I’ve been thinking about this for years.

If you buy a book, you should be able to access it in every format.
Print.
Digital.
Audio.

One purchase.
One work.
Multiple ways in.

The physical book remains the anchor.
But the experience should move.

You read at your desk.
You listen while walking.
You switch back without losing your place.

Technology makes this possible.
Publishing still treats formats as separate territories, divided by contracts, rights, and revenue models.

Last week, Spotify announced a partnership with Bookshop.org.

If you discover an audiobook, you can buy the physical edition directly.
More importantly, with a feature called Page Match, you scan the page you’re on and continue listening from that exact moment.

It isn’t seamless yet.
Scanning feels transitional.
Voice will likely replace it.

But the direction is unmistakable.

The book is becoming fluid.

I’m currently listening to Kitchen Confidential, read by Anthony Bourdain himself.
It feels less like consumption and more like conversation.
His voice adds texture the page cannot.
The page holds density and a personal rhythm that the voice cannot.

Why should I have to choose?

This isn’t about replacing print.
It’s about continuity.

The infrastructure is ready.
Readers already move between formats.

Question:
If books can move effortlessly between formats, would you want that?
Or is the integrity of a single format still part of what makes a book a book?

I’d genuinely like to hear how you think about this.