[Taylor, I pinkie-swear I won't write about Apple or Steve Jobs after this post for at least one month.]
I won’t go into detail about what happened at Macworld yesterday. I leave that to the multitude of other bloggers who are on the ground in San Francisco. But something was definitely in the air, and it was a pretty great event. If you want to catch Jobs’ keynote, see here.
In an interview with the New York Times following his presentation yesterday, Steve Jobs put in his word about several initiatives being undertaken by his competitors. He had this to say about the Amazon Kindle, the web commerce giant’s e-book reader that marks its first foray into physical products:
“It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore,” he said. “Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read anymore.”
I’m interested in your reactions to this. Is he right? Are books on the way out? Obviously not in the short term, but in the longer term?
I want to believe he’s wrong, but I’m guilty as charged. I read very few books for pleasure. I know that makes many of my friends and family sad, and even makes me sad, but that’s just the reality. I don’t avoid books on purpose, I just find my reading fulfillment online and in magazines. I wish I read more, and I often resolve to do so, but in the end I’m just not much of a pleasure reader. I don’t think I’d ever buy the Kindle, because I just don’t read enough books to justify the purchase.
Anyway, fire away in the comments, and let’s get a discussion going.
Image used under a Creative Commons license courtesy of Flickr user fil.
Saw your post on Tag Surfer, and the Steve Jobs quote reeled me in. I agree that less people read nowadays — no need for numbers to prove this.
But I think Kindle or some other product like it may just change this trend. After all, there’s a huge difference between lugging a book around to having a Kindle in your backpack.
See, Taylor, talking about El Jobso brings us readers. :)
Thanks for the comment, nino. The small form factor of the Kindle or similar product could definitely change things. But people have to want to read in the first place… for me it’s not convenience, it’s interest. Can the medium of the content change that?
Hey, guys.
It depends what your question is–are books on the way out, as physical objects containing printed pages with stories on them, or is reading, as a past time, on the way out?
I’m in the camp that says that people are reading more than they have been in the last 20 years. The internet, with the popularization of blogging, has cultivated an entire generation of writers and, therefore, readers. Maybe not enough people are picking up Moby Dick, but that doesn’t mean they are reading.
You should’ve seen how Annie Ingram’s English Language class reacted to the release of the Kindle–only threatening the relevance of a book could turn a class full of 18-22-year-olds into a bunch of grumpy old men.
Oops. Make that “Maybe not enough people are picking up Moby Dick, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t reading.
And for the record, the talk of books sucked me in, not Steve Jobs. ;)
As soon as I got out of college, I started reading a lot. I think I’ve read more in my first seven months out of school than I read in all four years in school. I can’t use the internet for my subjects, because counterinsurgency isn’t a hot topic for bloggers and young people. The only way I can get my material is through print.
Concerning the Kindle, if I ever bought one(which I won’t), I’d probably download a whole bunch of books but they’d never get read. I can’t read long stories or articles on a computer screen, and the Kindle is no different to me.
Actually, the Kindle has a revolutionary non-backlit screen that makes it no harder on the eyes than real paper.
I doubt I’ll ever own one, but if I could have a Kindle with all my favorite reference texts on there, instead of carrying around my giant Princeton Guide to Poetry and Poetics, I’d be a happier person.
Rachel–
You have completely hit it on the mark! I work for an internet publisher and believe me, there is a huge demand for written content–more now than ever before.
People aren’t necessarily reading less, they’re just reading books less. And who can blame them when the cost of a paperback is upwards of $15 and hardbacks twice that?
Amen to Rachel. There are quite literally hundreds of books on my ‘to read’ list but none of them get read because of their size, cost, and ‘fragile nature’ - I’d take out books from the library more if I didn’t treat mine so badly :P
I just heard about kindle today and I am thoroughly impressed providing the books get converted. No content is lose.
Yes, it wasn’t Steve Jobs per se but your quote of him talking about books. (Go Rachel!) People have been predicting the “death” of the printed format, but book publishers are still in business and making good money more than ever.
I think Kindle will just be another gadget that you tuck into your backpack for the convenience of information retrieval at a snap. But what Jobs may not have considered is how laptops have created a new market — perhaps even converting people who before didn’t bother to read or write but are now blogging and reading blogs and other content on the web.
