Print is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age

Earlier this week eMusic.com, which bills itself as the “Number one site for independent music,” announced that it would begin selling audiobooks from its website. eMusic, which operates on a subscription basis and is second only to iTunes in the digital music space, started offering the titles yesterday, and they include major publishers and titles from some of the biggest names in publishing, including Random House and Penguin.

What’s an interesting wrinkle is that the audiobooks will be issued sans digital rights management, which means the files can be listened to on multiple devices and/or computers. While iTunes offers some music free of DRM (at a premium price), its audiobooks (made available through Audible) are always swaddled with DRM. Because of this, listeners are restricted in terms of how (and when) they can listen to the files. eMusic’s move to offer their audiobooks without these restrictions, I think, marks another blow to DRM in general and points towards a future where people will truly own the digital content that they buy.

Of course, what’s also really important is the fact that eMusic is trying to get people who usually listen to music to also listen to audiobooks. And despite the outcry of purists who heap disdain upon audiobooks, saying that listening to one is a less-rewarding experience than reading the original book, this is indeed an encouraging development. Because it not only gives eMusic more content to offer to its users, but it has the potential to open up an entire world to music buyers who now may only be experiencing words in the form of song lyrics.

To celebrate the announcement, eMusic last night held a party at the Angel Orensanz Foundation for the Arts in downtown New York. The party itself was a literary/musical combination that included performances by a couple of bands, not mention DJ J.G. Thirlwell (who was playing snippets of audiobooks over the music, which sounded very cool). In addition, Indecision author Benjamin Kunkel also put in an appearance, talking about his novel and then introducing one of the bands (who, in their sweaters, looked very much like Weezer).

And while writers have occasionally held the stage with musicians (from Lawrence Ferlinghetti reading at The Band’s final concert to The Magnetic Fields working with Lemony Snicket), now that everyone has an iPod and is downloading music (and increasingly eschewing print for electronic entertainment), the time seems right for there to be a real collaboration between these two art forms.

In fact, on the back of the party invitation, eMusic lists a few suggested pairings of books and music, offering a number of food/wine combos: Macbeth and McCartney, White Noise and The White Stripes, Leaves of Grass and Panda Bear, Metamorphosis and Max Roach, and the obligatory Moby Dick and Moby. (What, no Cement Garden and Pavement? Not to mention Steppenwolf and, well, Steppenwolf.) I mean, mixing the vocals of Destiny’s Child with the music of Nirvana is one thing, but getting Nirvana fans to read Chuck Palahniuk is something else (Bleach and Lullaby). Because, while print may be dead words themselves are still alive, and are always seeking either an eye or ear to take them in.

Over the weekend, the New York Times Magazine had a cover story by Lynn Hirschberg on music mogul Rick Rubin, the brilliant maverick producer who has been behind projects as diverse as the debut of the Beastie Boys and the comeback of Johnny Cash. His latest endeavor is the heading up Columbia Records, one of the most traditional record companies out there (and therefore — in this digital age — most in need of Rubin’s rehabilitation). The article has lots of great quotes about how the music industry has changed, and is still changing (as Rubin says, “Well, the world has changed. And the [recording] industry has not”) and I think that parallels abound when thinking about publishing being yet another industry going through immense changes. As I’ve written before, I think we can learn a lot from witnessing what music’s going through, as well as learning from its mistakes.

When putting Columbia in perspective alongside the other labels, Rubin is predictably blunt. “Columbia is stuck in the dark ages,” he says. “I have great confidence that we will have the best record company in the industry, but the reality is, in today’s world, we might have the best dinosaur. Until a new model is agreed upon and rolling, we can be the best at the existing paradigm, but until the paradigm shifts, it’s going to be a declining business. This model is done.”

I think many publishers have a similar view, and instead of trying to transform themselves into something new — and instead of realizing that the current model may be “done” — they’re trying to be the “best dinosaur” out there by eluding evolution and sticking it out the longest. In fact, the worst thing for some of these companies is that they will indeed survive by doing what they’re doing, because by that point they’ll be so inoculated against change that they’ll forever stay the same.

In terms of the music industry’s broken business model, Rubin thinks he has the answer: paid subscription. “You’d pay, say, $19.95 a month, and the music will come anywhere you’d like,” says Rubin. “In this new world, there will be a virtual library that will be accessible from your car, from your cellphone, from your computer, from your television. Anywhere. The iPod will be obsolete, but there would be a Walkman-like device you could plug into speakers at home. You’ll say, ‘Today I want to listen to … Simon and Garfunkel,’ and there they are. The service can have demos, bootlegs, concerts, whatever context the artist wants to put out. And once that model is put into place, the industry will grow 10 times the size it is now.” In thinking of that idea, imagine if that were a library of books instead of songs; any book in the world could be instantly available on a variety of screens and devices, at any time. This would lead to more reading, and not less, the same way the iPod has been tremendous for music (but not so much for the music industry).

