Print is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age

Former publishing executive and book review editor Pat Holt has a great essay this week as part of her “Holt Uncensored” e-mail newsletter. Entitled “Book Critics: Are we driving readers away?,” Holt looks at the recent phenomenon not only of shrinking book review sections in American papers but, almost more significantly, the large number of mainly self-serving essays and think-pieces (not to mention petitions) that have recently appeared in order to rally support for book reviewers and book review sections. Instead of blindly jumping on the “We have to save book reviews!” bandwagon, Holt takes an intelligent and thoughtful look at the situation, stating that “maybe it’s time for those of us who have worked as critics for a living to evaluate what’s happened to our profession — and why we may be driving readers away. In the last 25 years, just about everything about the print experience has changed — except the way critics review books.”

Instead of the usual facile arguments that the proponents of books and book reviews usually trot out in the “print is dead” debate, Holt argues that the status quo isn’t worth saving. Her whole point is that the world has changed; we have become more and more adept at finding information and content online, and now the literary world has to also change. “Our audience zips around the Internet with tremendous agility and speed, and what do we give them?” asks Holt. “Stodgy, dull, laborious and indulgent reviews.” Holt also realizes that the reduction of book reviews is only the tip of the iceberg, and that the loss of interest in book reviews is an early signal that a loss of interest in books themselves could be around the corner. But even that hasn’t been enough to create change. “Not only have we gotten stuffy, dreary and plodding, but our panic is showing — we know traditional print media is in trouble and try too hard to get readers back,” writes Holt. “We’ve substituted opinion for criticism. We’ve pronounced books good or bad rather than shown readers why.”

So even the book reviews that remain are no longer doing what book reviews used to do so well: connecting readers with books. Instead, readers have gone elsewhere, and are now connecting with reading material online. Without the aid of major newspapers or literary critics, consumers are finding new reading material from either recommendation websites or software on commerce sites, social networking sites, or even just by keeping in touch with people online who share with them ideas for books (now that e-mail has the ability to connect everyone on Earth, “word of mouth” has turned into “world of mouth”). So while the NBCC crowd is interested solely in protecting its turf (and their jobs), Holt’s essay is the first one I’ve seen asking for the industry as a whole to take a long hard look at itself.

Holt Uncensored: Book Critics: Are we driving readers away?

Bestselling mystery author Michael Connelly had an opinion piece in last Sunday’s LA Times entitled “The folly of downsizing book reviews,” which is yet another essay dealing with the recent closure and reduction of some book review sections (including the one at the LA Times). While not as apocalyptic as the Winslow piece I blogged about earlier in the week, Connelly uses similarly dire language, stating that “newspapers that cut back on book coverage may be cutting their own throats.” For Connelly, this is personal since he feels that it was positive reviews of his first book that saved (and gave him) his career. He then asks what would happen to a similar book in today’s culture where book review sections are rapidly disappearing. However, Connelly happens to answer his own question with his opening sentence: “Fifteen years ago, my first book was published in near obscurity.”

Well, within the past fifteen years the Internet was invented, which itself has since given birth to dozens of new ideas and ways to communicate. The fact that, in the last fifteen years, we have been witness to the rise of blogs, user-generated content, Youtube, Myspace, iPods and MP3s, shows that the world has changed an awful lot since the publication of Connelly’s first book. And so while book reviews saved his first novel a decade-and-a-half ago, the power to promote and form opinion has since shifted, moving away from print-based book reviews towards something much more egalitarian and open-ended. Because of the Internet, dozens of new ways to champion books now exist. For instance, a positive mention of the blog Boingboing today probably has the same power (if not more) to shape influence and spread the word about a book than a book review did back in the days of Connelly’s first novel. And in addition to Boingboing there are dozens of literary blogs, not to mention the various social networking websites devoted to books, all of which — cumulatively — have a much broader reach than book review sections ever did.

LA Times: The folly of downsizing book reviews

Technology wrtier Mike Elgan has an article on the Computerworld website unambiguously entitled “Why e-books are bound to fail” (which, if the main headline left you wondering about Elgan’s thoughts on the issue, the sub-headline should remove all doubt: “Electronic books pack bleeding-edge technology, too bad they’ll never catch on”). Elgan, in going through his reasons for why he thinks eBooks are dead in the water, touches upon all of the usual reasons, some real and some simply imaginary. But in the end, Elgan’s big show-stopping pronouncement is that “people love paper books.” And because of this, “e-books are not, and cannot be, superior to what they are designed to replace.” Sure, some people love paper books. But some people have never thought about a book in their life, and simply want the stories and ideas that books contain. And to talk about one format being superior to another is silly; this isn’t a joust, it’s about utility, and the fact is that electronic books can do plenty of things that paper books cannot do.

But beyond all that, I really do think it’s insane for a technology writer, who’s writing for a publication entitled Computerworld, to write a sentence such as ”Unfortunately, these [eBook] products — as well as the whole product category — are destined for failure.” Mainly because Elgan has little to back up his claim beyond the usual facile arguments, including the fact that people will never want to “’curl up’ with a battery-operated plastic screen.” I don’t know what kind of computers populate Elgan’s world, but people “curl up” with “battery-operated plastic screens” all the time. What does he think an iPod or a laptop is? Or a Blackberry? In fact, these items are now an entire generation’s prized possessions. Most kids today “curl up” with nothing but battery-operated plastic screens (when they’re not curling up with other teens, that is). To these kids these aren’t even gadgets, but instead these are everday objects that form an essential part of their lives. The same goes presumably for Computerworld’s subscribers and readers. So no matter how much people “love paper books,” we indeed live in a computer-filled world, leading increasingly digital lives, and the world of literature will eventually yield to “battery-operated screens” the same way that music did.

Computerworld: Why e-books are bound to fail