I confess, though. I want a Kindle because carrying my library anywhere I go is kind of a cool thing for me. But that doesn’t mean I will stop buying books in their printed form, because I still love the feel of owning them.
A few years ago the National Endowment for the Arts started their flagship program called The Big Read (http://www.neabigread.org/), and their director, poet Dana Gioia put it best when he basically said that we are reading more than ever before — but (to paraphrase) we are reading total crap.
Harry Potter is of course a wonderful exclusion to that, but the overall effect is the same: we read snippets of online articles (when was the last time you scrolled through one of those 15-pager articles on the New York Times website?), blog posts and commentary (ahem), and the advertisements on the roads to and from work.
The Kindle will fail, I hope, for two reasons. One, because it is connected to online newspapers, journals, etc., as well as books, it skirts the prime reason we never sit down to read books for any appreciable length of time–we can’t beat to NOT be distracted these days.
But also, people need to realize that books, that bound paper, is the ultimate “digital” format. I’m not sure exactly how I mean that, but I think you probably know what I mean - you can write with an “ink pen” on the pages of a book — and next time you log in - I mean open it up - your markings are STILL THERE! Pretty amazing. Sustained reading, the kind that books necessitate, require a bit of isolation from the world around us, and the clearning of sufficient mental space for the assimilation of the printed word. No amount of technological progress will change that.
Great thoughts, all. I wonder, though, about the generations coming after us (us being the early-20-somethings).
Ours came of age in the infancy of the video game and Internet explosion, and so we were still instilled with the desire to read in our younger days. We have grown up right alongside this connected world, and so maybe while our desire to read hasn’t changed, our desire for a better medium to act on that desire has.
Maybe this is why earlier e-readers have largely failed in the past. Our parents’ generation grew up with books, and so they’re hooked to them. Print is what they know; many have latched on quite nicely to “our” world of the Internet, but they will always buy and read real books. But starting with us (or maybe our slightly younger peers), that attachment to the physical book is not as strong (as evidenced by some of the comments: “I still love to read books, but man is lugging them around inconvenient.”) Our generation wants to read, it seems, but we want it to be easy and we want it to be fast. Maybe that’s why Amazon took a risk to make the Kindle now, when the frontrunners of the Internet generation are graduating, getting jobs, making money, and looking to spend it. We love to read, but don’t want to be tied down by spine and page. The Kindle and its competitors give us the freedom and the speed we seek.
So here’s my question about the generations coming after us. They’re being born into the wired world of Web 2.0, the Wii, and Wikipedia. Will it take a strong and sustained effort by parents and teachers to instill in them the same desire to read for fun? We’re seeing a huge rise in child obesity because of the difficulty in convincing kids to choose the playground over the Playstation. Will that generation feel that need to read for pleasure that we and our parents feel? Should we try to hook that generation into reading for fun by giving it to them through this new digital medium, like the Kindle? Is that our duty?
I wrote all this before I saw nino and Joel’s recent comments. Joel, do you think that the next generation will choose the book to take solace from the world, or their Xbox? Do we need to teach kids to love pen-to-paper, to love the printed word? Is that inhibiting progress or (gasp) change? Are we doing a service or a disservice by holding on to a medium that seems to have been, at least technologically, transcended?
Nino, the end of your comment made me think of a great comparison. Could it be that, down the road, printed books will be like vinyl LPs? Produced in limited numbers, used by the very few who know it to be the best quality of sound you can get, but mostly collected for their nostalgic value? Could the Kindle be the cassette tape, and then something better in a few years (are you listening now, Mr. Jobs?) be the CD?
Okay, I get what y’all are saying here, but I think you’re not taking into account that the very nature of how we read has evolved since the advent of this thing we call teh internets.
Reading used to be a solitary, linear process that now has been revolutionized–type is searchable now, and hypertextual. Someone mentioned Wikipedia–what’s the theory behind reading Wikipedia? If you’re anything like me, you start by looking up the name of a character in Wuthering Heights and find myself 8 links and 2 hours later, reading about the origins of bloodletting in British medicine.
The Kindle encourages this kind of behavior–no, it’s not hypertextual, yet, but give it time. Ultimately, books may very well be on the way out, but given the popularity of blogging culture in the last several years, I’d definitely not say that reading is going out of fashion.
