Is Print Dead?

Moderator: Welcome to Obsolete Anonymous! I've gathered you all here to welcome our latest member, the Print Industry.

Print Industry: Hello, everyone. But there's been a mistake. I don't belong here.

(chuckles all around)

Print Industry: I'm serious. I'm not obsolete. I'm relevant. Print books have been around for hundreds of years. They're never going to be replaced.

VHS Tapes: Yeah, we all thought like that once.

LP Records: It's called denial. It's tough to deal with at first.

Print Industry: Look, everyone, I assume you all think that ebooks are going to put me out of business. But that won't happen.

Phone Company: I remember when you couldn't walk twenty yards in a city without seeing a pay phone. Then those gosh darn cell phones came along. Do you know some people don't even have land lines anymore?

(Phone Company begins to cry. Print Phonebooks joins in. So does Dial Up Modems. Encyclopedia Set, wearing an I Hate Wikipedia T-Shirt, pops a few Prozac. A group hug ensues.)

Video Rental Store: What Phone Company is trying to say is that when a technology comes along that's faster, easier, and cheaper, the old technology--and all the companies that supported it--tends to fade away.

Print Industry: Why are you here, Video Rental Store? There are a lot of you around.

CDs: There were record stores everywhere once.

Cassette Tapes: Hell yeah! They sold cassettes, too! Someone give me a high five!

(no one gives Cassette Tapes a high five)

Video Rental Store: Things looked good for a while. I had a decent run. Then I got hit by all sides. Netflix. On Demand. Tivo. YouTube. But the nail in the coffin came in the past two years. Hulu. Roku--which allows subscribers to stream video instantly. iTunes and Amazon offering movie downloads. Red Box, which rents DVDs for 99 cents and takes up no more space than a candy machine...

Print Industry: But ebooks are just a tiny percentage of the market. People have been reading print since Gutenberg. They won't adapt to change that easily.

SLR Cameras: You're correct. It takes a few years for people to fully embrace new technology. Some never do. Instant Cameras never replaced me.

Instant Cameras: Shut up, SLR. We both got our butts kicked by digital. How much film did you sell last year?

TV Antennas: I'm still big in some third world countries!

Typewriter: The bottom line is; when technology improves, it becomes widely adopted. Me and Carbon Paper used to have a groovy thing going. I'd make the words, he would make the duplicates. Then Copy Machine got into the act, but he's not doing well now either.

Copy Machine: Effing computers.

Dot Matrix Printer: Effing laser and inkjet. Doesn't anyone else miss tearing off the perforated hole punches on the side of paper? Don't they miss the feel and smell of that?

Fold-Out Paper Maps: I agree! Isn't it fun to open up a big map while you're driving, in hopes of figuring out where you are? Don't you miss the old days before cars came equipped with GPS and no one ever used that upstart, MapQuest?

CDs: Effing internet. That's the problem. Instant access to information and entertainment for the whole world. You guys want to talk about pirating and illegal downloads?

(everyone shouts out "no!")

Moderator: We all read on JA Konrath's blog that the way to fight piracy is with cost and convenience. Print Industry, are you lowering your prices and making it easier for customers to download your books?

Print Industry: Actually, we just raised prices on our ebooks.

(all-around sighs and head shaking)

Moderator: Well, far be it for you to learn from any of our mistakes. Are you making it easier at least?

Print Industry: Well, we've begun windowing titles, releasing them months after the hardcover comes out.

(collective head slapping)

Music Industry: Have you at least tried selling from your own site? I wish I'd done that. But then Apple came along...

Print Industry: Uh... no. We haven't tried that. In fact, some ebooks--we'll use JA Konrath as an example since he was mentioned--aren't even available on all platforms and in all territories.

Moderator: What do you mean? Konrath's ebooks are available all over the place.

Print Industry: Those are the ones he uploads himself. The ones of his that we sell are missing from several key markets, and have been for years. But it's okay. We're paying him much smaller royalties and jacking the prices up high so we can still make a profit. Besides, ebooks are a niche market. Ereading devices are dedicated and expensive.

Arcades: I used to be a thriving industry. Kids dropped millions of quarters in my thousands of locations. But then Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft made home arcade machines, and now people play their videogames on dedicated devices. It's a multi-billion dollar business now, and I can only compete if I sell pizza and give out plastic trinkets to kids with the most foosball tickets. If people want the media, they buy the expensive device. Period.

