Print is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age

Today I came across the website Read at Work, which was created by the New Zealand Book Council in order to encourage people to, well, read at work. When you click to enter the website, it expands to fit the entire screen, and is perfectly designed to look like a PC desktop (which is a bit disorienting if — like me — you’re on a Mac). You can then explore and open various folders that contain short stories or poems which, when you click on them, are designed in Powerpoint. It’s a really ingenious idea, and is well executed.

But what’s really amazing is how effective it is. Not in the sense that you can indeed get away with reading these stories while at work (although I bet you could). Instead, what’s truly amazing is that prose and poetry — even when rendered using something as cold and lifeless as Powerpoint — manages to remain poignant and powerful.

And while the purpose and format of the Read at Work site is ostensibly just to fool bosses or co-workers, it actually proves a point that I, and many others, have been making in the future of the book debate: that words can flourish in any environment or format. Novels aren’t goldfish that will die outside of the fishbowl constraints of a book’s packaging. But rather, a writer’s words can travel anywhere and be presented in almost any format, and will remain literature.

One of the most common themes that runs through the future of the book debate is, well, the idea of the book itself. Or rather, what a book is or should be. Most people consider a work like The Great Gatsby to be a book. After all, when someone says they love The Great Gatsby, chances are they’re talking about the book (I doubt they mean the film or the opera; I’ve seen both, and didn’t love either). And yet, what they’re really reacting to are Fitzgerald’s words and story, not the paper and glue of Scribner’s. Because of this, the real heart of Gatsby is in its amazing language and timeless theme, not the page. The spirit and magic of The Great Gatsby isn’t the book itself; the book is just a prop. Indeed, the page was just the first place we experienced Gatsby, so it has now become a physical beacon or marker for us to stare at and appreciate (not unlike the green light at the end of Daisy’s pier in the novel itself). And yet, when we talk, in the future of the book debate, about physical books going away people tend to think that, along with the paper and glue, we’re going to remove the stories and ideas as well. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. To compare this to music, it reminds of a syndrome I call “banditis.”

I would define “banditis” as being when all members of a band feel the need to all play on or contribute to a song (as if every song needs guitar, bass and drums). This tends to make all songs sound predictable; you end up waiting for the chorus and the guitar solo. The truth is, not all songs need a chorus — or even lyrics — not to mention guitar in the first place (let alone solos). In fact, my favorite record of the year so far is the recently released Heartcore by Wildbirds and Peacedrums (the video above is them performing the song “Doubt/Hope”). The “group” is made up of a young married couple from Sweden, and most often the songs consist of just the husband’s inventive drumming and the wife’s haunted and haunting vocals. Of course, if you were to describe this to most people they’d say, “Uh, just vocals and drums? Where’s the rest?” as if something were missing. People react this way because they’ve been conditioned to think of songs as being defined as something that has guitars, bass and drums (if not even more instruments, like piano, strings, and backup vocals). In fact, even when musicians appear with just an acoustic guitar it’s considered a bit of a novelty (remember MTV’s show Unplugged?). But, in my mind, the less adorned the music is, the more real and true it is. The same thing can happen with stories and ideas. The same way that a song can consist of just drums and vocals, a story can just be words on a screen. Songs can still be songs, even without guitars; and novels can still be novels, even without pages.

A colleague and fellow writer recently sent me a number of passages from The Stone Gods, Jeanette Winterson’s recent novel. The book has a section set in a futuristic, post-apocalyptic (and post-print) world. In fact, the quotes below remind me very much of Bradbury’s dystopian classic Fahrenheit 451.

From The Stone Gods, page 49:

“We were flying in a strange part of the sky,” said Handsome, “and we thought we’d hit a meteorite shower, ship spinning like a windsock in a gale. I took a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree shot of the ship, and I saw that what we were flying through was a bookstorm–encyclopedias, dictionaries, a Uniform Edition of the Romantic poets, the complete works of Shakespeare.”

From The Stone Gods, page 162:

Books had been lost like everything else in the War, and Post-3 War we hadn’t returned to print media. Natural wastage was the economic argument: why go back to something that was on the way out anyway? You can order books from Print on Demand, but most people use Digital Readers now, or don’t read at all. The younger kids have never known book culture so they don’t miss it.

