Print is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age

Elizabeth Olson, writing in The New York Times on Monday, had an article entitled “To Compete With E-Mail Greetings, Funny Cards Try to Be Topical,” which was about how greeting card companies are coming up with new products in order to attract Internet users. The reason for all of this is because — in an increasingly electronic world where more and more people communicate digitally via e-mail instead of physically via letters or greeting cards — people who in the past would have purchased a greeting card now send digital eCards instead. The digital eCards are often free and, in the eyes of many people, are much easier to use and personalize. And the impact of these digital consumers is now being felt by the greeting card companies. According to Olson, “American Greetings had a 10.6 percent dip last year over 2005 for sales of what it calls its everyday cards, which are mostly birthday cards and which make up 38 percent of total card sales.”

So while, in a publishing sense, people have been saying “print is dead” for years, it would seem — with so many people sending electronic greetings rather than hand-written greeting cards — that printing itself is similarly dying. Because why write by hand when you can type? True, as Olson points out in her article, the paper greeting card industry is still much bigger than the electronic version: “While the paper card market is declining, it is still five times as large as the e-card market, according to the Greeting Card Association, a trade group. Ninety percent of United States households still buy paper greeting cards, and the average household buys 30 a year, the association said.” But, the same as with eBooks and electronic reading, the trend is what’s ultimately important. From music to books and now even greeting cards, when it comes to the choice between a physical or a digital experience, consumer behavior is changing.