Print is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age

Last week Apple introduced its newest iteration of the iPhone, the 3G, and people around the world lined up outside stores (sometimes overnight) to be one of the first ones to get it. Now, while this has become routine (people have been known to join a line outside of an Apple store without really knowing what they’re getting in line for), this is still a pretty remarkable event. I mean, people getting in line for a phone? It used to be that people bought a new phone every ten years, choosing to wait online for things like Springsteen tickets. Not anymore.

And yet, as someone who works in publishing I couldn’t help but be jealous last Friday morning as I passed a bunch of people lined up outside of a Sprint store waiting for their iPhones. After all, when’s the last time someone camped out all night to buy a book? Sure, people lined up for the Harry Potter books, but in those instances they were craving the the next installment of Harry’s story; that it just so happened to come in book form — towards the end of the franchise — was almost a beside the point.

But when’s the last time you — if you ever have — saw someone dressed up as a book itself? When’s the last time someone posed as a dust jacket rather than as a figure posing on a dust jacket? Of course, this doesn’t happen. Why? Because people don’t love books themselves; rather, they love the characters and worlds found inside of books. So despite all of the talk of books being amazing technological devices, you never see people waiting outside all night in order to buy a blank one.

Photo from Gizmodo