How about this for a new publishing model? The Buenos Aires publisher Eterna Cadencia has started to publish books made with disappearing ink. Once you crack open the cover, you have two months to finish the book, or else you’ll be staring at a blank page. If books have an expiration date, readers won’t let them sit idly on their shelves. They’ll read books more often, and give more authors a try. That’s the logic of this new twist on publishing..
Books aren’t dead yet. They’re just intentionally fading away.…
via Galley Cat
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That is a terrible idea.
… And once all the ink fades away, you can use the book as a notebook or a diary and possibly bring it to your school or work. An interesting AND environmentally friendly solution, at the first glance.
However, what if I want to re-read the book? If I could just visit a library, I wouldn’t need to buy the book the first time. There is a number of reasons why not to borrow books from libraries. Let’s say I’m just not a huge fan of libraries. I’d have to buy the book again, only this time a “permanent edition” of it, an extremely inefficient concept.
Perhaps the problem could be solved by granting readers a license to legally download an electronic version of the book, once the two-month period expires. But could this be done in a way that does NOT demotivate the reader to finish his old-fashioned paper-made book before the period expires?
I’m not sure this is such a good idea. It just sounds like a huge waste of paper to me. Book paper isn’t the best for writing in since the pages are so thin and paperbacks especially would not make very good notebooks. Plus, how many journals does a person really need? If the end goal is to get people to read more books then I guess they also want everyone to become prolific journalers. To me this is just a scheme to force people to have to buy more books with a new idea and an “environmentally friendly” label.
That’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard.
Overall, I too think it’s a bad idea.
And I admit, I didn’t think about paper quality in relation to the writing experience. Thanks for pointing that out!
gimmicky. what if you want to read it again? and what about the best part of reading a good book.…sharing it.
I know that it may end up being pile ups of blank books, but maybe the idea is just to START making people read. Once they decide that reading isn’t that bad and that they want to keep reading and re-reading the books they love, maybe they’ll start buying permanent books or ebooks or something.
But personally, I am completely in love with this idea. And plus, I’d end up with a couple new sketchbooks! And maybe someone can find a way to make the ink show up again that you can buy if you want to re-read the book… I dunno. just thoughts…