And one more thing–as long as books smell like paper, people will have a visceral relationship to them. I’m all about advancement (I love me some gadgetry), but I’m crazy about a well-bound book. Call me crazy, but I think there are plenty of book nerds who will continue to agree ages from now.
Oh yeah, Rachel. I definitely didn’t mean to imply that reading itself was going out of style. But long-form books in print? I think their days of popularity are numbered, though with a whole lot of numbers. I agree with exactly what you’re saying — the act of reading has and will continue to evolve. I think books will be perhaps be published serially like they were back in the day of Dickens, but on a blog of sorts. The Kindle of the future will download a new chapter every day, week, month, etc. Names and places will be linked to Wikipedia, or to maps, or to references in other books. Reading is here to stay, just like listening and talking. But the way we do it will be much different.
And so that’s why I wonder about the future of the book, the physical object. I think you’re right, they’ll always exist and always be published. But I think the day is a-comin’ when they will no longer be the dominant medium of fiction and non-fiction alike. I really believe they will be like vinyl records - beautiful, touchable, and noble, but largely collector’s items.
So as someone who salivates over the (as yet unattainable on my budget…but I’d love to review a complimentary version for this blog….) Kindle. Maybe even more than MacBook Air (I’ve come down off my MacWorld high). Anyway, here’s why:
–The screen, as previously mentioned, is unbelievable. I find myself reading books, newspapers and magazines precisely because reading a computer screen is draining on the eyes and ultimately not as relaxing as truly printed text. The Kindle essentially solves that problem and makes “cuddling up with a computer” a much more manageable proposition…I’ve tried with my iBook but it doesn’t cuddle well.
–The hard drive. I love books, but I’m usually reading between 3 and 6 at any given time. Call me a product of the RSS Feed generation, but depending on my mood I’ve read in the past week some of: a book about local food production, a book about the founder of patagonia, two novels (one set in Afghanistan and one in California), and a book of short stories. The Kindle enables my short attention span and widely-varying moods by having all of those texts at my fingertips. I’m about to travel this weekend, and I’m facing a huge dilemma: which of these heavy, unwieldy hardcovers and paperbacks do I lug with me? Perhaps the Kindle would mean I would never finish ANY book since it would be TOO EASY to change midstream, but too easy sounds ok to me.
–The combination of real books with blogs, newspapers, etc. “Don’t make me choose” I often shout (in my head…) at my computer, sitting next to a stack of books I want to read. It’s so hard to read a book these days without feeling like I’m falling behind on news, blogs, email, etc. At least with the Kindle I can have both….check the NY Times headlines or the latest hotness at Tropophilia from the airport terminal, then dig into a great novel on the flight. Simplicity and access to all sorts of information.
I might be in the minority, but books are still a big part of how I explore new ideas and relax. Any gadget that helps me do that in an easier fashion, with a wide range of reading options at any second, is good in my view.
Sorry Steve, I’ve gotta go with Amazon on this one (can I have my free Kindle now, pleaaase?)
And you know, I’m not sure how many they built originally, but it seems intriguing that the Kindle is currently sold out while they make more:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FI73MA/ref=gw_ftr_str_kdp/105-6945577-2568400?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=left-nav-2&pf_rd_r=024730G3MXB9M4M5XB4Z&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=343120901&pf_rd_i=507846
guess some people shared my enthusiasm….
I just had a revelation after reading Taylor’s comment (T$ - you complete me). Maybe I, personally, would read MORE long-form fiction and non-fiction if it were on a screen. If all my reading was on one device - newspapers, blogs, magazines, AND books - maybe I would read more fiction. Maybe my problem ISN’T my interest. Maybe it’s just that I can’t stand the book itself. I read off of screens much more quickly than I can read on a page for some reason. So maybe, in fact, the Kindle is the answer for me and for those generations coming down the pipeline.
Check out this post about how Steve Jobs disses the very industries he later comes to dominate: http://mikecane2008.wordpress.com/2008/01/16/steve-jobs-is-up-to-something-probably-big/
I’m with this dude; Apple will have books on iTunes for a future, larger iPhone-type tablet in several years
[P.S.: Taylor, comments are not part of my Apple embargo. Awwwwwwwwwseeyuh.]
