Remember back in the mid-1980’s, when office and home computers were really taking off, when e-mail was in its infancy but about to explode? Look how far we’ve come, with computers becoming incredibly small “devices” and television screens growing to fill entire living room walls!

The promise back then was that technology would make our lives easier, that we would have more leisure time and that businesses would become “paperless.”

Well, technology certainly has made our lives easier, with more dependable automobiles, more effective medical diagnoses and treatments, etc.

As to having more leisure time, as an escapee from the corporate world I personally don’t see it. Most people work longer hours than ever before because their computing “devices” are with them 24 hours a day. There is growing evidence that many of these people are addicted to the devices and are uncomfortable turning them off.

And, as far as the paperless office is concerned, all I can say is that I guess we’re still waiting for it. The local OfficeMax and Staples stores sell tons of paper every year, not to mention file folders and filing cabinets.

So, as my title asks, what does this have to do with books? Plenty. Technology has revolutionized the publishing industry, not so much from the traditional publishers’ point of view, although most have made electronic versions of their books available, but from the self-publishing craze that has overwhelmed the industry.

Last summer I reported that of the 1.8 million books published in the preceding 12 months, over 1.6 million of them were self-published and the majority of these were only available as e-books. These numbers don’t mean that e-books are outselling traditionally published books by 8 to 1, merely that more titles are being published. It has become very cheap and very quick to publish an e-book – a writer doesn’t have to go through the process of being evaluated and edited by a publisher.

So, if you’re a book reader, how do you decide which “paperless” books to download to your “device?” And how do you find out if they’re worth buying in the first place, even for 99 cents?