Print is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age

The other day, while researching restaurants on the New York City Search website, I noticed a trio of strange looking heads looming in a banner ad at the top of the page. When I looked closer, I saw that it was an ad for the Newspaper Association of America. I’ve been aware of the NAA for a while, and have blogged in the past about their efforts to convince advertisers that print (especially newsprint) is not dead. So, curious, I clicked on the ad and was brought to the NAA website. Once there I was presented with a ghastly graphic of a newspaper-reading hydra (pictured above). Once I recovered from the initial shock, I then tried to figure out what this ugly illustration meant, and couldn’t really figure it out.

The Newspaper Association of America’s tagline is “Newspaper. The multi-medium,” so I suppose the three-heads could come out of the fact that the newspaper’s a “multi-medium.” But if that’s the case, shouldn’t the paper be doing three things, instead of the human? (Also, it seems odd that the three heads seem unrelated; in fact, one of them appears to be Ed Grimley.)

What’s also silly is that the headline of the newspaper (cleverly titled The Newspaper, by the way) screams “Information age is here!!” Because, really, most newspapers worth their weight in pulp love to load their banner headlines with multiple exclamation points (even the end of the second World War only warranted one). What I think the headline should really be is “World Attacked by Three-Headed Four-Armed Mutants Who Like to Read Newspapers.”

The copy in the ad mentioned that, while people never agree on anything, they can at least agree that newspapers are a great thing. And since two of the creature’s four hands seem to be trying to make a point, I guess the graphic implies that, while the various personalities pictured don’t agree on a point of view, they’re at least agreeing to read a newspaper. But even that idea doesn’t make much sense. Besides, wouldn’t the NAA want each of the these heads to have their own paper? (It would triple sales!) Anyway, this just feels like another misguided attempt by the newspaper industry to remain relevant in a digital world.

Before the age of the Internet and the iPod, way back in the early 90’s, Nirvana ruled the charts and grunge was the hot new sound. Tower Records was still around, the term “alternative” meant something, and MTV actually showed videos. In terms of Nirvana, what had been crucial their success was their gritty history: scruffy small-town kids clad in thrift-store flannel who’d recorded their debut record for $600 bucks and then released it on the independent label Sub Pop (that not many people had heard of until then).

Kids found the fact that Nirvana was so rough around the edges intoxicating; their lack of polish and pretension ignited the fervor of a generation the same way that punk had done a dozen years earlier. Of course, the only thing the record companies cared about was finding more Nirvanas and racking up more sales, so they did everything they could to find similar bands. Sometimes, it was successful (Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains), and sometimes it wasn’t (Seaweed, Tad). But once the grunge barrel was finally empty, and all the indie bands had been signed (at the height of this madness Japanoise band The Boredoms were signed to Warners Bros, something no one could believe), the major labels started creating their own indie bands, which gave rise to something that later became known as “Scam indie.”

Scam indie was the act of trying to make a major label artist seem like an independent one, which would help in generating a loyal grassroots audience, as well as lend an air of authenticity. The only problem with the scenario was that it was fake. But the major labels “neverminded” this, and kept trying to secretly funnel bands through the indie scene as if it were a kind baseball “farm system,” with the indie scene as the minor leagues while the big labels were the majors. Usually this meant something fairly benign like making a record cover look like it had been cheaply constructed with tape or Wite-Out, meaning the artists had made it themselves. The point would be that the band didn’t care about aesthetics or playing the record industry game (early Pavement and Sebadoh records were the touchstones here); they were anti-image, anti-corporations, anti-everything. But in reality, the artwork was designed by slick art departments who were trying very hard to have the sleeves appear homemade. (In fact, you still see this, even in publishing.) Another facet of scam indie involved huge conglomerates starting boutique record labels, and then trying to hide the fact that the money came not from weekends working at Kinko’s, but from shareholders in giant parent companies.

More than a decade later, with the Internet now a huge presence in almost everyone’s life, “scam indie” is back. Because now, in the age of user-generated content where anyone can produce a video or song and upload it to Myspace or YouTube, it’s even easier to pretend you’re something you’re not. The Wall Street Journal reported on this a few weeks ago with a story by Ethan Smith and Peter Lattman entitled “Download This: YouTube Phenom Has a Big Secret.” The story was about Marié Digby, a supposedly unknown 24-year old singer songwriter who had been turned into an Internet phenomenon due to her homemade YouTube videos and songs she posted on her Myspace page. On the surface it sounds like a great example of Web 2.0 “anyone can do this” egalitarianism, but it’s not.

