Print is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age

Rolling Stone recently had a two part article by Brian Hiatt and Evan Serpic entitled “The Record Industry’s Decline.” Subtitled, “Record sales are tanking, and there’s no hope in sight: How it all went wrong,” you can pretty much figure out what the article’s about. For instance, here’s how Hiatt and Serpic set the stage: “Overall CD sales have plummeted sixteen percent for the year so far — and that’s after seven years of near-constant erosion. In the face of widespread piracy, consumers’ growing preference for low-profit-margin digital singles over albums, and other woes, the record business has plunged into a historic decline.” The story is packed with a number of depressing facts and figures about the industry (“more than 5,000 record-company employees have been laid off since 2000,” “about 2,700 record stores have closed across the country since 2003”), and also features some insightful quotes from industry leaders:

The major labels are struggling to reinvent their business models, even as some wonder whether it’s too late. “The record business is over,” says music attorney Peter Paterno, who represents Metallica and Dr. Dre. “The labels have wonderful assets — they just can’t make any money off them.” One senior music-industry source who requested anonymity went further: “Here we have a business that’s dying. There won’t be any major labels pretty soon.”

And what’s the cause of industry’s death? The Internet, of course. Write Hiatt and Serpic: “The Internet appears to be the most consequential technological shift for the business of selling music since the 1920s, when phonograph records replaced sheet music as the industry’s profit center.” But while the Internet may be the cause, the real culprit is the industry itself. “While there are factors outside of the labels’ control — from the rise of the Internet to the popularity of video games and DVDs — many in the industry see the last seven years as a series of botched opportunities.” Hiatt and Serpic contend that the Internet didn’t kill the music industry, but rather the music industry’s botched reaction to the online revolution slit its own throat. And it may be too late to recover.

This makes me think of the Seinfeld episode where George pledges to do the exact opposite of his natural inclination (since his normal behavior only leads to distress and ruin). Because I kind of think publishing should do the same thing. Or rather, we should look at what the music industry did, and do the opposite. Insist nothing is wrong and stick to our usual business model? Swaddle our material in layers of prohibitive DRM? Relentlessly sue people who try and spread the word of our product by sharing it with others? Stick with a physical product and shun electronic delivery? Instead, we should look at what these decisions have meant for the music industry, and simply do the opposite. In George’s case, this new behavior gets him a job with the New York Yankees, a lifelong dream. In the case of publishing, it might just stop the rolling stone — starting to head downhill — dead in its tracks.