Print is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age

The brilliantly named Peter Kafka (my favorite tech writer aside from Todd Flaubert), writing on the Silicon Alley Insider website, had a story last week entitled “Music Decline to Accelerate in 2008 With Retailer Cutbacks.” The article talked about how, in 2008, the ailing music industry just might be delivered a deathblow due to the fact that a trio of huge companies (Best Buy, Wal Mart and Target) next year will drastically cut the amount of space they give to music CDs. As Kafka writes, “We are hearing predictions of cuts that range from 20% to 40%, with Wal-Mart making the most aggressive pullbacks.” Keep in mind that this is in addition to Tower Records going out of business, not to mention that a number of these chains have already reduced their music selection. And, of course, people can’t buy what’s not for sale.

So while music has been under assault for years now (Kafka opens his story by writing, “The music business has seen sales drop for seven straight years. Next year will be worse.”), the news of these huge retailers jumping ship is adding up to even worse news than usual. Kafka continues: “But a retail cutback could be much more damaging than any single year revenue decline. In a worst-case scenario, and one we think is quite likely, a cutback sets off a self-fulfilling prophecy: Retailers stock less music, so consumers have less to choose from, and then buy even less, causing retailers to stock even less. Repeat.”

Of course, at the same time, Apple is releasing new iPods and Amazon and Microsoft are each starting or renewing their commitments to selling music online. So while the lack of CD sales won’t be replaced by digital sales (not by a long shot), it’s still the best chance that music has to at least hold on to some market-share in an online world. And some labels, and some bands (i.e. Radiohead), are trying new things and doing all that they can to not only keep their music interesting, but are also trying to reinvigorate the way that they get their music into the hands of their fans,

Meanwhile, via another story on the Silicon Alley Insider website, you get a story about people waiting in line to watch short film at an Apple Store. At the same time, Starbucks is now a music label, Amazon’s commissioning fiction, and last week — after missing the season premiere due to a DVR mix-up — my wife watched an entire episode of Desperate Housewives the next day (for free) on her laptop.

So to think that the former rules or concepts about media still applies is now officially an illusion; this goes beyond even the facile name-checking of Bob Dylan songs about how the times are a-changing. Instead, the previous commercial boundaries have been turned into porous borders that allow for the intermingling of content and business models, the refashioning of existing ideas and the birthing of entirely new ones. Music is in serious trouble, but if print can learn from music’s lessons, maybe we will be spared music’s fate. Because that’s just not a bell you hear tolling for thee; it’s also a ringtone and an MP3. And they’re all playing the same tune…