Books in the digital age.

Its been a bit of a toughy the last few years for books they’ll have us believe.  If i’m being honest I was completely unaware of this and do you blame me? It’s seems anyone and everyone is spending their precious freetime at their local bookclub, sitting on their arses, discussing old classics and new best-sellers, and no it’s not just your mum.

Yet despite this growing phenomenon, it appears there is no direct correlation between this and book sales, which is why publishers are now pinning all their hopes on the latest tech unveiling. The Apple iPad.

With the iPad going on sale in the UK this week, book publishers’ are eagerly anicipating that Apple’s tablet and its iBookstore will prove as revolutionary for their industry as the iPod and iTunes were for music. So this might yet be the year of the e-book. Yrt industry insiders say teh sector as a whole has a way to go before it can claim to be at ease with digital.

“The iPad feels like it’ll be a transforming influence on digital publishing,” says Penguin’s director of digital Anna Rafferty. “But while significant, its just one piece of an emerging digital marketplace, in which no one should put all their efforts into just one platform.”

This is pretty much the general thought system of those in the publishing world. Evidence of the degree to which digital has already rewritten the traditional rules of book publishing isn’t hard to find. Consumption of e-books is rising fast – UK publishers’ sales of digital products rose 20% to £150m in 2009, according to Publishers Association figures.

This is kind of understandable when you consider that research has found that readers who view sample book chapters online are more likely to purchase, claims LibreDigital. This is in conjunction with Amazon saying it sells six Kindle e-books for every ten printed books when both are available and iTunes revealing that the number of e-books on the iTunes app store passed the number of games for the first time in Match 2010.

It’s an ever evolving world and one which traditional sectors of business need to stay ahead of the pack, which is exactly why they need to seriously consider the real-time benefits of enlisting digital PR skills to strengthen their brand and products.

I, however, will never turn to e-books for a reading experience when you can have a smelly dog-eared book all of your own, where you can tuck away for years and then rediscover upon every moving day. Treat.