Bye-Bye Books
In several years books will be radically different. I don't know what form they will take, but one thing for sure is that they won't be ink on paper.
The same thing is happening to the book publishing business that has happened to newspapers -- executives, managers, and editors are stuck with their heads in a wad of paper, with ink running through their veins, and rigidly believing that publishing is inextricably linked to printing. They are stuck in a Gutenberg rut.
People in the publishing business communicate via email, buy stuff online, and read the news on websites, so they know that the Internet exists. But they haven't yet made the connection between what they do (acquire manuscripts, edit them, print them on paper, and distribute them) and what the Internet does (distributes information instantaneously).
In the early 1980s I did an analysis of newspaper management textbooks. All of them dealt with newspapers as though they were a manufacturing business. There were lots of pictures of huge printing presses and rolls of paper and there were chapters on printing (manufacturing papers), circulation, and dealing with labor unions. There were few pictures of newsrooms and no chapters on how to deal with recalcitrant reporters. Managing was about managing capital assets, not human assets, certainly not human beings that covered and wrote about news.
Last week I received an advanced copy of my book (printed on paper), Media Selling, Fourth Edition, and I was thrilled to finally hold it and turn its pages. I used the book last fall in a graduate course I reach at The New School. I put drafts of a couple of revised chapters of the book online for them to read, and I received no complaints from the students. No one said, "I don't like reading books online; I prefer carrying around a 600-page book in my back pack and having the tactile feeling of paper and turning pages." Of course not, they do virtually all of their reading online today.
As required reading for the course I listed no books printed on paper but, in addition to the online chapters, I included four blogs, the Business section of The New York Times which could be read online, and three podcasts. I also assigned several videos to watch. After one class toward the end of the year, I asked several students if they would like to be able to listen to Media Selling on their iPods (every student had one, of course), and their responses were unanimously and enthusiastically, "Of course."
I sent an email to my editor at Wiley-Blackwell, the publisher of Media Selling, Fourth Edition asking if they'd like to have an audio version of the book, which I would read and record. Here, in part, is the response I got: "I've queried my marketing team on the audio question and fear I have less encouraging news. We currently aren't set up to sell books through these kinds of channels in the academic division and have very little (or no) request for this kind of format with textbooks historically."
In 1976, when Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak took their first Apple computer kit to retail stores on El Camino Real in Palo Alto, I'm sure several, except the one that finally took their new machine, said, "We've had no requests for a small, personal computer, so we're not interested." Remember, that in 1977 Ken Olsen CEO of Digital Equipment Corporation said "That there no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home."
Gutenberg's press was a disruptive technology, as defined by Clayton Christensen in The Innovator's Dilemma, as was the Internet, the personal computer, the iPhone, the Kindle, and Twitter. Disruptive technologies are no longer appearing every century, or every decade, or every year; they are appearing every month. Soon they will be whizzing at us every week.
So, to think that books, which are based on a technology that is five-and-a-half centuries old, will be around much longer is the ultimate Luddite delusion. Within a few years when students matriculate for their first semester in college, they will be given a devise, perhaps something similar to a Kindle or an iPhone that connects to the Internet, and a password. Included in their tuition and fees will be a charges for up-to-date synonyms for "books" and "library" and "personal computer."
Current libraries will be turned into museums that will display old printed manuscripts and books that are representative of the past -- collections in glass cases that you can look at but cannot touch. Historical relics in a reliquary. All books, including textbooks, will be available online -- no need for libraries -- and students won't buy them, they will subscribe to them.
As an author of a textbook, I will write Media Selling, have it copy edited by smart software, and publish it online to Amazon.com with whom I negotiated a deal directly. Amazon.com will have an educational division that will have an up-to-date database that includes all the people who teach a course that is related to my book and all media company managers who might be prospects for the book, and through an automated process Amazon.com will promote the book via email and AdWords on Google.
Students and professionals will subscribe to Media Selling on a yearly basis, not buy it. For that subscription fee, which will be about what the printed book costs today, I will be obligated to update the book quarterly. When book subscribers Media Selling, it will automatically be updated, just like my Firefox browser is.
