Week 11 Prompt

Ebooks and audiobooks are a part of our landscape. What does the change in medium mean for appeal factors? If you can't hold a book and feel the physical weight of it in your hands, how does that affect your knowledge of the genre? How about readers being able to change the font, line spacing, and color of text - how does that affect pacing and tone? How about audiobooks? Track length, narrator choice, is there music?  For this week, I want you to think about how ebooks and audiobooks affect appeal factors - also think about appeals that are unique to both mediums. Please feel free to use your own experience and that of your (anonymous of course) patrons. I look forward to reading these!

To me audiobooks and ebooks are never as appealing as a “real” book. I like the smell, the weight, the easy referencing of real books. I like the fact that when I’m reading a book, you can tell that I’m reading a book, not just playing on my phone.

Because I have an auditory processing disorder, audiobooks require more attention than I can normally give. My mother, however, loves audiobooks—she’s dyslexic, but loves listening to stories. My father also now loves audiobooks, he’s an over-the-road trucker and listens to about 3 books a week. For both of them, audiobooks have a greater appeal than regular books because it’s the format they can both utilize easily, but because audiobooks are so expensive, it’s hard keeping them “in books.”

Ebooks are all the rage, and I’ve mostly succumbed to them. 99% of all the books I buy now are ebooks. For me, it’s the instant gratification and the ease of ebooks—I can buy the newest Rick Riordan book the moment it comes out, I don’t have to drive to the bookstore or library. With ebooks, I can carry dozens of books around at once and I don’t have to worry about running out of something to read. To me, reading an ebook seems to go much faster, but that might be just because with the books on my phone there are more opportunities to read. For those who are older, or struggle with their sight, the ability to make fonts different and larger makes ebooks more appealing than regular books.