Digby has a record deal with Disney-owned major label Hollywood Records, and had been signed to them since well before she starting posting her “Shucks, I’m just a girl in her living room” videos to YouTube. As Smith and Lattman write in their article, “Though all involved say that Hollywood Records’ role in her online rise has been limited, label executives say they did nothing to discourage Ms. Digby from conveying the impression that she had stumbled into the spotlight.” Not only that, but “Hollywood Records helped devise her Internet strategy, consulted with her on the type of songs she chose to post, and distributed a high-quality studio recording of [Rihanna’s] ‘Umbrella’ to iTunes and radio stations.” So while her fans “seem pleased to believe that they discovered an underground sensation,” what they’ve really discovered — whether they realize it or not — is scam indie 2.0.

And so while bona fide Internet sensations (of the Jonathan Coulton variety, and not the Star Wars Kid variety) will continue to exist and thrive, thereby creating huge online constituencies and hopefully full-fledged careers (Ronald Jenkees anyone?), these will be increasingly harder to spot due to the fact that so many people out there are faking it. And the reasons they’re faking it are simple: 1. It’s effective. 2. It’s cheap.

The grand prize in the online world is viral word of mouth and virtual buzz, and this has become the holy grail to major corporations. And these corporations, as witnessed from the Marié Digby situation, will do anything they can to create Internet stars that will ultimately lead to record sales. All of which, in my mind, harkens back to the cover of the Nirvana CD that started all of this in the first place: the naked baby swimming after the dollar bill dangling on the hook. A lot has changed in the music industry since then, but the hook and the money are still disturbingly the same.

Last week, I was very flattered to be asked by Richard Charkin, the head of Macmillan in the UK, to write up some thoughts for his Charkinblog on what it’s been like to be a person who works in the publishing industry who has just gone through the process of writing and publishing a book. Charkin is a very smart and nice guy, so I was only too happy to oblige. After spending a couple of hours thinking about this, I sent him my thoughts in a short essay entitled “Some Experience Necessary: Looking at publishing from both sides.” Here’s a portion of the essay:

One of publishing’s dirty little secrets is that, increasingly, it’s not about the books. Or maybe, it’s too much about the books (meaning books as objects, or even books as a number on a balance sheet). In the publishing process we find ourselves sometimes getting removed from the ideas and stories found in our books; the words that provide the power to deliver amazing and transformative experiences to readers (and are therefore the kinds of books we read growing up that made us want to get into this business in the first place).

One of the reasons this happens is because people who work in publishing, for the most part, have not had the experience of writing and publishing a book.

The rest of the essay has been posted on Richard’s blog, which you can view here.

From the video blog I Hate Young People, I found the above clip that consists of people talking about cell phones and their hatred/fear of technology (epitomized by the woman who says “Just because it’s new doesn’t make it better”). While being pretty funny, I also think it goes to show just how wary people are of new things and change in general, and I bet that — a hundred years ago — you would have received the same reactions in terms of people talking about horseless carriages and the telephone. And, of course, you hear people talk like this in the “future of the book” debate, decrying things like electronic reading devices or portable gadgets, saying no one will want to “curl up” with computers. The subtext in both discussions is a general fear of the new, and a desire to always have things remain the same. However, as we all know, the only thing that remains the same is the fact that things will indeed always change. So, like it or not, technology is here to stay.

Ian Austen, writing in The New York Times earlier in the week, had an article entitled “Extinction Is at Hand for Paper Airline Tickets.” The article was about how paper tickets for plane travel are now practically extinct due to the introduction of electronic tickets. As Austen writes, “Replacing paper tickets, and the elaborate global system that processed them, with electronic ticketing will save airlines $3 billion annually on the roughly 400 million tickets sold outside of the United States alone.” So while this makes economic sense, for passengers it also makes their lives easier (tickets being one less thing to forget to pack).

I also think this development has some relevance in terms of the “print is dead” debate. Because, while airplane tickets aren’t narrative (although a one-way ticket certainly tells a different story than a roundtrip), the reduction of yet another piece of paper in our lives shows that deeply ingrained habits and customs can (and do) change. When people say “print is dead” they’re referring words printed on paper, but the statement could also signify anything written by hand. And the increase of computer technology and electronic communication has led to a direct (and significant) decrease of various forms or instances of printing and handwriting.

In fact, in numerous aspects of daily living, paper is getting more and more scarce. I see this often in my own life. For instance, I haven’t written a check in years. Instead, I do all of my banking online. And I now receive my statements online, and I also no longer receive paychecks (opting for direct deposit). I rarely even carry money anymore because I’d rather just use a credit or debit card for pretty much everything. Paper used to be at heart of all financial transactions, and yet nowadays it has practically disappeared.

So where we were, just ten years ago, covered in paper like Robert DeNiro at the end of Brazil, we’re all becoming increasingly digital, with e-mail signatures replacing the real thing and virtual greeting cards usurping paper ones. And so, while the “paperless office” that was predicted a few decades ago hasn’t yet come to pass, in 2007 we have less interaction with paper than we’ve had since it came into widespread circulation a few hundred years ago. Airline tickets are the latest bit of print to disappear, and many more examples will follow.