Bye-bye 600-page heavy books, bye-bye libraries, bye-bye book publishers. Hello convenience, hello being current, and hello revenue that goes directly to authors instead of to Gutenberg's descendants and people who kill trees.
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People's habits change through time.
Personally, there is something intimate about reading a book. It really isn't so much reading as a silent conversation with the writer and his subject matter for me.
I get all my news online and I am a website owner, too. But for my mindset. books kick ass. And even though they take up a lot of space in my house, having lots of book cases filled with the works I've read gives me a kind of aesthetic satisfaction and they are there to pluck out when I want to re-read them or when I use them as reference.
But if the public now decides it wants to read works online or on computers, well, so be it. But it's harder on the eyes than perusing a book for me.
I'm glad Mr Warner didn't make a firm prediction on the expiration date of books as we know them. I'm 51 now, and have a feeling I'll be dead before books will be displayed as things that can't be touched in museums. Isn't that a sad future to ponder? I'm glad I won't live to see that day. Why do prognosticators have to be so damned firm and final in their imaginary predictions? I believe in peaceful coexistence between books on paper and the advances of technology, none of which though provide the experience of holding a book, turning its pages, or the pleasure of reading in that format. At least the 4000 books in my apartment will be with me until I'm gone (think the old lady going down in flames with her books in Fahrenheit 451). Perhaps there's a reason the Kindle name comes from the same word as kindling..
If they find a way to apply this to comics, then as I make them, I'm in.
There are similar sentimental concerns in that field about solid product vs. electronic, but please: if it weren't for people reading my work on the web, I'd never have been noticed. Paper creates limitations that publishers take advantage of, deciding(as though they know) what will sell and what won't because of the cost of manufacturing.
Without that, niches become markets and grow.
I think comics will become animated videos and have a good future.
What kind of books are available on Kindle? I love to read romance novels (you are welcome to make fun of me...I won't blame you but I love them and I always have and everyone has their own form of escape...r
I'm fine with online reading as long as I can have exactly what I want exactly when I want it :)
I think you'll be able to get what you want in romance novels on Kindle in the near future because it is cheaper to publish in digital versions. I also believe that romance novels will come on the form of videos which will take the place of the recently canceled "Guiding Light" on CBS or will come in the form of a romance video game in which you can participate.
I broke down and bought a Kindle2 and have read several books, including one over 400+ pages...it seems to have the heft and feel of a book to me...the immediacy is also impressive
Unlike one of your commenters above, my local Barnes and Noble is not very crowded anymore...
Like one of your commenters above, I am certain that some technologies have not been good for us...IMO, things like facebook, twitter, text messaging, etc have created a faux relationship society where 10 sec visits are the norm...I feel like less real friendships are being formed...t
Finally, I love baseball history...
One of the advantages of digital books is that niche book categories such as history, romance, mystery, and biography will be more viable than the expensive printing process. You might be able to subscribe to a history digital book club and get what you want on your iPhone or other digital reader.
Alas,... I remain a Luddite to the core in at least this one area.
I will always remain one of those dunderheads that prefers to hold, feel, and read an actual book. I may (someday) grudgingly read something on a Kindle,... but it will always remain grudging to me.
Technology does not alway (or even often) bring a drastic improvement to our lives,...
I love books, too, especially children's books. I read to children at the Metropolitan Museum in New York and love it...and they love books. The books I had in mind were textbooks that are ou of date as soon as they are printed and, thus,, need to be updated.
You could probably talk me into reading newspapers (such as they are), magazines and such on electronic meida.
A already read a lot of technical writing & peer-reviewed manuscripts from electronic sources anyway. Mostly I print them and read them as hard copies - and recycle them once I am done with them.
It makes a lot of sense - at least with texts, journals, and magaiznes. I used to read the New Yorker regularly (my wife's subscription), but keeping all the hard copies around gets to be pretty space-filling.
I share your sentiment. The thought of a life without books feels like contemplating the death of a dear friend...
