Don't Stop the Presses: Books Are Here To Stay

THE MASS PRINTED BOOK—The Mass Printed Book, 563, died prematurely of intense hyperbole yesterday. Beloved storytelling medium of the masses for generations, devoted giver of information, entertainment and reflection, and progenitor of countless  adoring media, The Mass Printed Book passed less-than-quietly, leaving behind a legacy of confusion in its wake. It will be missed.

The death of print has been reported for years now. But, while book stores continue to disappear, books themselves are still kicking. Even real books…made from the dying breath of countless trees.

But, whether print or digital, it really doesn’t matter. That’s just the medium, not the message (apologies to Marshall McLuhan). The important thing is that books themselves are doing just fine, thank you very much. People are still reading. A lot. And the book-publishing industry—while undergoing a massive make-over (hopefully with more dignity than the music industry has)—is, all-in-all, in pretty good shape.

According to Nielsen’s BookScan—a sales-monitoring service—Americans bought 751,729,000 books in 2010. So that’s a lot of books. In a 2009 report, Reading on the Rise , the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA)  reported a 21 percent increase in young adult readership, beginning in 2002 and continuing through 2008. Perhaps uncoincidentally, this is about the time that Harry Potter mania seized the world by both the bookstore and the movie theater.

Not only did Harry Potter boost young readership, it could be said that the series changed why children (okay…and not-so children too) read in the first place. Scholastic’s 2010 Kids & Family Reading Report, found that 43 percent of children ages 9-11 read books to open up the imagination, with 62 percent reading books “to be inspired by storylines and characters.”  Half of the 9-11 year-olds surveyed by said they read books to “help you figure out who you are and who you could become.”

Don’t get me wrong: the magical world of Harry Potter is both rich and addictive. But consider the marketing juggernaut that accompanied Harry Potter—video games, movies, countless fan sites, multimedia and collectibles. These are what helped to make it a mass phenomenon, a bold declaration that books weren’t just for nerds anymore. So the things that many decry as killing books could be the very things responsible for reading’s resurrection.

In January 2010, the Kaiser Family Foundation published a media habits study of 2,000 eight to eighteen year-old American children. The study found that the average time spent pleasure reading rose from 21 minutes a day in 1999 to 25 minutes in 2010. “It does not appear that time spent using screen media displaces time spent with print media,” the report stated.  In fact, the 2010 Kids & Family Reading Report found that one-third of kids, ages 9-17, said that they would read more books for fun if they had access to eBooks.

And it’s not just all about Harry. Next came A Series of Unfortunate Events , the head-scratchingly popular Twilight books—which traded magical empowerment for supernatural neediness—then the pragmatic dystopia of The Hunger Games .  This explosion of reading managed to also reignite old classics such as The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Hobbit , and The Chronicles of Narnia .

Not only are children reading more, but they are reading bigger . Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix , for instance, is six pages longer than Leo Tolstoy’s  Anna Karenina . Considering that most every young book these days arrives as a series or trilogy, children are reading an astounding amount of pages at a voracious pace (not taking into account a child’s uncanny ability to reread their favorites again and again and again…).

So books are not only “not dying,” they are inspiring a wholesale fanaticism, at least amongst children. These stories are like the rock music of a new generation, accompanying them on their journey through young adulthood.

In the 14th century, 80 percent of English adults couldn’t even spell their names. Now, nearly 294 million Americans (98 percent of the adult population) are considered literate and most children can read by the time they’re six or seven. Literacy rates are the highest they have ever been and show no sign of turning back. And higher literacy means more books will be read, regardless of format.

E-book sales still only represent only a small percentage of the overall book market, somewhere between 8% and 10% of sales. As an author, I can attest that my paltry royalty checks include an even paltrier subset of e-book sales, roughly true to the 8%-10% figure. Despite my reality, Amazon still attests that their e-book sales are larger than their paperback sales, which makes sense, as Amazon is principally an internet company and electronic delivery of text seals the instant-gratification deal.

The fears of print media’s ultimate demise, however, may not be unfounded and may even be somewhat inevitable. E-books do continue to grow in popularity, with e-readers and digital tablets becoming more and more commonplace and affordable. But should authors and publishers worry of digital piracy bringing down the industry? Well, there’s already a place where millions of people can legally read books they didn’t pay for anytime they want, with only a small percentage of monies making their way to authors. They’re called libraries.

Library cardholders are increasingly use their cards to access e-journals, online articles and databases instead of taking out printed material. A June 2010 report from the Institute of Museum and Library Services showed that per capita, overall library visitation is up 20 percent over the last ten years. And according to the American Library Association (ALA), 68 percent of American adults held a library card in 2009, the greatest number since the ALA began keeping track.

Why the popularity when anyone with Internet access can perform research or read virtually anything? Perhaps that’s the problem: the Internet is a sea of misinformation, and the public will always seek out credible sources—such as libraries and librarians—to help guide them to the reliable information and dependable entertainment they seek.

So while print media may indeed be on its death bed (with the world’s trees breathing a fragrant, pine-scented sigh of relief), as long as there are compelling stories and trusted digital gatekeepers, books themselves may very well live forever.