Print is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age

Last week, Art Winslow had an essay on the Huffington Post site’s Eat the Press section; entitled “The New Book Burning,” the essay revolved around the recent reduction of book review sections in a handful of major American newspapers. Writes Winslow: “In the new book burning we don’t burn books, we burn discussion of them instead. I am referring to the ongoing collapse of book review sections at American newspapers, which has accelerated in recent months, an intellectual brownout in progress that is beginning to look like a rolling blackout instead.” First of all, I think Winslow is being more than slightly hysterical when he tries to portray the disappearance of book review sections as being “the new book burning.” That’s not only a ridiculous suggestion, but a dangerous one. Burning books is about the totalitarian eradication of what the ideas in books represent, whereas book review sections being slimmed down or phased out is about simple economics and the fact that, in our Internet age, things are rapidly changing and book reviews are no longer needed. But Winslow prefers to take a darker view, rhetorically asking, “How did we arrive at what seems to be a cultural sinkhole?” Instead of answering that, I’d like to ask Winslow a question: “Where have you been for the past ten years?”

But what I find most interesting about Winslow’s essay is that he’s a “former literary editor and executive editor of The Nation magazine and a regular contributor to Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Bookforum and other publications.” So it seems that Winslow, and many critics and writers like him, are really just clamoring to keep their jobs. In the end, they don’t want things to change because they don’t want to give up the power they currently have. In the past, Winslow and the other book reviewers out there acted as the arbiters of literary taste: when they would write a good review of a book, their review had the power to propel that book into the national spotlight (and vice versa; a bad review could ruin a book, and sometimes an entire career). So while the importance of movie critics has lessened over the years (gore-fests like Hostel and Saw, which are routinely ravaged by reviewers, go on to make millions at the box office despite what any critic says), in the book world, reviewers have — until fairly recently — retained their clout. (As New Order put it in a song, “We’re not like all those stupid people/who can’t decide what book to read/unless a paper sows the seed”). But with the Internet, blogs, the rise of “citizen journalism” and user-generated content, book reviewers are seeing their little corner of the world erode and fall into the sea, and they don’t like it.

And even though Winslow and others plaster their arguments with the righteousness of fighting for culture, what they really can’t stand is that things are changing and they’re being left behind. Yes, book reviewing is an art, but that art is going away. I hate to say it, but it happens. For example, the skills that it took to produce a rotogravure or daguerreotype was also a art, but things changed, the culture shifted; new machines were invented and new ideas were minted, and those skills went away. So while Winslow and others can lament the loss of book review sections in newspapers around the country, social networking sites like Library Thing, Shelfari and Gather are proving that literary discussion, sharing and discovery is still taking place. And when Winslow himself writes that the loss of book review sections will “[choke] off such discussion of books,” he couldn’t be more wrong. There is now, because of the Web, probably more discussion of books than ever before. But what really infuriates Winslow, and many of the other critics, is that all of this discussion is happening without them. So it’s not that books are being burned; instead, what’s happening is the self-importance of book reviewers is going up in smoke.

Eat the Press: The New Book Burning

The fine folks at The Future of the Book have just launched a new interactive online version of McKenzie Wark’s book Gamer Theory, which is published in a physical format by Harvard University Press. While I thought the first online iterations of this book were splendid, this 2.0 release continues to add amazing features. For instance, one of the coolest things about the new site is the ability to graphically visualize the text; not since Anthony Burgess suggested putting Finnegans Wake on a big wheel that constantly spun around have I seen such a wonderful graphical representation of words and ideas. Plus, it’s just exquisite to look at; Peter Saville would be proud. Check out the site, and the book, if you haven’t already…

GAMER THEORY / McKenzie Wark / Institute for the Future of the Book

Over the weekend The New York Times had an article by Matt Richtel about last week’s Blackberry outage. Entitled “It Don’t Mean a Thing if You Ain’t Got That Ping,” the article talked about how (and why) Blackberry users felt so frustrated, stranded, and lonely without Blackberry service (after all, there’s a reason that the devices are nicknamed “Crackberries”). But the article also ties the Blackberry outage, and its feelings of withdrawal-like symptoms, to a more fundamental need of humans to stay connected in an increasingly electronic age. Writes Richtel: “Experts who study computer use say the stated yearning to stay abreast of things may mask more visceral and powerful needs, as many self-aware users themselves will attest. Seductive, nearly inescapable needs. Some theorize that constant use becomes ritualistic physical behavior, even addiction, the absorption of nervous energy, like chomping gum.”