Of course, whether or not this will work for music (let alone publishing) remains to be seen, but I think it’s great that Rubin and others (Doug Morris and Jimmy Iovine at Universal are also reportedly behind the paid subscription plan) are trying to come up with ways to save their industry. If not, the record labels will follow the record retailers, like Tower, right off the edge of the cliff. And if publishers don’t similarly start trying to think of new business models and strategies, it could one day face a cliff of its own.

Paul La Monica, writing on the CNNMoney site last week had an article entitled “Disney tries to save the CD,” which was about Disney’s recent debut of a new compact disc format which they’re wishing upon a falling star will reverse the current downward trend of CD sales. As La Monica puts it, “The once mighty compact disc is slowly but surely on its way toward joining the cassette, 8-track and vinyl LP on top of the music format scrap heap.” And even those in the industry realize this; last year UK EMI chairman Alan Levy declared that “the CD is dead.” But now Disney’s trying to bring it back to life. How? By introducing yet another CD format. Named CDVU+ (“pronounced CD view plus,” not that I think consumers will really be asking for it), Disney’s Hollywood records is debuting the new disc on an upcoming CD from boy-band The Jonas Brothers. But what’s the difference between the CDVU+ and regular CDs? According to La Monica, “The CD will launch a digital magazine that features loads of exclusive content. Disney worked with Zinio, a company that helps magazine and book publishers deliver content online, to launch this service. The CDVU+ will also allow Jonas Brothers fans to check out videos and photos, get song lyrics and create posters.” What’s really silly about this is that fans of bands and music already have the capacity to “check out videos and photos, get song lyrics and create posters”; it’s called the Internet.

Of course, what Disney’s probably going to do is make a lot of the content made available on the CDVU+ exclusive, so you have to buy the disc to experience it, which is probably the dumbest thing they could do. Why lock a video or some song lyrics onto a proprietary format CD when you could put it on YouTube or your own website and have nearly anyone in the world discover your band (and brand)? In terms of new bands and music, people will probably buy CDVU+ discs if they like the band and that’s all that’s available to them. But in those cases, they won’t be choosing CDVU+ per se, they’ll be choosing the music itself. For instance, I plan on buying the new Flaming Lips concert movie At The Zoo - The Legendary Concert In Oklahoma City, which is being released in the new CD MVI format (which is kind of a cross between a CD and DVD). But the only reason I’m buying it is because I want the content. Faced with another choice in terms of something less expensive or that I was more technically comfortable with, I’d take it. So I think that the CDVU+ will be a short term novelty, not unlike the Dual Disc which is a CD on one side and a DVD on the other side, or the Super Audio CD (SACD) which is basically the same thing. Because the more formats and standards that exist the more complicated it’s going to be for consumers, who increasingly face of all of these choices with wariness. It reminds me of the line in a Charles Bukowski poem about Van Gogh, where he writes,”Van, whores don’t want ears, they want money.” The music business should — by now — realize that consumers don’t want new formats of CDs, they want music.

Rolling Stone recently had a two part article by Brian Hiatt and Evan Serpic entitled “The Record Industry’s Decline.” Subtitled, “Record sales are tanking, and there’s no hope in sight: How it all went wrong,” you can pretty much figure out what the article’s about. For instance, here’s how Hiatt and Serpic set the stage: “Overall CD sales have plummeted sixteen percent for the year so far — and that’s after seven years of near-constant erosion. In the face of widespread piracy, consumers’ growing preference for low-profit-margin digital singles over albums, and other woes, the record business has plunged into a historic decline.” The story is packed with a number of depressing facts and figures about the industry (“more than 5,000 record-company employees have been laid off since 2000,” “about 2,700 record stores have closed across the country since 2003”), and also features some insightful quotes from industry leaders:

The major labels are struggling to reinvent their business models, even as some wonder whether it’s too late. “The record business is over,” says music attorney Peter Paterno, who represents Metallica and Dr. Dre. “The labels have wonderful assets — they just can’t make any money off them.” One senior music-industry source who requested anonymity went further: “Here we have a business that’s dying. There won’t be any major labels pretty soon.”

