For better or worse, paper books are here to stay, and I’ll tell you why.

Although I love paper books, I tend to not talk them up too much. They’re hard to hold or are too heavy. You know the phrase “I couldn’t put it down”? Well, not if you’re talking about a hardback. Most of the time, the weight of them will make you put them down or risk injury. I find that I like the process of turning actual pages but the simple action of doing so shouldn’t cost me twenty-five or thirty dollars.

I like going to a bookstore, new or used, and perusing, discovering, opening up title after title and smelling them and touching them. After that I down load the ones I want to purchase, because I simply don’t have the space on my bookshelf and I can’t get another bookshelf. Not enough space. Seriously, of all the things Barnes and Nobles sells nowadays, why are bookshelves not one of them? If I open a book store like I’ve long wanted I’m going to name it Book and a Shelf, and, yes, in the back I’m selling and raffling off shelves. I hate the idea of storing my books at some online storage place at Amazon or in Amazon. I don’t even know how to present that idea, but I hate the idea of not storing them at all even more.

For me, one of the best features for a paper book is the font. It’s one of the first things I look for when deciding on purchasing a novel. If I don’t like the font, I’m not reading it. Period. Same with the font size. If it’s too small forget it. For that matter, if the book dimensions aren’t to my liking I won’t read it, let alone buy it. I’m that picky, which leads to my next point. When I get the e-book I can change the font, the size of the font and every book I get I already know that I’m going to like how it feels. Oh, and one more thing (I’m talking to you, publishers). Don’t print on white paper. It’s not a deal breaker but reading outside is brutal with white pages. Why don’t you know guys know that? Don’t you people read books in the afternoon?

With all that said there is no way paper books won’t be around basically forever. Here is the reason. There are too many floating around in public for their influence on readers to disappear. Let me put it a different way. If all bookstores closed, and online retailers stopped shipping paper books and all the libraries closed, we’d still be reading paper books. There are literally (no pun intended) enough books that have already been printed to last us the rest of our lives. With the hypothetical conditions I’ve mentioned, it might become hard to find a copy of some Harry Potter books but I bet you’d be able to find one, no matter what. Let’s say you’re looking for a novel by, I don’t know, Franz Kafka—chances are you’re going to find it. Eventually. It’s going to take you a while, and it won’t be convenient, but you’ll find it. But, you know what, it’d be easier if you could just download it.

Feel free to tell me what you think. All about the dialogue, people. All about it. And oh yeah. The new novel will be out August 15th. In Blackness: The Reinvention of Man. Shameless plug ya'll. I mean super shameless.