We've had cookbook/FAQ style technical books for years. If that was a superior format then the chaptered linear book format would have died out before this disc

We've had cookbook/FAQ style technical books for years. If that was a superior format then the chaptered linear book format would have died out before this discussion took place. When people talk about the death of a particular genre of books or the publishing industry, I am reminded of books of poetry written by living authors. The poetry book has been dead from a publishing perspective for a number of years. A large portion of single author poetry books are printed as the result of contests, many of which have an entry or 'reading' fee. Great poems are found easily on the internet, and almost no one speaks of poem piracy because the number of words is often quite small. Despite the arrival of poetry book doomsday, it's still easy to stuff a bookcase full of little poetry chapbooks. There are poetry books printed at fine art presses with complex bits of vellum, embossing and debossing. It's even a friendlier industry now that large publishers have all but ignored it. It sucks that it's not so easy to make a job of it anymore. However, lack of a traditional publishing industry is unlikely to kill the technical book. (edit: repetition)