In terms of the “print is dead” debate, electronic content and networked books will undoubtedly help feed the “visceral and powerful” needs which digitally-connected people are feeling more and more. In fact, the quest for new stories that once drove readers to devour mountains of books now manifests itself in the young technophiles who feel the ardent tug to constantly be in contact via their electronic gadgets. But it doesn’t stop there; this drive has spilled over into content itself. Users want to also interact with what they’re reading, watching or listening to; they want to shuffle their playlists, remix their music, and alter how or when they watch movies and TV shows.

The article talks also about a condition known as “acquired attention deficit disorder,” which is used “to describe the condition of people who are accustomed to a constant stream of digital stimulation and feel bored in the absence of it.” Well, I would say that pretty much anyone under the age of thirty qualifies for being accustomed to a “constant stream of digital stimulation.” In our digital society, there’s no escaping it. Ten years from now, this will be true for nearly everyone. And so to expect future generations to be satisfied with printed books is like expecting the Blackberry users of today to start communicating by writing letters, stuffing envelopes and licking stamps.

NY Times: It Don’t Mean a Thing if You Ain’t Got That Ping

There was a story this week on Bloomberg.com entitled “Newspapers Lose Readers, Advertisers, Now Analysts,” which looks at an interesting tangent to the “print is dead” debate. The story states that, with the newspaper industry in trouble and lots of people who work for newspapers having already lost their jobs (because either their papers have cut back on staffing or else have gone out of business), the woe is starting to spread. Now other sectors of newspaper-related employment are also being put out of work, specifically, newspaper analysts: “Merrill Lynch & Co. analyst Lauren Rich Fine left this month after 19 years covering the newspaper industry,” writes Bloomberg.com. “Last month, Thomas Weisel Partners analyst Christa Sober Quarles dropped coverage of newspaper stocks. John Morton has stopped writing his industry newsletter after 30 years, saying readers were sick of the bad news.” In fact, these guys feel so disenfranchised that one analyst is quoted in the article as saying, “being the newspaper analyst [for his firm] is like being the Maytag repairman.” This proves that there will be much collateral damage in terms of a electronic future, and that the eventual impact from the changes brought on by an increasingly digital world will be deep and far-reaching. So the more prepared we can be as an industry in terms of workflow and the way we do business, the more prepared we’ll be to handle the great change that is headed our way.

Bloomberg.com: Newspapers Lose Readers, Advertisers, Now Analysts

John Lanchester had a very interesting essay on the Guardian website recently entitled “It’s a Steal,” which talked about the problem of establishing a worth for literary content on the Web. Setting the stage, Lanchester writes: “The revolutionary impact of the internet on the music and film business is plain to see. Now it’s the turn of the printed word. The question is simple, and far-reaching: what’s going to happen to books and to the people who write them?” The essay is long, and makes many good points, encompassing everything from the origin of copyright law to the recent efforts by Google to digitize books. Basically, though, Lanchester hopes that this new era of digital delivery will lead to a re-opening of the question of copyright in general, with the Web and the battles now being fought finally righting the wrongs which occurred in previous years. However, in the end, Lanchester relies on the usual pro-book arguments, and here’s where he — for me — strikes the wrong chord: “Personally, I think that books are going to be OK, for one main reason: books are not only, or not primarily, the information they contain. A book is also an object, and a piece of technology; in fact, a book is an extraordinarily effective piece of technology, portable, durable, expensive to pirate but easy to use, not prone to losing all its data in crashes, and capable of taking an amazing variety of beautiful forms.” I think what Lanchester cites as positives are in fact negatives. As a thing of beauty, in the opinion of most people, a Modern Library edition of The Razor’s Edge will win over an electronic reading device loaded with an eBook of The Razor’s Edge. But when looked at in terms of technology, there’s no comparison; even the most rudimentary electronic reading experience offers dozens more features and overall utility than a print book does. So to make the argument that books are great technology (and don’t crash and don’t lose data, etc.) is the supreme kind of silliness, not to mention it becomes ultimately defensive in nature (because instead of saying what books will do, you end up trumpeting all the things they won’t do). And I also think that, in the scope of the discussion now occuring in the “print is dead” debate, books are indeed primarily the information they contain. After all, isn’t that what makes us choose one over the other?

