E-Books: A page for the future?

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In the article “E-books changing the publishing industry — but for the better?” author Alvaro Vargas Llosa is trying to address the issues that E-books are creating in the new book market. Llosa addresses the fact that before the newly released IPAD that amazon's Kindle dominate the e-book market. He states that amazon would buy the book rights from the publisher for about $26 dollars then sell it for a standard rate of $9.99. Now with the infusion of the IPAD publishing companies have decided to set the price themselves and give distributors 70 percent revenue profit. This allows for self published authors who publish books on there own are able to make 70 percent of the profit from each sell of their books rather than a flat rate set by Amazon. Llosa also points out that e-books only make up 3.3 percent of all trade book sales last year it is continuing to grow. In fact books have only grown 1.6 percent of the past few years while e-books have grown by 58 percent over the same course of time. He then goes on to point out that e-books are setting the terms and conditions in the market since they are able to set lower prices on a whim while books are stuck to the publisher. Llosa does acknowledge that books will have a place in personal collections and in museums but that the future is the e-books because it economically makes the most sense. He concludes by saying that each advancement in history has been questioned but eventually turned out for the better and he believes e-books are the same.

This article provides a clear personal opinion that is backed by facts. Llosa not only presents his argument that e-books he provides facts to back these claims. He provides a clear topic shows the negatives and positives to the e-books but always reverts back to his opinion that e-books are the wave of the future. He concludes his article by mentioning incidents in the past that have caused an uproar in the printing community. Because the industry hasn't changed much he brings in history to show that things do change and that we have learned to cope with these changes. Llosa is also a reasonable source as he is a senior fellow at the Independent Institute as well as an editor. By providing facts and history this article could easily be used to help one answer whether the future of books is going to be in e-books are remain in the physical paper form.