Also, re: the possibility of an e-book boosting my novel consumption:
http://www.teleread.org/blog/2007/09/11/do-real-men-buy-novels-and-could-e-books-boost-male-readership/
Intrepid readers who work for Amazon.com….put Jarred down for a free Kindle too. Or remember that I asked first (and will consider myself responsible should Jarred one day purchase a Kindle), and send me one. Thanks, you’re the best.
To your points, Jarred: I think you’re right on. You don’t read books because the information/entertainment isn’t on par with your Google Reader stream in terms of responsiveness to your mood. Bookshelves (in small apartments) are only so big. Enter e-readers.
Something I think you guys may be overlooking is that this product is designed for people just like you - people who are very technology oriented. I think you are maybe assuming that the benefits you see of more information at your fingertips, being more connected to news and technology, would not be benefits for everyone. People without your same interests and tastes might not have the need for all the gadgetry. I realize I’m in the minority here, and that maybe (as you say, Jarred), this point of view won’t survive, but I think there are still people who want to disconnect from their computers and live in the physical world instead of the digital world every once in a while. While those people still exist, books will survive :)
HMM, this is all very interesting! Have you read the article connected with my last post, “Death of the Humanities, a reply to Stanley Fish” ? In it, I mention an article in the New Yorker, entitled “Twilight of the Books.” Give it a read, if you don’t mind a little more light reading. I can send a hard copy your way if you don’t have the kindle yet.
Other Rachel, I agree with you entirely (and not just because you have an awesome name ;D). For me, the Kindle would be about the convenience of having a compendium on hand–being able to universally search several reference all at once would be invaluable. But I doubt I’d ever use it for a novel or collection of poetry–reading is a tactile experience, and people who understand that won’t give them up easily. Even up against the convenience that an e-book might offer, I doubt real books have a cultural expiration date.
Watch this:
http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/player.jhtml?ml_video=86627&ml_collection=&ml_gateway=&ml_gateway_id=&ml_comedian=&ml_runtime=&ml_context=show&ml_origin_url=%2Fmotherload%2F%3Fml_video%3D86627&ml_playlist=&lnk=&is_large=true
http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2008/01/rewiring_the_mi.php
We live in a different world now, and our habits are changing too.
But some remain the same. I’ve read ebooks on my PDA (though that one doesn’t cuddle well, either) and laptop — and cover to cover, too. One thing I realized about tech-oriented reading is this: it doesn’t matter on what you’re reading it from, as long as the text hooks you into its world, you’re in a different zone. So whether it’s turning the page, or clicking the “next” button, it doesn’t bother you because you need to keep on reading till you come to the end of the e-/book.
Printed books as vinyl LPs? Perhaps, especially if we keep on cutting down trees for paper (remember the Harry Potter environmental alarm?). Kindle as the cassette tape before the age of CD? I hope so. ;-)
From the NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/05/technology/techspecial2/05kindle.html
For numbers on books, reading and the industry, see
http://BookStatistics.com
I liked the comment about hyperlinks and think that is a important feature of electronic books. There are better products coming, such as a screen that feels and looks like paper. It will be flexible and lightweight. Also, I’m 70 and read more than one book a week.
Steve Jobs was sensationalizing and didn’t have real numbers. His keynote did it’s job — it caught the attention of everyone. In a Persona survey 2007 of 10,800, with an error rate of only 0.2%, 30.6% “Can’t live without books” — 23.4% “LOVE books” — 20.9% “Read regularly” totaling 74.9%. For internet the numbers were only marginally higher: INTERNET — 36.4% “Can’t live without internet” — 23.7% “LOVE Internet surfing” — 22.5% “regularly Internet surf” totaling 82.6%. (results here: http://personaco.com/personas-famous-research-studi/top-level-findings-show-books-still-beat-out-tv.html) Since Steve Jobs didn’t cite a source, we can only suppose he made up the number based on “common knowledge” of his own version of “common sense.” It’s far from credible. Book sales were up nationally over 1% last year at a time of weakening economic factors. Nothing points to any truth in Job’s statements. I’m publisher at Kunati Books and our sales are so high we’ve just signed 31 new authors for 2008, including at Pulitzer Prize-winning author. I’m not exactly thrilled with the Kindle — I love the e-ink technology, and in our office we use the slickly designed Iliad — but there will come a time when e-ink is made affordable and ebooks become mainstream at a lower price than print books. Until then, the industry continues to grow, readership is increasing and the rest is just doom-and-gloom rhetoric. Steve Jobs is selling cool tech devices and we’re publishing books, so perhaps the truth lies between the gloomy view of Steve Jobs and the Rosy view of Kunati Books, but I remain very optimistic. I see the growth. I see the sales.
