Print is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age

Last week I wrote about my experiences at the recent Video Games Live concert, and how the interactivity I saw in the video game footage, not to mention the reaction of the crowd at the mere mention of the names of some of these games, presaged — in my mind, anyway — the death of the novel. Well, after last week’s release of the ultra-successful game franchise Grand Theft Auto, I can’t help but continue to think that, for at least a certain generation, books are on the way out and these new, hyper-realistic and interactive games are in (and are here to stay). According to an article last week in The New York Times, “The [Grand Theft Auto] release is expected to be one of the biggest video game debuts ever, extending a franchise that has already sold 70 million copies since its arrival in 1997.”

But wait; there’s more:

But customers’ intense desire for video games extends beyond Grand Theft Auto. Despite pressure on consumers’ entertainment budgets, they keep spending more money on games. Over all, the industry is having a banner year. Software sales were up 63 percent in March compared with March 2007, according to NPD Group, which tracks sales. Equipment sales were up 46 percent over the same period.

“People say that if consumers are down to their last $50, the last three things they’ll buy are milk, eggs and video games,” said Colin Sebastian, a video game industry analyst with Lazard Capital Markets.

When’s the last time you heard people talk like that about books? Well, specifically, it was last July, when the final book in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series came out. But that was almost a year ago, and no more Potter books are set to appear. In fact, she’s finally off the bestseller list for the first time in a decade. And yet, whereas studies have shown that — despite the phenomenal interest in and success of the Potter books — literacy rates among children have continued to decline, the success of games like Grand Theft Auto are a gateway to the playing of yet more games (and probably the reading of even fewer books). Potter may not lead to Pynchon, but Auto certainly leads to Halo. You can argue about whether or not this is good for society, but you can’t deny that it’s a trend that shows no sign of reversing itself.

Last week I read a book called Bowie in Berlin, which was all about the three records that David Bowie made in the late ‘70s with Brian Eno and Tony Visconti in Germany. It was a really good book, and it was basically 300 pages devoted to just three of Bowie’s albums, with each record getting a track-by-track dissection along with commentary and historical background. I love this sort of thing about bands, directors, etc.

Whenever I get into an author I read all of their books, a few biographies, and then watch any documentaries about them and/or movies based on their work. All of this gives me a great context from which to view the author’s work, and it puts both the books and the author’s life into historical and literary perspective. And yet, if mega-successful Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling gets her way, I can’t help but thinking that this kind of a thing will come to an end. Why?

Because this week she’s in town to testify against tiny RDR Books, trying to stop the small independent publisher from issuing an encyclopedia of her Harry Potter characters and world. And if she, along with Warner Bros. (the film studio who owns the rights to the Harry Potter films), is victorious in shutting down RDR, it could have chilling consequences. According to The New York Times, “Legal analysts say the outcome of the case could set a crucial precedent in the literary world, one that determines the extent to which fans can use and build upon the works of their favorite authors.”

This doesn’t make any sense. No one is going to read the encyclopedia rather than Rowling’s books; the book that RDR is trying to publish will be a celebration of Rowling’s ideas, not the theft of them. But Rowling doesn’t see it this way, and she’s now doing everything she can to stop publication. All of this also begs a bigger question: Whose books are they anyway?

I’ve always thought of my own books as children and, when they’re published, they turn eighteen and leave the house (and my protection) and thus begin a life of their own. I wish them well, and hope they don’t get into trouble, but of course if they do there’s nothing I can do about it.

For instance, for right or wrong J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye has become somewhat of a magnet for strange people (Mark David Chapman had a well-thumbed copy on him when he murdered John Lennon; in fact, it’s become a bit of a cliché to say that the book is in the hip pocket of every would-be assassin). But the fact that the book was in Chapman’s hands is surely out of Salinger’s hands; when any author elects to publish their work, it’s like releasing smoke into the air: there’s no way to control or contain where it goes.

True, it’s a different story when someone is using your exact words, repackaging them for their own profit. But if what’s being written about is instead your world, then that’s not only fair game (and fair use), but it’s good thing and not a bad thing. In Rowling’s case, her books are going to sell no matter what. But if she’s allowed to succeed in stopping RDR, think about all of the books about books (not to mention books about movies and plays and music) that won’t get written as a result. Bands could protest books being written about their songs, and directors could claim infringement when books about their movies appear. Part of the pleasure, and indeed the understanding, of art comes from putting it into context and perspective — not to mention just plain celebrating it — but if Rowling has her way nothing would exist but the works themselves.