The exciting part of contemporary information sharing, whether it be digital or analog, is the ability of people of my generation, ( I am 30), to adapt. When I was born most people listened to records. In my lifetime I have personally gone through three seperate musical conversions, Tape, CD, MP3. However, I have no intention of doing the same thing with my books and know very few people who enjoy the written word who will. Books are not a one sense experience like music, there is the feel of the page, the smell of the paper, the cool hardcover or the comforting paperback. If this post were only talking about textbooks I would agree that there will probably be a phasing out bulky texts but most people post college don't NEED books. I mean, is the publishing industry propped up by textbooks alone? So, we may see a decline in the publishing tomes of information but literature, and creative non-fiction, books people love, are here to stay.
Yes, I was referring mostly to textbooks. However, I do think other books will morph to Kindles and iPhones and other electronic reading devices. Books are too expensive to continue to print on paper -- except for children's picture books. I hope they never go away.
I believe you are extending this shift of news from print to digital to publications at large -- reference, fiction, literature, etc. It seems that there is a difference between a preference for 1) easy, free access to electronic news (available with any political bias your heart may desire) and 2) the consolidated (a la Rupert Murdoc), antiquated, and genuinely outdated newspaper presses.
What of the state of print publications at large? If I am any indicator of current trends, ink and paper books are going nowhere. I consider myself a sprightly 21-year-old, hardly entrenched in my preferences, beliefs, desires. I own an iPod, I download my music, I am a member of the digital generation; but I am not a product of it. I have no need or desire for a Kindle, or for the ability to hold every book I have ever read in my back pocket, on a fallible piece of technology. I'm not alone -- nearly everyone in a 300 person class I took last year protested when the professor tried to post our readings online, instead of on tangible, highlighter-able PAPER. Where are those readings today? Still sitting on a shelf in my bedroom, not relegated to some directory on my PC.
Is it expensive? It sure is, but there are more important things than cost-benefit ratios. My library will be the most important thing I leave in my will, not my terabyte of data on our next-generation, glorified floppy disks.
then why can't i find a parking place at barnes and noble.....
why do i spend many dollars on the pop-up books my grandchildren have come to love
and at age 12 my grandson admits to be too old for, but tells me he is going to save them
for his kids, just like his mom has given him the books i gave to her when she was little.
why did harry potter steal the minds of millions..
what else is a porch swing for on a lovely day.......
what would i do with the silver book mark my grandmother gave me........
no - books aren't going anywhere..
to worry about.
I don't mean to scare you, but the fact that you are on the Internet and getting news from the Huffington Post means that you embrace the new technology to some degree. Many people love their newspapers, too -- the touch and feel of them -- but are unwilling to pay for the real cost of printing and distributing them. I like books too, but I'm getting used to reading them online.
The collectibility of books will skyrocket, it will be CDs vs. LPs all over again, with the same claims---better packaging, more soul---as analog vs. digital. Print is, after all, analog.
Books will survive because all of the media forms you mention are temporary. The "permanance," of the media itself is questionable and as the media changes the "old media," becomes obsolete and the means to access the information contained disappears. Try to find a hi-fidelity cassette tape deck these days. Remember floppy discs? Video cassette recorders/players will soon be off the shelves and we don't have any idea how long a DVD or CD will remain stable. My personal library contains many, many printed editions that are 75-100 years old and they read as well today as they did when new. If they all were on some electronic media that managed to be compatible with all the other publisher's preferred systems, I would have to replace them every 5-10 years, if they lasted that long because the technology would have made them obsolete. I have nothing against electronic media in addition to the printed page; just not instead of the printed page.
P.S. I also prefer to not read from a screen. I can't be the only one.
"P.S. I also prefer to not read from a screen. I can't be the only one."
You aren't plzchuteme
Good point. The literature and historical documents that are available in electronic format now were made possible because the hard copies have survived somewhere. Electronic media has expanded our access and option, let's have a back up plan.
You're not the only one, count me in.
Books will still be ink on paper, because power supplies aren't constant, computer networks can fail, and computers can catch viruses. And don't even get me started on replacement costs if you lose your Kindle like I lost an $8 paperback on an airplane years ago.
And all of that is before we get into issues of cultural inertia, explaining why it's 2009 yet there are no videophones like science fiction promised us over twenty years ago.
you mean like this? http://www
Thank you, Mr. Warner! You are exactly the type of teacher I search for when registering for a college course.
