan of reading books. I’m also fairly involved in the online world, so I do a lot of online reading.

While I subscribe to the theory that there’s nothing quite like the feel / smell / taste of a “real” book, I’ve also had times where I’ve invested in a course etc, and the material has come in e-book format.

Sometimes these E-books have been really great, quality reads. Othertimes… well, let’s just say the concept of ‘book’ is being tainted. Some of these should honestly be renamed E-just-wasted-my-money-and-time. Or perhaps something like E-hee-hee-another-sucker! is more appropriate.

Recently there has been an absolute proliferation of titles such as:

  • How to be Rich!
  • Make Thousands Online
  • Affiliate Secrets
  • Shhh – What they never told you about Adsense!

etc, etc ad nauseum.

My question is: Are e-books at risk of being continually devalued by the copious poor quality e-books on offer out there?

Does it depend on the subject matter? How do we weed out the great e-books among the bad?

Personally in regards to the e-books I recommend, I’ve always been an advocate of printing them out. Doesn’t this defeat the purpose a little though?! It can be really hard to just pull open a PDF and scrolley scroll on down to some reference point you wanted to re-read vs flicking to a page in a book.

I’m not so sure I’m ever going to be a big fan of reading fiction online either. Maybe kindle readers can shed some light on whether or not this concept (digital format) works.

Maybe we should just rely on informative E-books with great credible recommendations, and keep real books as the delicious tangible suckers they are. Come to think of it, I kind of like the crinkle of a newspaper, too…..!

What are your thoughts?