depends on what kind of book you are talking about; Q&A sites have largely replaced the 'reference' book. Do you remember last time you looked something up in

depends on what kind of book you are talking about; Q&A sites have largely replaced the 'reference' book. Do you remember last time you looked something up in a paper dictionary? I mean, yeah, the 'general knowledge' or 'subject overview' book is still quite competitive, but for reference material? dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other look up tables used to be a fairly large and profitable class of books; even most 'subject overview' type technical books used to include appendixes with lookup table data in the back; I remember most of my old programming books would consist of 2/3rds to 1/2 "subject overview" stuff that would still be printed today, and the rest of the book was a listing of available library functions and their options. Anymore, the first bit, the subject overview, is still best done in book format, but the second part? the bit where I can look up library functions to see their options? that part is much better done online.