Print Industry: None of you are listening to me. Print will always be around.

Newspaper Industry: Yeah! What he said!

Print Industry: Let's not compare ourselves, okay Newspaper Industry? No offense.

Newspaper Industry: None taken. Hey, maybe we can help each other. I'm selling advertising space for dirt cheap these days, and...

Print Industry: No thanks. No one reads you anymore. People get their news elsewhere.

Moderator: So why won't people get their novels elsewhere as well?

(Print Industry stands up, pointing a finger around the room.)

Print Industry: Look, this isn't about me. All of you guys have become irrelevant. Technology marched on, and you didn't march with it. But that WILL NOT happen to me. There will always be bookstores, and dead tree books. We'll continue to sell hardcovers at luxury prices, and pay artists 6% to 15% royalties on whatever list price WE deem appropriate. And the masses will buy our books BECAUSE WE SAID SO! WE SHALL NEVER BECOME OBSOLETE!!!

Buggy Whip Industry: Amen, brother! That's what I keep trying to tell these people!

CDs: (whispering to LPs) I give him six years, tops.

 

 

 

Comments

[Harclubs]

05:27 AM on 06/28/2010

In 2000, I remember having a debate with my politics lecturer about whether the internet would effect the way politics is done in the west. He was adamant that it would be largely irrelevant­. Fast forward ten years, and things have changed. In fact, any politician mounting a campaign without using online resources is dooming themselves to failure.

Our family business is a gaming cafe. Kids theses days live with screens. Everything they do is screen related. Everything­. Reading from a screen makes more sense to them than reading from a paper page. We, the olde farts may think it outlandish and wyrd, but they do not. In ten years time, this debate will be long gone, and people will forget it even occurred. Electronic reading devices are coming and there isn't a thing we olde farts can do about it.

[Waffle King]

03:22 PM on 05/24/2010

Print is absolutely dead! Print media only lasts a few thousand years at most in various paper forms while e-media (disks, SSD, WORM) last 5-20 at most. With the constant loss of informatio­n in electronic formats, there will be so much new informatio­n, our kids won't know what is true and what isn't, so they'll always be reading! Every time someone asks for financial data sequestere­d away 7 years ago on magnetic tape, I love telling them the data integrity of that data now, renders the data unuseable. I think taking the same point of view on the human global knowledge structure is insightful­, and one born of the same type of genius that gave us "Drill Baby Drill", QVC, and the Shamwow.

I'm not being sarcastic when I say, kudos to you HuffPo and Jakonrath. After all, you crossed the bridge from print to online digital media(s). Why not burn the mo-effen bridge behind you right? Viva Retardo-Co­n 2010 my friends... viva.

[garyd63]

08:38 AM on 06/04/2010

Waffle King is on the mark on every point. Reading(si­c) on screen cheerleade­rs seem to have trouble seeing beyond the "revolutio­nary" next new thing they can show off in Starbucks.

And the evidence piles up indicating that print reading skills and benefits (not the least being concentrat­ion, comprehens­ion, contemplat­ion) are seriously undermined by the scanning, skipping, sampling that is screen reading (sic).

HufffPo needs to face up to the consequenc­es described in Nicholas Carr's _The Shallows_. Yeesh, HuffPo and squirmy screen jockeys need to at least acknowledg­e the problems that come from mainlining screen Twitters and flickers and stockpiled downloads of ebooks that never quite make it to the brain for true processing and considerat­ion.

[UNCLEJOE]

01:54 PM on 05/24/2010

In Pre WW II days, I used to sell the Saturday Evening Post. The wonderful factor of those magazines was the exposure a writer would get by having his or her short stories being published for the public view, stories that might otherwise never be discovered­.

Today there is another method for unknown authors to have their stories read by the public without any waste of time or expense, i.e, the internet.

[fishnetdiver]

05:00 AM on 05/24/2010

will always be a fan of holding a book in my hands...pa­percuts be damned!
but very, very funny article!

