Print is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age

USA Today has an AP story about a factory in Nashville that still produces vinyl records. Of course — in a digital world — vinyl records are a rarity (records haven’t been a staple in the music industry for at least a decade, and their replacement, CDs, have even recently been replaced by digital files). The tone of the article is kind of we-can’t-believe-people-still-make-or-want-these-things, and yet there is indeed a market for vinyl records (albeit a tremendously small and specialized one). And in twenty or thirty years, when more and more people are getting their reading material via digital delivery and consumption, a similar newspaper article will be written about the fate of the increasingly rare printing plants where books are still produced. (The opening sentence, instead of yesterday’s “That dusty stack of records in your parents’ basement?” will be something like “That stack of books in your parents’ attic?”) True, there will always be a niche, collector’s market for printed books, and publishers will use printed books as a marketing tool the same way that record labels now produce vinyl records today, but books will indeed grow more and more rare as more and more people embrace digital reading.

From the AP Story: “The means of music delivery continues to evolve. Digital downloading has eroded CD sales. Some artists are skipping CDs entirely and releasing new music online for the casual listener and on vinyl for DJs and hardcore fans. But vinyl still accounts for a small percentage of music sales. Last year 858,000 LPs were sold, compared with 553.4 million CDs, according to Nielsen SoundScan.”

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