The Guardian: It’s a Steal

Right on the heels of the debut of Conde Nast’s new business publication Portfolio, Mediaweek has an article by Lucia Moses entitled “Web-Only Titles: Real Business or Face Saver?,” which takes a look at the increasing trend of print magazines going out of business while retaining their brand with a website. “When Time Inc. killed off Teen People last July but decided to continue publishing it online,” writes Moses, “the move made sense to some observers, given teen media usage habits. Nearly a year later, though, the site’s audience size has dwindled to 218,000 uniques, according to comScore Media Metrics, and by the end of this month, TeenPeople.com will be absorbed by People.com.”

All of this sort of begs the question: when is success determined the brand and when is it determined by the format? Because some brands based on former magazines are doing well. Writes Moses: “Other magazines, however, continue to forge ahead with Web-only brands. Hachette Filipacchi Media’s Elle Girl and Premiere, Emap’s FHM, Time Inc.’s Life and Meredith Corp.’s Child have all maintained an online presence despite having folded the title.” In fact, scenarios like this prove that formats, even virtual ones, are not the answer; a magazine may be a bust online the same way it was in print (or vice versa). But formats, in-and-of themselves, are not the answer. Instead, brands will live and die by consumer interest, wherever that consumer interest happens to manifest itself.

Mediaweek: Web-Only Titles: Real Business or Face Saver?

As part of this year’s London Book Fair, taking place this week, there was a panel entitled “Digitise or Die: What is the Future of the Author?” Among the panelists was noted writer Margaret Atwood. The session has been written up by Tania Kindersley on the Guardian book blog as a entry entitled “The Death of the Book, Again.” Here’s a description of the seminar, taken from the London Book Fair’s website: “New technology is finally outstripping the revolution caused by the printing press. What is the future of the book? How do publishers take advantage of the new technology and protect the author’s interests at the same time? Are publishers dragging their heels in the face of the inevitable? How should writers respond to it? What are the new opportunities for writers in the electronic revolution? And how does all this affect the reader?”

During the seminar, it seems that Atwood made the usual points, such as eBooks will be good for reference material but not much else. She also criticizes the utility of eBooks, saying that they can’t be read in the bathtub. (Actually, I’d say that printed books — unless you want them ruined — are also pretty difficult to read in a bathtub). Of course, the dozens of things that eBooks can do, which print books cannot, doesn’t seem to get mentioned. Instead, the argument boiled down to the usual emotional tug of the object itself, with panelist Philip Zimbardo declaring about a book: “It’s something you hold, near to your heart.”

Actually, you hold a book near to your eyes, so it can be read. If you hold it near to your heart what you’re then doing is giving it a hug (which technically doesn’t count as reading). And when you give a book a hug, or show it love, you’re no more showing love to that physical thing than you are a photograph when you kiss a picture of a sweetheart. What you’re reacting to, when gazing a snapshot, is the subject of the picture and not the photograph itself. The same goes for books; it’s Fitzgerald’s words that touch us, and not necessarily the paper those words were printed on.

Kindersly, following up on Zimbardo’s comment, writes: “Books hold our personal histories; our bookshelves are the record of our lives. Our childish loves, our adolescent passions, our sudden crazy obsessions, are all up there in our room, to remind us.” Well, of course, some books perform that function. But so do CDs, TV shows and films, not to mention the memories of the adolescent passions and crazy obsessions themselves. Books are just one patch in the quilt of our personalities, but they’re not the entire blanket. Even Morrissey, a romantic bibliophile if there ever was one, said that there was more to life than books (although he was quick to add, “but not much more”). So the idea that any change in books will somehow leave a hole in ourselves is ridiculous. In fact, these changes have already occurred. Websites now hold our personal histories, and blogs are the record of our lives. Besides, more people take showers these days than baths.

The Guardian: The Death of the Book, Again

There’s lots of talk this week about Condé Nast’s new business-oriented magazine Portfolio, which was announced back in 2005 but finally debuts this week with a whopping 332 page issue. The magazine, which will be sold for $4.99, is trying to be more like Vanity Fair than Fortune (or rather, I think Portfolio fancies itself as the Vanity Fair version of Fortune). Of course the big news in all of this is the fact that, well, a magazine is getting off the ground instead of going out of business. After all, magazines and newspapers have lately been in serious trouble from online competition, dwindling readers and disappearing ad-pages. Which is why there’s so much interest around Portfolio. Fifteen years ago — when magazine launches, as well as crashes, were fairly routine — this would not have made such a splash. But in today’s Internet-dominated world, starting a magazine is seen as both retro and foolhardy. (People privately wondered about the wisdom of the launching of Tina Brown’s Talk in 1999, when the Internet was just starting to explode; Talk lasted two years, and since then the Web has only grown bigger.)