[tvstands]

01:28 AM on 05/24/2010

Printing Industry Growth is an outcome of different actions and reactions which took place in past few decades all over the world. In most of the cases, growth of any industry is driven by the increase in demand. The Printing Industry is no exception. The Growth of Printing Industry has taken place due to rising demands for printed products. Now if we want to find the reason behind this increase in demand we will find several factors. Among these, the main factors are Overall Economic Growth, Population Growth, Increasing Advertisin­g Expenditur­es and the Advent of Internet.

http://www­.tvstandsu­k.co.uk

[kdallas999]

07:56 PM on 05/23/2010

Thanks for a great article! So clever!

[StarDagger]

05:05 PM on 05/23/2010

This article is pure win. I expect it will take 20 years, MAX for books not to be printed anymore. The publishers MIGHT print some as novelty or promotion items, but the game is up, embrace the e-reader!!­!

[StoutHouse]

01:50 PM on 05/23/2010

The buggy whip argument -- the least original and least interestin­g thing you can say about the subject Konrath, unsurprisi­ngly, saves for last.

Print books and e-books will peacefully coexist. Fewer print runs of disposable literature will allow publishers to focus on nurturing talent, resurrecti­ng the midlist, and designing beautiful books for the vast majority of readers who prefer them. Jack Daniels mysteries are fun, but who wants to preserve and display them for posterity?

As for those who think e-books are "greener" than 100% recyclable paper books, what about e-reader toxicity? The forced West African labor used to extract the tantalum and coltan that go into their manufactur­e? The disposal crisis as new gadgets replace older technology every few years? The fact that e-readers, like paper books, are shipped in trucks, which emit pollution?

Incidental­ly, the behemoth cloud computing facilities that store your Jack Daniels mysteries don't run on wind or solar. (To say nothing of sending your tax dollars out of state to corporate thugs like Amazon, or ceding control of the world's informatio­n to Amazon, Apple, and Google.)

Get it?

So how green is your e-reader really?

"Blood Tantalum Filling the Supply Void?"
http://agm­etalminer.­com/2009/0­4/14/blood­-tantalum-­filling-th­e-supply-v­oid/

"Following The Trail Of Toxic E-Waste"
http://www­.cbsnews.c­om/stories­/2008/11/0­6/60minute­s/main4579­229.shtml

"How Green Is My iPad?"
http://www­.nytimes.c­om/interac­tive/2010/­04/04/opin­ion/04opch­art.html

[brettrobbins]

02:48 AM on 05/23/2010

Then there's the issue of "benign" editing for supposedly pragmatic reasons a la the slamazon.c­om expose of a while ago.

[Americulchie]

02:38 AM on 05/23/2010

It is as I am in a time warp.Earli­er I was in a discussion about I Phones and I Pads.as I stated there I am a man I love gadgets;bu­t I am also a errrr semu-Luddi­te.There is something comforting about a book;its feel its smell,its heft.Books are magic a ticket to a universe.N­ot that there is something wrong with a rectangula­r slab of overpriced and I would say over prized.

[Jeanine London]

02:02 AM on 05/23/2010

This is a cute scenario. No where close to where we are headed if my experience selling a novel is any indication­. I still get perhaps 80 - 90% more requests for paperbacks than eBooks. The paradigm has shifted, but in ways beneficial to independen­t authors...­good for us all, wouldn't you agree, oh blog meister?

[FreedomOnionSoup]

01:38 AM on 05/23/2010

I do about 80% of my reading in the bath tub so ereaders present a problem for me......

[brettrobbins]

01:44 AM on 05/23/2010

Don't worry, they'll come out with water-proo­f ones soon enough.

[MosesSiregarIII]

01:57 AM on 05/23/2010

A large ziploc bag will do the trick.

[SystemLink]

11:59 PM on 05/22/2010

No, print isn't dead

Originalit­y is dead with print
Creativity is dead with print

[Etruscate]

11:35 PM on 05/22/2010

At least a printed book can get past Steve Jobs without being told it's "inappropr­iate" for consumers.

[Mithrandir Greyholm]

04:54 AM on 05/23/2010

Say It!

[BlackJAC]

03:30 PM on 05/23/2010

A printed book also doesn't require a $200 startup fee to be able to read it.

[AnnC0725]

10:47 PM on 05/22/2010

Authors are going to have the same problem as the music industry..­.pirates

[BlackJAC]

03:32 PM on 05/23/2010

Music piracy had existed long before the Internet. The difference between then and now is back then they didn't have the attitude of self-right­eousness and self-entit­lement about it that they have today.