And what’s the cause of industry’s death? The Internet, of course. Write Hiatt and Serpic: “The Internet appears to be the most consequential technological shift for the business of selling music since the 1920s, when phonograph records replaced sheet music as the industry’s profit center.” But while the Internet may be the cause, the real culprit is the industry itself. “While there are factors outside of the labels’ control — from the rise of the Internet to the popularity of video games and DVDs — many in the industry see the last seven years as a series of botched opportunities.” Hiatt and Serpic contend that the Internet didn’t kill the music industry, but rather the music industry’s botched reaction to the online revolution slit its own throat. And it may be too late to recover.

This makes me think of the Seinfeld episode where George pledges to do the exact opposite of his natural inclination (since his normal behavior only leads to distress and ruin). Because I kind of think publishing should do the same thing. Or rather, we should look at what the music industry did, and do the opposite. Insist nothing is wrong and stick to our usual business model? Swaddle our material in layers of prohibitive DRM? Relentlessly sue people who try and spread the word of our product by sharing it with others? Stick with a physical product and shun electronic delivery? Instead, we should look at what these decisions have meant for the music industry, and simply do the opposite. In George’s case, this new behavior gets him a job with the New York Yankees, a lifelong dream. In the case of publishing, it might just stop the rolling stone — starting to head downhill — dead in its tracks.

Last week I was at Academy Records on 18th street shopping for used CDs (which is how I buy most of my music; sooner or later, Academy gets every CD that I’m looking for), when I saw a big blond guy with dreadlocks. He was wearing shorts and a sleeveless shirt (it was hot out), which meant I could easily view the many tattoos he had snaking up and down his arms and legs. On his left calf I noticed he had a full-color tattoo of the record cover to Kiss’s 1976 LP “Rock and Roll Over.” This made me grin since that was the first record I ever owned; my aunt Carmen gave it to me as a Christmas present. To this day I still cherish the memory of that scratchy vinyl record, the stickers that it came with (which promptly went on the seat of my bike), and of course the songs (“They call me doctor love…”). But that was then, and this is now. Back then, when people were given records they put them in collections, took care of them, and kept them for years. Now, with most people listening to music digitally, physical formats are increasingly being seen as dispensable, disposal objects. Records used to be like handkerchiefs, which men would launder and use over and over again. Today, CDs are more like Kleenex, which people load into their iPods and then toss like a used tissue.

Writing about this in the New York Times over the weekend, in an article entitled “The Ballad of the Spurned CD,” Brooke Hauser writes “While some iPod owners are selling their albums to iPod-challenged friends and neighbors, others are simply dumping entire collections on the sidewalk. Either way, it’s almost impossible to walk down the street without tripping over the city’s aural histories. Call it CD roadkill.” As the recent book burning in Kansas City shows, books are also not as cherished as either they used to be or we think them to be. But in terms of music, people are still listening to the songs; it’s just a matter of format. In terms of books, some people are bypassing the experience altogether, choosing to spend time on other things, like YouTube and Myspace. So in a few years it may not be stacks of CDs we see in the garbage as we walk down the street; instead, it will be piles of books waiting to be taken to the dump. But if we can make the information in books available digitally, we at least have a shot at getting people to read the words. If not, it could very well be, “Goodbye bookshelf, hello landfill.”

This past weekend marked the fortieth anniversary of The Beatles’s landmark Sgt. Peppers record. In its time, Sgt Peppers was a revolutionary work of art, pioneering not only in the field of songwriting and recording, but in design and packaging as well; it had an impact not only on what recorded music sounded like, but also what it looked like. And today, four decades later, Paul McCartney is releasing a new record, and how he’s doing it shows just how much things have changed in the last four decades.

When Sgt. Peppers first appeared, it came stamped on vinyl, and was housed in a glorious gatefold cardboard sleeve that included a sheet of cut-out illustrated military insignias, and it could be bought only in stores. But today, McCartney’s newest record, Memory Almost Full, can be bought online from iTunes as a digital download. The songs come with no packaging and no disc (vinyl or compact). Instead what you get are computer files of the music, and a digital booklet (meaning, really, a PDF file). Of course, there’s also a physical copy for those who want it, but in addition to being sold in stores, it will also be sold in every Starbucks location. Yes, that’s right; you can get your grande caramel macchiato, a banana nut muffin, and also Paul McCartney’s latest record.

Forty years ago the Beatles released Sgt. Peppers on EMI, one of the largest record labels in the world. But for Memory Almost Full McCartney signed a deal with Hear Music, the boutique record label started by Starbucks. As McCartney said in a New York Times article over the weekend, “The major record labels are having major problems. They’re a little puzzled as to what’s happening. And I sympathize with them. But as [music producer] David Kahne said to me about a year ago, the major labels these days are like the dinosaurs sitting around discussing the asteroid.”

