Submitted: The Two Sides Team May 17, 2013

Kathy Miscioscio and Julie Meier share a passion for books but go their own ways in how they read. Miscioscio, 60, a marketing consultant in Pearl River, N.Y., says she’s addicted to her Sony e-reader. The only time she buys or borrows a print book is when it’s not available digitally. Meier, 43, a marketing director in Beaver Falls, Pa., says she’s “Kindle-less and Nook-less and happily so.” She prefers her books on paper, not screens. After working on a computer all day, she says, “I want a book in my hand. Turning its pages is my way of knowing it’s time to relax and slow down.”

15 May 2013 – USA Today

Kathy Miscioscio and Julie Meier share a passion for books but go their own ways in how they read.

Miscioscio,
60, a marketing consultant in Pearl River, N.Y., says she’s addicted
to her Sony e-reader. The only time she buys or borrows a print book is
when it’s not available digitally.

Meier, 43, a marketing
director in Beaver Falls, Pa., says she’s “Kindle-less and Nook-less and
happily so.” She prefers her books on paper, not screens. After
working on a computer all day, she says, “I want a book in my hand.
Turning its pages is my way of knowing it’s time to relax and slow
down.”

Both have lots of company. Statistics released Wednesday
show that e-book sales grew 43% last year, but that’s a slowdown
compared with the triple-digit increases in recent years. E-books remain
the fastest-growing part of the book market but account for only about
20% of all sales reported by publishers.

THE REPORT: E-books up 43% but still outsold by hardcovers

Miscioscio
says most of her friends and relatives have also switched to e-books
for the convenience and lower prices. Last winter, she notes, she
vacationed in Costa Rica and says “at least 75% of those reading were
reading electronically. I was shocked to see people taking their
e-readers onto the loungers in the pool.”

Meier, who’s sticking with physical books, doesn’t consider herself any kind of digital “resister.”

“I’m
comfortable with all forms of technology,” she says. “However, when it
comes to books, I suppose I’m a traditionalist. My personal preference
will always be the real thing. There is no substitute.”

To her,
part of the joy of reading is the book itself: “pulling it from the
shelf, inspecting the cover, letting it fall open to a random page.”

Miscioscio
and Meier are at opposite ends of a book business in transition. Even
as e-books sales have grown more than 4,000% since 2008, it’s unlikely
that physical books will disappear the way records did in the music
industry.

Michael Pietsch, CEO of the Hachette Book Group, which
includes Little, Brown and Grand Central, says he loves “the immediacy
and portability of e-books.” He says his Kindle app “is full of books
downloaded over lunch after a friend finished a passionate description
of a book they loved.”

But he also cites a survey from last year
that found that half of all readers had no interest in buying e-books
and that the vast majority of people who buy e-books continue to buy
print books as well.

Among them are author Marilyn Johnson, who’s written books about libraries (This Book Is Overdue) and the art of obituary writing (The Dead Beat).
She says that “if you took my (physical) books away, I’d go crazy, but
now that I’ve gotten hooked to readers (first a Kindle and now an iPad),
I can’t imagine doing without that (digital) library.”

She finds
her e-reader is essential when she’s traveling. She even buys or borrows
an e-book copy of a book she already owns “just to lighten my load and
continue reading as I move through the landscape.”

Johnson straddles any divide between print and digital.

Her
ideal reading experience crosses all formats: “Hear the author read on
an audiobook, read it myself on the page or e-reader, and own it in a
beautiful dust jacket, alphabetized on a shelf, with my notes in the
margins and an old review stuck in the pages, ready to be pulled down
whenever I want.”

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