Print is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age

Earlier in the week it was announced that seminal British hard rock group Led Zeppelin’s back catalog will soon be available digitally. The band’s eight records (including the one with the old guy carrying the bale of wheat on his back that EVERYBODY growing up in the ‘70s owned, but didn’t quite know what to call), plus other material, will be available digitally by Mid-November. And not only will the songs turn up in the usual places, like iTunes, but through a deal with Verizon Wireless there will also be Led Zeppelin ringtones and other mobile-friendly downloads (so get ready to hear those opening chords to “Stairway to Heaven” even more often).

Of course, this coincides with Led Zeppelin’s recent reunion and their decision to play their first shows in over twenty-five years. And what’s amazing is everything that’s happened since Led Zeppelin broke up back in 1980. Music, in 1980, usually meant vinyl if not an eight track cassette (good for listening to in your car), not to mention cassette tapes (good to use in a Walkman, which debuted in 1979). In ‘80, the personal computer was just getting off the ground and CDs wouldn’t make an appearance for another couple of years.

But now, upon Led Zeppelin’s return, the musical landscape has almost entirely changed. People no longer buy records or tapes and, increasingly, they don’t even buy CDs. Instead, people buy their music in a way that renders the music more or less invisible; they download songs in the form of MP3s.

And of course, while all of that has been happening in music, in the book world it’s been mostly status quo. True, in the ‘80s CD-ROMS gave a few people the shivers (some with excitement, some with fear), and then, a decade later, eBooks first appeared and didn’t exactly catch on. Then, in the late ‘90s, there was an Internet bubble, which shortly thereafter burst, and we now find ourselves in the midst of a Web 2.0 world which spreads its sinewy strands into every area of our networked lives.

Computers, electronic devices and digital content is everywhere. And now that Led Zeppelin will be on iTunes, it’s pretty much another signal that, when it comes to music, there’s nothing you can’t get digitally (except for, well, The Beatles).

We need to make similar strides in publishing. We need to digitize content and give people the choice of how they consume it. (I mean, you can’t even get Hammer of the Gods in eBook.) Until then, books will be stuck in their “eight track” phase, destined to follow all of those dusty vinyl copies of Physical Graffiti to garage sales. Meanwhile, the readers of tomorrow will move on to the realm of totally digital content, maybe leaving print behind.