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Authors are embracing new opportunities. Carla Peterson describes herself as a creature of the book. Her most recent work, Black Gotham, A Family History of African Americans in Nineteenth-Century New York City, took 11 years to research and write. As that process ended, Carla began to realize the limitations imposed by print and the publishing industry. She teamed up with the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities and in 2012 launched the Black Gotham Digital Archive. By publishing online, she found she could include scores of images. The digital format, with no end date, also allows her to revise, correct and add as she continues her research. She hopes to turn readers into writers by encouraging online submissions. “I want to invite other people to submit their own stories, so the Black Gotham story can just grow and grow and grow.” Increasingly book vendors provide options that allow us to purchase e-books instead of print when both are available. But Carla can’t imagine a day when e-books are the standard. “Not in my lifetime,” she says. “There’s no substitute for holding a book. Books have a feel, they’ve got a smell.”
Print still dominates We purchase 85% of new books in print format. 15% e-books 2
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