Earlier this week eMusic.com, which bills itself as the “Number one site for independent music,” announced that it would begin selling audiobooks from its website. eMusic, which operates on a subscription basis and is second only to iTunes in the digital music space, started offering the titles yesterday, and they include major publishers and titles from some of the biggest names in publishing, including Random House and Penguin.

What’s an interesting wrinkle is that the audiobooks will be issued sans digital rights management, which means the files can be listened to on multiple devices and/or computers. While iTunes offers some music free of DRM (at a premium price), its audiobooks (made available through Audible) are always swaddled with DRM. Because of this, listeners are restricted in terms of how (and when) they can listen to the files. eMusic’s move to offer their audiobooks without these restrictions, I think, marks another blow to DRM in general and points towards a future where people will truly own the digital content that they buy.

Of course, what’s also really important is the fact that eMusic is trying to get people who usually listen to music to also listen to audiobooks. And despite the outcry of purists who heap disdain upon audiobooks, saying that listening to one is a less-rewarding experience than reading the original book, this is indeed an encouraging development. Because it not only gives eMusic more content to offer to its users, but it has the potential to open up an entire world to music buyers who now may only be experiencing words in the form of song lyrics.

To celebrate the announcement, eMusic last night held a party at the Angel Orensanz Foundation for the Arts in downtown New York. The party itself was a literary/musical combination that included performances by a couple of bands, not mention DJ J.G. Thirlwell (who was playing snippets of audiobooks over the music, which sounded very cool). In addition, Indecision author Benjamin Kunkel also put in an appearance, talking about his novel and then introducing one of the bands (who, in their sweaters, looked very much like Weezer).

And while writers have occasionally held the stage with musicians (from Lawrence Ferlinghetti reading at The Band’s final concert to The Magnetic Fields working with Lemony Snicket), now that everyone has an iPod and is downloading music (and increasingly eschewing print for electronic entertainment), the time seems right for there to be a real collaboration between these two art forms.

In fact, on the back of the party invitation, eMusic lists a few suggested pairings of books and music, offering a number of food/wine combos: Macbeth and McCartney, White Noise and The White Stripes, Leaves of Grass and Panda Bear, Metamorphosis and Max Roach, and the obligatory Moby Dick and Moby. (What, no Cement Garden and Pavement? Not to mention Steppenwolf and, well, Steppenwolf.) I mean, mixing the vocals of Destiny’s Child with the music of Nirvana is one thing, but getting Nirvana fans to read Chuck Palahniuk is something else (Bleach and Lullaby). Because, while print may be dead words themselves are still alive, and are always seeking either an eye or ear to take them in.

Sewell Chan, writing on the New York Times “City Room” blog yesterday, had a post entitled “High Rents Chase Another Bookstore, This One From a Chain.” The post is about how, while a large number of independent bookstores have recently gone out of business in New York City (i.e. The Gotham Book Mart, Coliseum Books), even the majors are now feeling the pinch. Specifically, the Astor Place Barnes & Noble will go out of business at the end of this year. As for the reason why its doors are closing, Chan quotes Mary Ellen Keating, a Barnes & Noble spokeswoman, as saying, “The sales simply didn’t justify the high rent. We’d love to stay, but unfortunately couldn’t work out the economics.”

The location opened in 1994, and I used to go there a lot when I first moved to the neighborhood in 1997. What’s sad is that there also used to be a Tower Books around the corner (it went out of business long before the Tower chain folded). Back then, the entire area felt a lot more bookish; it was before the era of the Internet and iPods. In fact, for lots of people these days a bookstore is Amazon. They don’t feel the need to go a big chain store when they can find everything they want (and more) at home, online. Meanwhile, there are still some good independents in the Astor Place area, including Shakespeare & Co and St. Mark’s Bookshop, which gives me hope that, in a “print is dead” world, when the majors realize that they can no longer operate on volume they’ll begin to go out of business and the independents will flourish once again.

Last week Apple introduced three new iPod models, including a redesign of their ultra-successful Nano model, along with a Classic version and the new iPod Touch (which is basically the iPhone minus the phone and the AT&T contract; I instantly pre-ordered one). What I think is remarkable about this is whenever Apple introduces new products, it instantly phases out its old ones. For example, it’s now impossible to buy any of the former Nano models (you know, the ones that were cutting-edge up until last Wednesday). The same way that the Nano itself replaced the mega-popular iPod Mini just a few years ago, the Nano itself has now been replaced with an even newer model. While some view this with cynicism, as if Steve Jobs is out to wring every nickel he can from enthusiasts/obsessives who’ll purchase anything with the Apple logo on it, I instead look at this with awe and admiration, the sign of a man and a company who demand nothing but the very best.