What’s more interesting to me is the fact that Portfolio has launched a website in addition to the magazine (proving that Condé Nast’s trying to create not just a publication, but a brand). The site features content from the magazine as well as ads, video, RSS feeds, slideshows, half a dozen blogs, and an interactive City Guide section that utilizes content from Traveler Magazine (which is, surprise surprise, a Condé Nast brand). The site is moderately impressive, now is just in Beta, but if the content from Traveler is any indication Portfolio won’t be shy about incorporating content from other Condé Nast brands (which, in the end, could be a powerful form of stickiness for the site; tapping into the parent company’s vast online library would potentially make the site a content powerhouse instead of just an adjunct to the printed object). This strategy shows that, while Condé Nast’s decision to start a magazine may have people shaking their heads, the fact that there’s a robust online experience to go along with the magazine means they just might be aware of what they’re getting themselves into. Because there’s no denying a huge interest in the business world; that’s not the question. The question is more about whether there’s still an interest in magazines.

NY Times: In a Troubled Time, a New Business Magazine

“More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.”

–Woody Allen

Editor & Publisher had a story last week by John Rung entitled “What Newspapers Need to Do — To Survive.” The story opens by chronicling the latest theories concerning the fate of newspaper, and questioning what the industry has to do if it’s going to survive the challenges it’s currently facing: “The debate rages on: Is the newspaper industry on the throes of ruin, or is this simply another cyclical downturn in our business? Will the onslaught of new media wipe us out, or will we survive and prosper as we did in the 20th century against the threat of radio and television?”

Rung’s answer to all of this is that newspapers indeed have the capability to survive, even in a world dominated by the digital delivery and consumption of reading material that used to be the sole domain of newspapers. Now, Rung’s not saying that newspapers will rebound and regain the readers they’ve lost. In fact, he seems perfectly resigned to ways the business has already changed: “The virtual monopoly we enjoyed on certain categories of classified is over. Finito. Finished. Dead. And it ain’t coming back. Those awful commercials you see that make fun of people who search for cars through the newspaper should be taken seriously. Our competitors have offered a cheaper, more effective way to shop for certain items. It’s clear that some ships in our classified armada have sailed — or sunk.”

Instead, what Rung’s saying is that there are new areas where newspapers can appeal to Internet-savvy users. Whether or not he’s correct of course remains to be seen, but I like that someone is finally coming out and saying that — in terms of the newspaper industry — it’s their game (and audience) to lose. And they can either ignore the problem, hoping it goes away, or they can do something foolish like resist the changes taking place all around them and stick to the way that they’ve been doing things for the last fifty years. As Rung writes: “We are at a crossroads. This may be the death knell for newspapers, or it may simply be another challenge to overcome. The choice is ours.” Let’s hope they have the wisdom to choose correctly.

Editor & Publisher: What Newspapers Need to Do — To Survive

The Guardian book blog has an essay by Sam Jordison entitled “Who’s Paul Auster, Dad?,” which looks at how sometimes writers, popular in their own day, fall out of favor as time goes on. “Of course, it’s natural and proper that the years should be a harsh critic,” writes Jordison. “There’s only so much world and time after all, and only so much we can be expected to read.” And yet, while Jordison’s idea leads to some mildly interesting conjecture about which writers of today may be forgotten about a decade from now, the real question that should be asked has more to do with the fate of books themselves rather than the rising and falling reputations of particular writers. Because while we can all debate which writers may one day disappear, books themselves are also disappearing. Or rather, the book — in the face of MP3s, blogs, Myspace and Youtube — is being gradually degraded and lessened as a dynamic object of great cultural and political relevance. And so, in the face of this, arguing about which writers will be remembered in ten years is like arguing in 1930 who would be the world’s biggest silent film star in 1940. Ten years from now people won’t be reading as many books as they do now, so the writers of today will have long given way to the new formats and entertainment mediums of the future. After all, the CD is dead, the album is dying, television has exploded and new Web interfaces and electronic gadgets like the iPod give consumers multiple ways to explore and experience content. So the question really isn’t, What writer will be popular ten years from now? Rather the question we should be asking is, Will books themselves be widely read in a decade?

The Guardian: Who’s Paul Auster, Dad?