The Year of Living Electronically

There’s an interesting article in The Chronicle of Higher Education about the use of e-textbooks – or the lack thereof. The article discusses the wariness of students, but I also can’t help but wonder about the potential drawbacks for authors, especially concerning the possibilities of copyright infringement, illegal downloading, and much more modest royalties. Would faculty publish as many books if they could only do so electronically?

Comments

[pbfriedman]

If some people don't want to publish electronically, others will. And the convenience of e-books will sooner or later dawn even on the students. I have an e-reader, and I have all my casebooks on it (as well as hundreds of other books), and while I still love books, it seems plain to me that the era of e-textbooks is dawning whether authors like it or not.