The Darwinism of Books

It has become almost a tired argument the past three years that print books will suffer extinction. Pundits far wiser than I have expostulated that in this world of immediate gratification and three second attention, of rampant consumerism and the rule of the mob, that books — real, paper-filled and cover bound books — will see a demise in favour of digital information and literature.

Certainly that prediction is not without precedent. Just look at what happened to the music industry. I know in our home, vinyl was replaced with tapes (we skipped the whole 8-track blip), was replaced with CDs, was replaced with MP3s. Now our music library, instead of filling a wall of shelves, partially fills an iPod. Partially. And I’ve always thought we have a rather extensive music library. In fact, were we to play all our music non-stop it would take seven, 24 hour days to hear every tune once. And the whole library fits into a small stainless device that can easily slide into a pocket. Dick Tracy, you would have loved this.

The same thing is happening to movies and video. We collected VCR tapes, to be replaced with DVDs, now to be replaced with digital video, again, thanks to the iPod and docking stations that are now available on home theatre systems.

So, should it be a surprise, in a generation looking to down-size, minimize, maximize, streamline and render versatile their environment, that book sales should drop and digital book sales should soar? No. Yet it is a surprise. However, the only people to whom this is a surprise is my generation, that is, the middle-aged, the ones reluctant to admit that the reins of power have slipped from our hands and are now quite firmly in the grip of the generation we birthed, bred and set loose. They boldly go.

And as they go they’re challenging all our cherished, entrenched values and systems. They’re envisioning a world free of restrictions, of information for everyone, of communication at a fundamental, on-the-ground level that would have made some of the more radical philosophers of old cheer. I thick Thoreau would have stood in awe, idiot-grin firmly pasted on his face.

So, from this ivoried tower of middle-age, peering into that bright ball of the future, I’m seeing the possibility of the following:

Print books won’t die. No, this isn’t Lorina hanging onto an outdated, long-cherished notion. This is Lorina weighing the economic and cultural occurrences of the past few years and predicting that the superstars of books (I won’t say literature, because I am, I’m sorry to say, a literary snob) will continue to see their work in print, selling hundreds of thousands, even millions of copies to slavering, panting fans who are queueing, pre-ordering and anticipating the next release of some post-modern Gothic undead love-affair, or some secret cult almost truth expose thriller.

These authors, and their books, will continue to proliferate the shelves of the few existing stores because the publishers can justify the expense and distribution of these titles. For the mid-list and unknown authors, their books will be unlikely to see print except as a very few, cherished copies shared among loved ones and die-hard fans. These titles will proliferate the virtual shelves of digital books. They will sell. They won’t sell, for the most part, in the hundreds or even tens of thousands. But they will sell.

And the marketing for these books will be directed to a virtual audience. When people aren’t attending book signings of known names (information I’ve had from store managers for quite some time), it’s unlikely you’re going to convince a bookstore patron to stop and consider a book from an author they don’t know.

Because of that, online marketing will become crucial to the sales of digital books. Blog tours, podcasts, YouTube channels, reader reviews, social networking and the entire weight of a global Internet community will be the promotional arsenal not of tomorrow, but of today.

Yes, today. You see, this really isn’t a prediction of some distant future I’m making. It’s happening. I’m not really a visionary. I’m just reporting what I’m seeing happen and predicting what might happen in the coming weeks and months.

Print books will survive. Certainly I have enough faith in that to continue with plans to renovate that northeast room into a classic, cherry-wood room redolent with leather and awash in buttery light. But I’m also cognizant of the fact that it’s hardcover and leather bound classic and literary editions that are going to grace those shelves, and the bulk of our library (the genre-fixes and non-fiction reference) will morph into code that miraculously appears as words on a tablet about the size of something an ancient Roman scribe might have used.

As both an author and a publisher I’m comfortable with that. It means fewer trees die. It means less fuel is consumed. It means more information stored for less cost (both financially and environmentally) in less space, while allowing at least the possibility of elbow-room at the banquet table of publishing.