But Rowling isn’t thinking of her fans; she’s only thinking of herself:

“My prime concern, if not my only concern,” she added later, “is these characters who have meant so much to me and continue to mean so much to me over a very long period of time. It’s very difficult for someone who is not a writer to understand.”

She should instead try and look at it from the point of view of a reader (if not a fan). People — including RDR — are doing this because they love the characters; not because they hate or want to hurt them. And what’s most funny or ironic (or just plain sad) about all this is that Rowling and Warner Bros. have in recent years slapped Harry Potter’s name all over almost every kind of memorabilia (I’m waiting for the Harry Potter calculator that comes with no seven or eight). And now she minds someone putting Harry Potter’s name on a book?

The New York Times, along with a few other places, is reporting that the new, and last, Harry Potter novel is already beginning to surface on the Web. Writes Motoko Rich in yesterday’s Times, “Photos of what appeared to be every page of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the breathlessly awaited seventh and final installment in the wildly popular series by J.K. Rowling, were circulating around the Web today, potentially upsetting the most elaborate marketing machine ever mobilized for a book.” And this is just the beginning; right now you have lo-fi photographs of pages on Photobucket. By Sunday the entire text will be online thanks to the efforts of a very motivated group of readers who want to read and share the book electronically and, because there’s no official eBooks version, they have to create their own. (The same way they’ve done in the past with the other books.)

True, this is one of the most anticipated books of all time, but you don’t see people going out and recording their own audio editions, or trying to steal the typesetting files and pressing their own books. That’s because the Potter book will indeed be made available via print and audio. But because of Rowling’s obstinate refusal to have any of the Potter books produced digitally, she’s practically egging on hackers and would-be pirates, daring them to make eBooks out of her pBooks. She does all of this because she’s a fervent lover of books, but these days it’s getting impossible to be a lover of books but be against piracy, since this is all about the “attention economy.” Because if people want to read this book electronically, they’re going to do so; the only thing Rowling is doing by restricting access to eBooks — in what I feel is a misguided paean to Gutenberg — is making sure that all digital reading of her book will be done illegally. Crime may be a disease, but in this instance an official, Scholastic-sanctioned eBook would be the cure.

Among all of the recent Harry-Potter-isn’t–leading-to-more-reading stories, Heidi Benson of the San Francisco Chronicle had one over the weekend entitled “Kids reading fewer books despite Harry Potter hoopla.” Benson leads off with the typical kind of stuff, referring to the upcoming NEA study which will show that kids aren’t reading after Harry: “Despite what has been dubbed the ‘Harry Potter Effect’ — which credits J.K. Rowling’s blockbuster book series with turning Game Boy addicts into lifelong readers — reading is in serious decline among teens nationwide, according to a forthcoming federal study.” She also talks to NEA chairman Dana Gioia, who says that “The power of the electronic, commercial entertainment media seems to be taking teenagers away from reading.”

This is interesting because, in the 2004 NEA report, Reading at Risk, Gioia and the NEA was more circumspect in where the readers were actually going. At that time, the NEA concluded that “Literature [in 2004] competes with an enormous array of electronic media. While no single activity is responsible for the decline of reading, the cumulative presence and availability of these alternatives have increasingly drawn Americans away from reading.” Three years after the last study, it seems that Gioia is drawing a clear line between the rise of the Internet and the decline of reading.

What’s also interesting is what Stanford education professor Michael Kamil has to say on the subject of kids spending their time online: “You have to be careful when you say kids are reading less. It doesn’t mean they are incapable of reading. It means they choose to do other things instead.” This is of course key, and should not be undervalued. Because while a lot of time online is spent being passive, watching stuff on Youtube, etc. much more of it is spent interactively, reading and contributing to blogs and social networking sites, discovering and engaging all kinds of content.

Kamil is also the chairman of the National Assessment Governing Board, described by Benson as “a group charged with updating the way reading is judged by the federal government.” The Board has defined three different contexts of reading: reading for literary experience, reading for information, and reading to perform a task. According to Benson’s article, “Kamil believes that ‘reading for literary experience’ has been overemphasized and that today ‘reading for information’ is the most crucial skill.” So just because kids won’t be picking up those paperbacks of the “great classics” that nourished previous generations, all hope is not lost. However, in terms of publishers who have content they would like new generations to buy and consume, these new habits will have to be kept in mind. And because of this, maybe books of the future won’t look very much like books as they look today; maybe they’ll be more like blogs or videogames. A horrible thought for previous generations, I’m sure, but then again they’re not the ones the NEA is focusing on or worrying about. Besides, they’ll be able to keep their books. Meanwhile, we need to create a new format and reading experience for the kids who are already on their way to forgetting books.