Print is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age

The New York Times last Thursday reported that the magazine The Week is getting ready to launch an online experiment which will consist of them posting, to the Internet, a special Web-only issue of their magazine. This issue will not replace a physical edition of any issue, but is instead intended to be an extra, supplemental publication consisting of exclusive online material. “The project represents the first time The Week has produced a themed issue as well as its first online-only issue,” writes The Times. “The bonus issue will also serve as a kind of Web-based sampling program for The Week, because nonsubscribers will be able to read it on the Web site.”

Why is The Week doing this? Well, probably because they know that while they produce a physical magazine for people to read offline, a large number of their readers and subscribers (not to metion future or potential readers and subscribers) are consuming reading material online. So they’re simply going to where the readers (increasingly) are. And The Week is not alone in this. According to The New York Times, “the project offers another example of efforts by the print media to expand their digital presence in response to changing habits of both readers and advertisers. … For example, morning newspapers like The Chicago Sun-Times and The Toronto Star have started publishing online-only afternoon editions, which can also be downloaded.”

The Times also touches upon the recent trend of magazines that have stopped printing physical editions so that their brands can continue to live online. All of this is part of an increasing trend of digital delivery and consumption of reading material, starting in journalism and which will eventually extend to both fiction and non-fiction. Not to mention that this shows that, in the “print is dead” debate, there is room for various experiments in terms of marketing, using special or supplemental materials the same way the film studios now pack DVDs with documentaries, deleted scenes, commentaries and other extra features. Traditional publishers, as newspapers and magazines are now realizing, will one day follow suit.

The New York Times: Online Experiment for Print Magazine