Some disconnected points:
I am a writer and have a strong bias toward books - I really enjoy them! I spend an enormous amount of time at my computer - researching the internet, writing and whatnot, and it’s a great research, email and composing tool, but I find it to be terrible for reading long works. Someday someone may produce a format that works as well as a book, but they haven’t so far.
I was born in 1942 and grew up with great movies and great television. I am vastly disappointed in the quality of both today. As a result, I shut down my cable and turned back to reading a while ago - one of the best things I have ever done! I do not believe my life will suffer much because I am not seeing American Idol or the incredible banality of cable coverage of the primaries. Steve may not read books, but he also has a vested interest in the computer business, so I don’t trust his response.
There is a considerable difference between baby sitting - television, U-tube and many books today, and thoughtful, enlightened discourse or really great literature. Yes, we have many more books, blogs and other media sources, but much of it is of marginal quality. When manufactured shoes and clothing appeared in the 1840’s, the masses were better served, but the quality of the goods were mediocre. The issue of that loss of quality was the source of the commonly mischarachterized Luddite Rebellion. Such seems to be the march of progress. Wal Mart, anyone?
Could Jobs’ real point be this:
People may may still read, but they just don’t “consume” books at a rate high enough for an e-reader to be worth developing?
Jobs got into the music and movie business with iTunes and the iPod because people consume those products at regular enough rates to make the business profitable. If we only listened to six or seven songs or albums a year, or just five or six movies a year, the iTunes Store and the iPod would not be nearly as valuable. But people consume music and movies so frequently that it makes developing those products worth the investment. The return on an Apple investment in an e-reader, however, would just not be enough to justify the development of that sort of product.
Yes, the Kindle is selling like madness now… but is that because of its novelty or because of its innate long-run usefulness? Will the trend last? I think Jobs is betting that it won’t. I bet he thinks that for the average person, books — as opposed to albums or movies — are consumed at too slow a rate to justify a device to ease consumption of them.
How often will the average Kindle owner download a book? Once a month? Does that justify the device? Will Kindle owners return to books on their devices like they relisten to albums and rewatch movies and TV shows? The inclusion of blogs, newspapers, etc. helps with the justification of the device and its purchase, but does it solidify it? I think Jobs is betting that it doesn’t, and believes that a more ubiquitous device with e-mail, web browser, document editing (in short, a Mac Tablet) is the real product that needs development. Having a specialty device just for books is probably myopic in his opinion.
Of course people are reading. Penguin, Simon & Schuster, and Random House all grew by an average of about 10% in 2007 according to Publishers’ Weekly. Just look at the Potter frenzy last year: the rock start type queues. Check out the book sales stats for books that went into film like Atonement or The Golden Compass. Assuming Jobs’ comment is accurate, there are still 60% of people who read more than one book (some substantially more, judging from the community at compulsivereader.com and the posted profits at the big 5 publishing houses). There are also people who read books in other parts of the world. For those who might not be aware of these places, there are huge communities of English readers in Australia, England, Ireland, Scotland, Canada, South Africa, etc, and many more readers in other parts of the world who read in other languages. 40% of America isn’t 100% of the book buying world! Most of those people will continue to want to hold a book in their hands, but there are others who will welcome being able to carry around a whole library in a handbag, or who will have already filled every bookshelf in the house and who will find an electronic reader a cheaper investment than another shelf. Jobs may find himself mistaken. Let’s hope so. The decline of reading (and it isn’t the first time that the book has been erroneously declared dead…) would be the decline of civilisation. Maggie
New media lead to new habits, new skill sets, and new outlooks. Who can argue against that? Generations ago, TV, when it was the “new medium” brought about shorter attention spans for an entire generation - due to the placement of commercials about every 7 minutes.
Unfortunately, new media do not very often promote long-term beneficial habits, skills or outlooks. Kindle, however, may prove be the exeception to this trend - because it brings the amazing capability of offering convenient access a vast library full of choices along with portability. It will spare some forests, and reduce the print runs of books, possibly putting some printers out of work - and giving them more time to read.