After all, neither Apple or Jobs are cluttering the marketplace; at any one time, there are only three to five iPod models to choose from. So instead of the Mini standing next to both versions of the Nano (not to mention the Shuffle, which itself has gone through a few transformations), the older models disappear — a la Logan’s Run — and make way for the new ones. But instead of this being about Jobs and money, this is about Apple and its addiction to change, along with its relentless quest to always have on hand the best possible product.

In thinking about this in terms of the publishing industry, I thought it would make an interesting comparison (mainly because, while Apple changes all the time, publishing tries to change as little as possible). True, Apple is a technology company whose bread and butter is innovation, while publishing is supplying a good rather than an experience (after all, no one expects much innovation to come from such basic products as, well, bread and butter). And yet, in the “print is dead” debate, the fact that books are indeed a technology is brought up all the time. Indeed, many pro-book pundits feel that printed books are the “perfect” technology, and that computers — no matter how advanced — can never best a book when it comes to delivering a satisfying reading experience. So I think that the comparison between Apple and publishing is somewhat apt (or rather, not as outlandish as it sounds).

So then what I find so shocking is that no one in publishing is really trying to push the boundaries the way Apple always is. In fact, it’s almost the reverse; instead of charging ever forward, publishing seems content to always look back. At this point, we’ve gone from viewing Gutenberg as the man who printed bibles to looking at him like a biblical figure himself: a saint not to argued with, the inventor of a religion instead of a technology. So instead of, in the past 500 years, pushing for the evolution of books, we have instead grown warm with the idea that they won’t evolve at all. Not only that, but we reject as a heretic anyone who suggests that books, “the perfect invention,” have any need for improvement. If Steve Jobs felt this way, Apple computers would still be made out of blocks of wood and the world wouldn’t have any iPods to be updated in the first place.

On the New York Times “City Room” blog yesterday, David Dunlap had a posting entitled “Coming to Newsstands Now: A New Look.” In the posting, Dunlap writes about how newsstands around the city (which he poetically describes as “a bit of ungainly but plainspoken street furniture”) are being redesigned by Grimshaw Architects, “one of the world’s leading design companies.” In an age of growing online consumption of not just news, but all kinds of entertainment (who needs The New York Post when you have Gawker?), having famous architects spend their time designing newsstands is like having leading record labels release eight-tracks. Because, in an increasingly digital world, an RSS reader is the new newsstand.

RSS readers allow people to easily find and cherry-pick the news that they want to read, thereby constructing their own publication. In fact, I find it interesting/silly that The Washington Post will put, at the top of the stories that appear on their website, where in the paper the story originally appeared (as if it makes any difference to me that something that was on the home page appeared on page B01 or C01 of the print edition). I wouldn’t care if it was on the very last page of the very last section of the paper; if it’s content I’m interested in, it’s going to be the first thing I read.

I was thinking this about when I read Joe Strupp’s article on the Editor & Publisher website entitled “’User’ Sites Choose Different News Than Mainstream Outlets.” In the article Strupp talks about how, according to a new survey, “New York Mainstream media outlets may not be offering up the stories online users most want to read.” Instead, “user-generated news sites like Yahoo give top billing to different stories than mainstream organizations.”

The story lists a number of surprising conclusions, among them that “online users gravitated toward different topics than those from traditional news outlets.” All of which goes to show that, when the New York Times claims that its paper contains “All the news that’s fit to print,” what it’s really saying is “All the news we feel like printing.” But Web 2.0 technology, and websites like Digg and Reddit, allow the users themselves to vote, endorse and share the stories that they’re interested in. The same way that on-demand television shattered prime time, the term “front page news” is now in for a bashing.

In Dunlap’s posting, he acknowledges this to a degree, asking in the end, “Perhaps more to the point, will [New Yorkers in three years] be going to newsstands at all?” My answer is, yes, of course, New Yorkers will continue going to newsstands, but the numbers will be way down from what they used to be. Or rather, they’ll be going to the newsstands for just gum and candy (and what architect in the world would like to spend their time designing a work of art for that?)

Last week I received the first copy of Print is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age, from my editor in the UK. I think it looks really great, and my thanks go out to everyone who worked on it. Copies are now being shipped to our warehouse, and the book itself will go on sale in early November. Needless to say, the book will also be made available in all eBook formats, in addition to being in Google’s print program. In addition to this we’re working on a website that will make a large portion of the book’s content available, for free, in electronic and audio form. The website with content will debut in October; more news and announcements about that when it’s available, and of course I’ll be posting any reviews or any other mentions as they start coming in.