Print is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age

Over the weekend, the New York Times Magazine had a cover story by Lynn Hirschberg on music mogul Rick Rubin, the brilliant maverick producer who has been behind projects as diverse as the debut of the Beastie Boys and the comeback of Johnny Cash. His latest endeavor is the heading up Columbia Records, one of the most traditional record companies out there (and therefore — in this digital age — most in need of Rubin’s rehabilitation). The article has lots of great quotes about how the music industry has changed, and is still changing (as Rubin says, “Well, the world has changed. And the [recording] industry has not”) and I think that parallels abound when thinking about publishing being yet another industry going through immense changes. As I’ve written before, I think we can learn a lot from witnessing what music’s going through, as well as learning from its mistakes.

When putting Columbia in perspective alongside the other labels, Rubin is predictably blunt. “Columbia is stuck in the dark ages,” he says. “I have great confidence that we will have the best record company in the industry, but the reality is, in today’s world, we might have the best dinosaur. Until a new model is agreed upon and rolling, we can be the best at the existing paradigm, but until the paradigm shifts, it’s going to be a declining business. This model is done.”

I think many publishers have a similar view, and instead of trying to transform themselves into something new — and instead of realizing that the current model may be “done” — they’re trying to be the “best dinosaur” out there by eluding evolution and sticking it out the longest. In fact, the worst thing for some of these companies is that they will indeed survive by doing what they’re doing, because by that point they’ll be so inoculated against change that they’ll forever stay the same.

In terms of the music industry’s broken business model, Rubin thinks he has the answer: paid subscription. “You’d pay, say, $19.95 a month, and the music will come anywhere you’d like,” says Rubin. “In this new world, there will be a virtual library that will be accessible from your car, from your cellphone, from your computer, from your television. Anywhere. The iPod will be obsolete, but there would be a Walkman-like device you could plug into speakers at home. You’ll say, ‘Today I want to listen to … Simon and Garfunkel,’ and there they are. The service can have demos, bootlegs, concerts, whatever context the artist wants to put out. And once that model is put into place, the industry will grow 10 times the size it is now.” In thinking of that idea, imagine if that were a library of books instead of songs; any book in the world could be instantly available on a variety of screens and devices, at any time. This would lead to more reading, and not less, the same way the iPod has been tremendous for music (but not so much for the music industry).

Of course, whether or not this will work for music (let alone publishing) remains to be seen, but I think it’s great that Rubin and others (Doug Morris and Jimmy Iovine at Universal are also reportedly behind the paid subscription plan) are trying to come up with ways to save their industry. If not, the record labels will follow the record retailers, like Tower, right off the edge of the cliff. And if publishers don’t similarly start trying to think of new business models and strategies, it could one day face a cliff of its own.