From The Stone Gods, page 164:

I had been in the British Library, researching the history of artificial intelligence. It was the books that saved my life. As the building collapsed I fell on to a raft of books, and stacks of books fell on to me, knocking me unconscious but casing me from further damage. I came round, pushed myself out of the mountain of books, and started to walk home through the blasted streets, in shock, aware, somewhere, that people were running and screaming, and that everywhere, like one of those archive films of detonated demolitions, buildings were falling.

I think these are great quotes, and the predictions feel very real given all that we’re going through right now.

I was in Los Angeles a few weeks ago for BEA, and during a day off as I was driving around the city I couldn’t help but notice some pretty big changes. It’s been over a decade since I lived there; I moved to LA in 1989 and moved away in early 1997. In the intervening years I lived in the Fairfax, Larchmont Village and Silverlake sections of the city (to this day I miss my phone number with the 666 prefix). And since — during those years — I was a rabid music fan, the biggest change I noticed as I drove down Sunset Boulevard was the empty building where Tower Records used to be. Tower, of course, was one of the biggest record store chains in the country, and the fact that they’re all out of business — while iTunes, something that didn’t exist six years ago, is now a major player — shows just how much the music industry has changed.

In addition to Tower, I was upset to learn a few years ago that my favorite record store in Los Angeles, Aron’s, had also closed. While I had occasionally gone to Tower for music, Aron’s was where I really spent most of my time. Once a week I would wander its aisles for at least an hour, either perusing the used CDs to the left of the entrance or else checking out the new releases lined against the far wall opposite the front doors. I even remember when Aron’s, in the late ‘80s, used to be on Melrose in a much smaller location. But now it, too, is out of business. At the time of its closing, Aron’s management was placing blame on our digital age, saying that “People simply aren’t buying CDs like they used to; they’re downloading, burning their own CDs, or file-trading online.”

On my final day in California, I went with my brother to a movie at the Cinerama Dome (itself now part of a big complex called Arclight). While killing time before the film, we went across the street to Amoeba Records (which was the only record store I happened to see while in LA; the Music Plus that used to be on Fairfax is also — like Tower — closed and out of business). And while Amoeba seemed like a really great store — huge space, great selection — it’s pretty much off the beaten path for most music buyers. For instance, I asked my brother, while we were standing in line to buy something, “How does someone just pop in here to buy something?” He said he wasn’t sure; he only went there when he was killing time before a movie. We had parked at the garage for the theater, and on Sunset there are precious few parking spots. Aron’s, back in the day, only had a small and chaotic parking lot, but at least it was in an area where you could park on the street. But Amoeba is on one of the busiest streets in the city, and seems more like a tourist attraction than a record store. It probably has its own nearby parking garage, but shopping for records shouldn’t be like going to Disneyland; you shouldn’t have to remember in which lot you’ve parked just because you want the new Wedding Present CD.

Of course, as much as I lament these changes and the closing of those stores, I wonder how often — in this digital age — I would have visited Aron’s or Tower if I still lived in Los Angeles. For instance, when I first moved to New York in the late ‘90s I used to go to what I considered to be Manhattan’s equivalent to Aron’s: Other Music on Fourth Street (which itself used to be across the street from a Tower Records location). And while Other Music is still there, now that Amazon and iTunes exists, I never really go there. Why should I when I can instantly download stuff, or when even Amazon has stuff that I want, including semi-obscure stuff? There’s now no need to go across town to pay more for records at Other Music (not to mention I also don’t have to have one of their hipper-than-thou salespeople smirk at me for not buying vinyl). In fact, in talking about this similar phenomenon in the California book world, Chris Anderson said last year, ““A lot of our affection for bookstores is based on a romanticized notion. The fact that we’re not patronizing them speaks more loudly than our words.” So it’s behavior like mine that led to the demise of both Tower and Aron’s records, not to mention it’s the same behavior that is continuing the threaten bookstores across the country.

There’s an episode of the ‘80s sitcom classic Cheers where Sam, after selling the bar and having spent months trying desperately to get it back, opts instead to open a new bar. Sam decides on reopening a bar down on the waterfront that previously went out of business. After relating his idea to billionaire businessman Robin Colcord, Colcord asks what the difference will be between Sam’s new bar and the old bar, i.e. Why will his business be a success when the other one was a failure? Sam’s only reply is that, this time, it’ll be called “Sam’s Place.”