Thanks. I still know college teachers who lecture for 50 minutes to students who have a three-minute attention span.
50 minutes? i went back to grad school in 2003. ALL of my grad classes were mind-numbingly (and a** numbingly) 2 1/2 to 3 hours long! i couldn't believe it! it was like sitting through endless undergrad survey courses. i dropped the program (it dealt with the arts) after one year. just couldn't bear the thought of another year of boredom that put me $20K in debt with the feds and blew through my savings account. i learned more with 50 minute undergrad classes in the 70s that i ever did in grad school.
that aside, one of my very favorite activities is to download audio books via the library (netlibrary; overdrive). i also get all my films from the library. haven't been a blockbuster since about 2001.
oh, one more thing: right before i left for grad school i mentioned to a news editor friend that i was afraid that the internet would replace newspapers. he practically yawned in my face, and said "oh, now, now - i don't think we have anything to worry about. we're not going anywhere for a long, long time." please note that was six years ago.
he still has his job, but many others were retired. and they shrunk the size of paper to tabloid.
"hello revenue that goes directly to authors instead of to Gutenberg's descendants and people who kill trees."
Um... nope. Publishers do more than just suck money and hire printers and book designers. Good editors and assistant editors (and even good agents) actually can help writers make books better and certainly weed out a lot of chaff.
Seriously - who wants a ton of ebooks written by millions of folks with no clear way to choose between them? Fararr Strauss and Giroux have good fiction editors and publish great stuff. UChicago puts out good history of science. Chronicle Books put out interesting pop culture books. Ten Speed Press does great cook books. I want all of them to say around, even in electronic form. I want them paid so it is easier for me to separate the wheat from the chaff for my reading. I have no interest in wading though thousands of online volumes of self-published drek.
in short, quality matters. Even in the electronic world.
Good editors can help a book and good publishers put out some quality products. However, they put out a lot of junk. J.K. Rawlings' Potter manuscripts were turned down by something like 10 publshers before someone took a chance on her. And I'll bet you don't buy a book just because Fararr Strauss and Giroux published it, just like you don't necessarily watch a TV program because NBC carries it (that's probably a bad example because you seem very bright and probably don't watch much TV -- you're bright enought o read the Huffington Post, too).
Here, here, Thucydides. If books become anything like twitter (did you notice that twitter has nothing to do with DIALOGUE? nobody bothers to actually read anyone else's tweets, everyone is just jabbering away about the silliest, most mundane aspects of their daily lives, with no actual audience. It's a narcissist's wet dream.) I'll wash my hands of the whole mess. I for one (a professional editor who sees soooooo much actual garbage, things so bad you won't believe) appreciate the filter. I don't want to have to go through piles and piles of vanity to find one real book.
BD
This post plays into two widely held falacies.
First is the notion that everything worth knowing is now, or will soon be, available electronically. There have been millions of books published all around the world over the last several hundred years, written in every language and containing the wisdom of the ages, that will never be digitalized, if only because there's no money in it. Every day there are thousands of scholars, researchers, and writers sitting in research libraries all over the world, poring over obscure tomes and letters and journals that will never be available in any other form. This will be as true 50 years from now as it is today.
Second, the post furthers the caricature of today's under-30 reader as someone who disdains books and periodicals on paper and never reads that way. I work with many 20-something people, and the informal book-exchange program they've set up in the office (take a book, leave a book) is quite lively. I was happy to see that the battered old paperbacks I contributed were snapped up with enthusiasm by co-workers young enough to be my children. ("Cool, Edith Wharton!" "Cool, Anthony Burgess!") Today's young readers aren't really hung up on new the media/old media dichotomy like us old fogies are.
And some people's learning styles are such that they get more from a book by listening to it than reading it. Books printed on paper are good for some people and books will not go away for many years. But remember, many people believed it was unthinkable that newspapers would ever disappear.
I believe that people like choices and that young people today like choices that include electronic distribution as well as other formats. I find that more and more, I'm assigning videos, especially videos from the TED Conferences, to my graduate students. Perhaps in several years, there will be enough high-quality, intellectually stimulating video available that I won't have to assign outdated books.
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