The coffee giant is marking the record’s release with a “global listening event.” Every Starbucks location (10,000 stores in 29 countries) will be playing the record around the clock.

McCartney also bypassed music video channels (if any of them still exist) by releasing the first video on YouTube. Meanwhile, the satellite radio station XM will heavily promote the record upon its release, alleviating the need by McCartney or his label to rely on radio stations for airplay. All of this shows how much things have changed in the music industry, and points the way for publishers to begin thinking about their own artists and products. We can either be “fools on the hill,” or else we can embrace change and remain relevant in a digitlal age.

NY Times: Still Needing, Still Feeding the Muse at 64

The New York Times on Monday had an article entitled “Plunge in CD Sales Shakes Up Big Labels,” talking about how the continued dip in the music industry is rearranging the landscape of music, and there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight: “Despite costly efforts to build buzz around new talent and thwart piracy, CD sales have plunged more than 20 percent this year, far outweighing any gains made by digital sales at iTunes and similar services.”

The article also shows that even the genres that used to sell well, are now in trouble: “Sales of rap, which had provided the industry with a lifeboat in recent years, fell far more than the overall market last year with a drop of almost 21 percent, according to Nielsen SoundScan.”

Also mentioned is that the industry, desperately seeking some revenue, is willing more than ever to peel back the DRM restrictions that have hindered digital sales. But others aren’t sure if even this is the answer: “Some music executives say that dropping copy-restriction software, also known as digital-rights management, would stoke business at iTunes’ competitors and generate a surge in sales. Others predict it would have little impact, though they add that the labels squandered years on failed attempts to restrict digital music instead of converting more fans into paying consumers.”

Idolator, the irreverent music blog, reporting on the same article had a, well, irreverent take on this. Yet I thought that their sarcasm had more than a little truth to it:

“Here’s another way to weather the storm, and while we’ve said this before, it bears repeating: Everyone in the industry has to get used to making less money. That goes from the execs at the top all the way down to the EAs at Rolling Stone. You can’t live like it’s 1985 anymore, with those Rumours and Thriller accounting statements coming over the Telex, and with the only competition for young kids’ dollars being the Pac-Man machine down the street. If everyone could get used to this concept, maybe there’d be less panicking about lower physical-CD sales and piracy, and more emphasis on A&R and talent.”

While publishing is not yet in a comparable situation in terms of sales, books now have much more competition than they used to. And I also think that how stubborn the record industry has been — and how badly this attitude has served them — should be an example to us in publishing because we’re going to have to, at some point, similarly change. We need to be ready to change not just ourselves, our products, and our various business models, but we also need to change our expectations. And, in a way, that might be the most difficult thing of all.

NY Times: Plunge in CD Sales Shakes Up Big Labels

Yesterday Amazon announced that it would, later this year, open up a music download store where MP3 files would be sold without any digital rights management (also known as DRM). This would enable the files to be listened to on virtually any electronic device: iPods, computers, laptops, even cell phones (more and more I’m seeing people with headphones on, bopping up and down to music, but the headphones are plugged into a Razr and not an iPod). This is a pretty big deal, and while EMI announced a few weeks ago that it would be the first label to agree to sell its music without DRM, Amazon is the first retailer (of this size) to open a digital store where everything is sold sans DRM.

As reported in The New York Times: “The move could be another step toward the demise of the copy-protection systems that have frustrated some online music buyers and created confusion about compatibility between digital players and downloaded songs. Critics charge that the software has slowed the public embrace of legal digital downloads while failing to stop illicit copying, at a time when the music industry is desperate for ways to make up for declining CD sales.”

The CD, as has been reported on this blog and elsewhere, is dead; digital downloads could be the thing that saves the music industry. However, all downloads are not created the same. With songs swaddled in DRM, consumers can only play them on certain devices. But to have them be unencrypted means that consumers will truly own the music that they buy, and will be able to do whatever they want with it. And in terms of piracy concerns, to repeat Tim O’Reilly’s quote (which I seem to do every six weeks or so), “Piracy is not the enemy, obscurity is.” With all of the competition that music now faces in terms of the amount of attention consumers have to spare — due to the rise of Myspace, Youtube, blogs, RSS and podcasts — the trick is getting them interested in music in the first place. And if this is a success (for Amazon, consumers, and the music business) this could lead to the disappearance of DRM for movies, TV shows, and even books, that are distributed and delivered digitally.