I thought of this when, earlier in the week, I read in The Los Angeles Times that the Brentwood location of the recently closed Duttons bookstore will be replaced with — wait for it — a bookstore. So what’s the difference between the stores? This time it’s called Diesel. However, the changes will be deeper than that. For instance, Duttons was “more regional,” while Diesel will be “neighborhood-oriented.” (Uh, if anyone can let me know the difference between these two, I’d appreciate it; for instance, is it that Steinbeck — being from California — is a regional writer, but a flier for guitar lessons posted to the bulletin board is more neighborhood oriented?).

Also, as the story states, “Diesel will have floor-to-ceiling shelves with a wide selection of books and a staff interested in ‘passionate engagement’ with customers.” And yet, from the photo above, taken from an earlier LA Times story about Duttons, it looks like the store already has pretty high shelves (not to mention that the Duttons staff was always smart and passionate). Frankly, I think the problem is larger than shelves and passion; the fact is that people spend less time at bookstores, and more time online. At any rate, I wish Diesel the best.

The Economist’s June 5th edition has an article entitled “Unbound,” which sounds fairly benign until you read the sub-headline: “Publishers worry as new technologies transform their industry.” Oh, and there’s also a grinning picture of Jeff Bezos with the caption “You’re all doomed!,” as if Bezos is attacking the publishing industry Jack Torrance-style, with his goofy grin about to break out into a fiendish sounding “Here’s Johnny!”

The article was spurred by Bezos’s recent appearance at Book Expo America. Having been in the audience for the Bezos speech, I can confirm firsthand that his appearance was indeed lukewarmly received. In fact, when he told the booksellers in the room that Scott McClellan’s new book, the Bush-bashing memoir What Happened, was sold out everywhere except as a Kindle eBook, it seemed like he was gloating rather than trying to relate to publishers that they need not have warehouses and physical stock in order to make money. The point that Bezos should have made was that people just wanted McClellan’s story, not the paper.

Anyway, after setting the stage (“Books have changed very little in half a millennium, but they may now be on the verge of going digital”), the Economist article touches upon the usual topics surrounding electronic books and print on demand technology, listing the effects they could have on the industry. And while most of it is standard stuff, I find the final couple of lines to be a bit disingenuous:

Publishing has only two indispensable participants: authors and readers. As with music, any technology that brings these two groups closer makes the whole industry more efficient—but hurts those who benefit from the distance between them.

The fact that I’m reading this article, on the Economist’s website, rather than the millions or so other stories that appear on the Web everyday is because the Economist is a brand that I trust. I simply don’t have time to chase down and read every scrap of content that’s out there, so I pick and choose from reputable sources. So if the Economist’s thesis were true (and it’s nothing we haven’t already heard over and over; remember when Stephen King tried to sell The Plant for a buck a branch?), and the only major parts of the publishing process were indeed “authors and readers,” then publishing would have been put out of business a long time ago. eBooks have existed for over ten years, and vanity presses have been willing to print a book by anyone who will pay them for much longer than that.

What I find most interesting about the Economist article is that, in the same issue, there’s an article entitled “Who needs paper?” But this one’s not about publishing or books. Instead, it’s about the travel industry. The full headline reads, “Airlines do away with paper tickets,” which is something I actually wrote about last September. Here’s the first few lines of the Economist article:

IT WILL not be long before paper tickets for a plane, train or bus seem as quaint as propellers, steam and conductors do today. Electronic travel passes are already widespread in many cities.

And, of course, with the headline “Who needs paper?” you could imagine that the article would be about books, probably reading something like:

IT WILL not be long before paper novels for fiction, non-fiction or reference material seem as quaint as propellers, steam and conductors do today. Electronic content devices are already widespread in many cities.

And yet, in either one of those stories — whether you’re writing about traveling or reading — the fact that paper is going away isn’t having an adverse effect on the thing itself: people are still traveling, despite not having paper tickets. And people will continue to read, even when paper formats begin to go away.

This week on the the website Red Room, writer Naomi Bock has posted the first of what’s planned to be a two-part article entitled “The Future of the Book.” That this article is appearing on Red Room (a site whose tagline is ”Where the writers are”) makes perfect sense; more and more authors are heading online, so it’s a great place to discuss and debate whether or not books are similarly Internet-bound. Indeed, as Bock writes in her opening paragraph: “But just as digital literary endeavors like [Red Room] gain momentum, print reading is said to be losing its mass appeal, considered less a cherished pastime and more an activity of the past. What could be the future of the book?”

