Books Beyond Print Blog by Unheard of Books

Books Are More Interesting Than Ever...

At a time when people have less and less time to read, when the tide of literacy seems to be stalling, perhaps even beginning to ebb, when the internet, still in its infancy really, seems to be metamorphosing once again, this time shedding its textual skin, perhaps completely, and evolving ever more toward the graphical, the audible, the vidible...

Yet, books are getting better than ever. The written word is more exciting, more available, more democratic, more widespread, more expressive, in more niches, delivering more riches, and expanding into more minds than ever before.

While small bookstores are sputtering, and the megabarns that sell books have become entertainment and caffeine clubs, and libraries are losing funding, and big publishers have cut imprints and staff and creative departments and marketing budgets, and half of the used bookstores that used to pepper my area are gone.

New authors are thriving. They’re publishing their own work, or publishing on Lulu or Ipublish or Iuniverse or the 168 other vanity and POD and PQN services.

And then there’s Oprah…

In this web of publishing contradiction, this mix of positive and negative, this crazy quilt of wonder and information and fascination that the internet and information explosion has made of the fields of books and authors and publishing, I, W. Town Andrews Jr. am going to write about the new lives of books.

Books have websites and blogs and podcasts and festivals and panels and roundtables and conferences and talks and readings and review sites and review discussion sites and wikis and television shows and movies and more…..

We are entering a time when one can love books, live books, eat, breathe and sleep books…………without ever opening or reading a book!!!

The UnheardofBooks.com Books Beyond Print Blog is about these new ways of enjoying and interacting with the book world. Beyond print, beyond reading.

Books aren’t just books anymore.