Books - the new vinyl record?

This is my first ever blog - yes, really. When it comes to things like this I am a self-confessed and unashamed Luddite - so for someone like me this is ground-breaking stuff. But I thought that I would start with a subject which seems to have much currency in the media, literary and publishing worlds at the moment: the tendency of the digital platform to subsume almost everything before it - even books!

Many have proclaimed that devices like the iPad and the Kindle will spell the death of the book. For example, a recent article in The Guardian tells that for the first time in the US, Amazon sales of ebooks have recently eclipsed sales of paperback and hardback books combined. Interestingly, Amazon claims that in the UK, ebook sales have eclipsed those of good old hardbacks in just nine months, by a ratio of more than 2:1 (no paperback figures were available).

So it poses the question: are 'real' books on the way out? And if so, is this a good thing or a bad thing? On the former, I would most emphatically say 'NO', and on the latter, I will remain somewhat uncomfortably perched on the fence, for reasons I will outline below.

On the question of 'real' books surviving, can anyone tell me that curling up on the couch with an electronic device is akin to doing the same with a good book? I think not. I may also be showing my age here, but I personally do not enjoy hours staring at a computer screen - indeed, I enjoy the self-imposed breaks when my tired eyes start protesting. And more importantly, when it comes to close copyediting of a text or document, mea culpa, I will always annotate a hard copy (Saint Bob Brown, forgive me for my paper-wasting sins).

But this tsunami of digital content and publishing can do some good. Firstly, it's an opportunity for more people to get published. Secondly, if it enables and encourages more people to read (regardless of the context), surely that's a good thing. My main beef (as with everything on this brave, not so new frontier) is with the quality of what's out there. The problem with the online platform is that anyone can get a gig - and unfortunately too many do.

Perhaps the answer lies with that bastion of entertainment, reality television: I'm thinking something along the lines of 'So, you think you can write?', whereby our would-be writers have to face a series of spelling, grammar and punctuation tests. You could then combine this with some crazy challenges - like trying to construct an igloo with Macquarie Dictionaries, or burning the most number of Twilight or Da Vinci Codes in an allotted time period.

Goodness - has this turned into some kind of rant? I think I'm actually enjoying it - blogging as therapy, perhaps? I may be on to something.

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