NY Times: Amazon to Sell Music Without Copy Protection

Clive Thompson, writing in The New York Times over the weekend, had a great article entitled “Sex, Drugs and Updating Your Blog.” The article talked about a new breed of music performers who have built huge fan bases (as well as modestly successful careers) by releasing their work on the Internet, in addition to keeping up with fans through blogs and encouraging them to become part of the experience by interacting with the music this new breed of musician creates. Thompson labels this new kind of entertainer “Artist 2.0.” Gone is the recluse, the moody dilettante who has no interaction with his or her fans; in a digital world musicians, and to a lesser degree filmmakers and writers, rely on their fans to not only buy their work, but also to offer advice, cover their songs, make their videos, and help them even book their tours and be a part of their live shows.

“In the past — way back in the mid-’90s, say — artists had only occasional contact with their fans,” writes Thompson. “If a musician was feeling friendly, he might greet a few audience members at the bar after a show. Then the Internet swept in. Now fans think nothing of sending an e-mail message to their favorite singer — and they actually expect a personal reply.”

In the seventies, as a young kid living in the California suburbs, I was a huge fan of the rock band Kiss. Kiss was one of the first bands to actively cultivate a rabid following of fans who flocked to their shows and bought their records. Labeled the “Kiss Army,” these legions of fans would apply make-up to their face before the shows, and knew all the words to Kiss songs by heart. And every Kiss record came with an insert which sold paraphernalia to the Kiss Army acolytes: t-shirts, headbands, patches, buttons, jackets, etc. The army had a uniform, but that was about it. The Kiss Army was all about consumerism and buying products; being, well, a member in an army and just another soldier blending into the crowd. (I myself was a proud member of Kiss Army, and despite this I never got closer to Kiss than an album cover.) Whereas today, the Internet is actually allowing interaction with musicians; fans aren’t just part of the act, they’re crucial to the act being there in the first place.

“This is not merely an illusion of intimacy,” writes Thompson. “Performing artists these days, particularly new or struggling musicians, are increasingly eager, even desperate, to master the new social rules of Internet fame. They know many young fans aren’t hearing about bands from MTV or magazines anymore; fame can come instead through viral word-of-mouth, when a friend forwards a Web-site address, swaps an MP3, e-mails a link to a fan blog or posts a cellphone concert video on YouTube.”

All of this goes a long way toward answering the recent question that has come up increasingly in the debate over the loss of book reviews: where will readers hear about new books if they can’t read a review? Well, they’ll hear about them the way a whole new generation is hearing about music: online. And not only that, but this new era will allow for more interaction between readers and authors. Because of this, the Internet will foster more literacy, not less. And while print may indeed be dead — with laptops and a wireless connection, who needs books? — writers and readers will be very much alive.

The New York Times: Sex, Drugs and Updating Your Blog

Apple announced this week that it has sold 100 million iPods, its MP3 player that came on the market back in 2001. What’s amazing about this is that, at the time the iPod was launched, there were already numerous MP3 players in existence, none of which managed to capture either the share of the market nor the collective imagination of consumers. But Apple’s ingenious design, as well as its iTunes software interface, have made it a must-own item for more than half a decade. And what’s also amazing is that something that started within a very select group (early adopting Mac owners, once only a tiny community) is now nearly ubiquitous (both the president of the United States and the Pope own iPods). But this is much more than just a great gadget; the iPod has also shuffled the music business — directly leading to the death of the CD and, to a lesser degree, the format of the long-playing album — and the iPod’s success means both big trouble and tremendous opportunity for other entertainment industries.

As reported by MSNBC, the success of the iPod and iTunes will have far-reaching consequences, not only in music but for almost every entertainment medium: “‘It’s pretty clear to me, as to most people who have watched it, that the record label business is just the canary in the coal mine,’ said Phil Leigh, an analyst with Inside Digital Media who has followed the digital music business for years. ‘The Hollywood studios and the TV production companies — they need to pay attention because their businesses are going to change just as rapidly, and they need to adapt.’” And so what has happened in terms of the death of the CD could also lead to the end of various other entertainment formats and business models. “As downloading television and movies becomes more popular, Leigh expects those industries to have to grapple with the same major changes,” according to MSNBC. “That could mean job cuts, changes in product lineups or any number of other moves.” The success of the iPod will also have an impact on publishing and the “print is dead” debate. Of course, whether publishing will have its own iPod moment, with a singular, killer device drastically changing the playing field, remains to be seen. But there’s no longer any doubt that these changes are coming.

An Apple milestone: 100 million iPods sold