Print is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age

Earlier in the week the Broadcast & Cable website had an article by Marisa Guthrie entitled “Survey Says: More People Watch TV Online,” which reported on a recent survey completed by The Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing. The survey found that “More consumers are accessing television and movies online. An estimated 81 million of the 129 million people who access the Internet via a broadband connection watched TV or movies online, according to a new study from Nielsen.” The good news, for the television networks, is that it seems “broadband viewing does not replace traditional television viewing.” This means that new viewers are found viewers; they are new viewers in addition to the regular viewers. The top network, in online terms, was ABC, which makes sense since they’ve had a really smart online strategy (whereas both NBC and CBS have made missteps, such as suing YouTube).

In addition, “The study also posits (rather obviously) that better navigation interfaces and increased availability of popular television series online will drive even more consumers to broadband.” In terms of the “print is dead” debate, this could mean that — if/when publishers make more of their works available electronically — it won’t cannibalize their existing sales, but will instead add to them.

Of course, this kind of thinking usually just leads people to say that books are different; that books are, well, books. And because of their print-based nature (as if words were invented to fill pages instead of it being the other way around), the content of books must remain shackled to the page. I think this is completely incorrect. Words — like water — can cover any surface, be poured into any vessel, and be consumed in a variety of ways. After all, water can also be liquid, ice or steam; why can’t text similarly shift shape and take on new forms? And, more importantly, because people have less and less time these days for entertainment, in addition to the fact that there are more and more options in terms of the ways people can spend their time (Youtube, Myspace, iPods, Wii, etc.), if we want people to read words and ideas and stories, we’re going to have to give them more choices than just books.

The same way that TV networks are branching out to the Web in order to find new consumers, and please existing ones, publishing will have to follow suit. But many people in publishing, from critics to authors, are resisting this change. Which reminds me of that Saturday Night Live sketch from the ’70s of the diner that sold nothing but cheeseburgers and chips (along with Coke, “No Pepsi”). What made that skit funny was that the guys who worked there were so rigid and clueless. People could only order the three things on the menu, and if you tried to get anything else they’d get annoyed and throw you out. Moreover, they couldn’t understand why everyone wasn’t satisfied with just cheeseburgers, chips, and Coke. A lot of the literary establishment is much the same way: ask for words in anything other than a book, and you get either a blank stare or a hostile response. In terms of the restaurant in the skit, people would often walk out and go to another restaurant. In terms of books, people might just pass them over for something else entirely.