I’m quoted a few times in the article, both from Print is Dead and an e–mail exchange I had with Naomi a few weeks ago. Here’s a bit of the article where I’m mentioned:

Interestingly, [Gomez] acknowledges that more people have been buying his book in print rather than e-reading it, and he himself hasn’t yet made the switch either (although he does all his periodical reading online). He’s “not a fan of existing eBook devices” and, like most, finds it too much of a strain reading long-form on a traditional computer screen. He recognizes the irony of this. He also devotes a chapter of the book to explaining the late ‘90s e-book revolution that wasn’t, and why he thinks the time is finally ripe: Society wasn’t as wired (and wireless) then as it is now. The digital music revolution and its ubiquitous devices have set the stage, and just as other arts are following suit, literature must also do or die. If the e-reader market has yet to offer a truly “great device” in his opinion, he expects to see it in the next two or three years.

“When it comes, I look forward to reading The Great Gatsby on a screen; I’m convinced it’ll still be a great book.”

It’s an interesting and well-written article, so take a look if you have a chance. Part Two of the article will appear over the weekend.

There’s a Seinfeld episode where Kramer goes to his local firehouse and offers the station chief a bunch of neighborhood shortcuts that will enable the firefighters to get to fires faster. However, the fire chief brushes Kramer off by telling him that “just about every week some brash young hothead like yourself saunters in here talking about faster routes and snazzier colors for the trucks. Well, fact is we feel things are fine the way they are.“

We’re of course we’re supposed to be rooting for Kramer. After all, what institution couldn’t use a little help and/or advice? And the shocked look that Kramer gives the fire chief is something we’ve all probably felt at least once when we had a great idea that we felt wasn’t appreciated. But later in the episode, when Kramer “helps” drive the fire engine on the way to a fire after he mistakenly knocks out a fire fighter, he ends up causing the fire engine to crash. Meanwhile, the building they were all on the way to save ends up burning down (all of which just goes to show that good directions don’t count as much as not crashing).

I thought of all of this when I saw a short article by Henry Blodget from last week that appeared on the website Silicon Alley Insider. Entitled, “How to Save the Book Publishing Industry,” Blodget’s glib advice is short and sweet. “How can publishers fix their business?” he asks. “Not by killing more trees. By radically retooling the business model.”

And what’s Blodget’s radical (if not just plain rad) advice? Charging less for eBooks. A lot less:

$4.99 for a first run bestseller, downloadable to your Kindle, PC, or iPod — or simply readable on the Internet. The retailer keeps $1 or so, the author gets $1 or so, and the publisher takes home about $3. Some of that goes to marketing and some to overhead. And then you’re left with the typical publisher profit of less than $1 (no returns, manufacturing, or distribution costs).

As many others have already stated in their reaction to the piece, this is nothing we generally haven’t heard repeatedly since, oh, the late ‘90s. In addition, the always-smart Tim O’Reilly posted two comments on the Silicon Alley Insider website that make great sense, and hopefully will school Blodget a bit, including: “Overall, your figures seem completely imaginary. Seems to me that you picked numbers out of a hat to fit your argument, rather than figuring out real numbers and real implications.”

But this all just goes to show what publishers are up against. I mean, do people really think — in the face of enormously changing consumer habits and online trends — that it’s that simple? The fact is, many people do indeed think it’s as easy as just slashing prices. To go back to the Seinfeld episode mentioned earlier, Blodget’s idea is just about as helpful as Kramer’s usually were. That’s not at all to say that “we feel things are fine the way they are.” Not by a long shot. But we need to have ideas that do something other than just leave us and our authors with drastically reduced revenue.

Paul McCartney was one thing, but in a move that surely must be one of the signs of our impending apocalypse, longtime New York noisemakers Sonic Youth have a new celebrity-curated CD compilation that’s being made available only at Starbucks locations (Pitchfork has the details). It goes on sale next week. And while I always suspected that the “youth” part of the band’s moniker would one day be just ironic, I don’t think I would have ever suspected that SY would make a move like this. This goes to show just how much things have changed. Next thing you know, Dunkin’ Donuts will be selling a Big Black compilation entitled Songs About Dunkin’.