eBooks and the inevitable future of publishing (or How I Learned to Love the iPad)

The iPad was revealed this Wednesday and I for one was disappointed. I was hoping for it to be more laptop than iTouch, but instead, we just got a larger iTouch. I think I can speak for all artists when I say what we were REALLY hoping for was an Apple version of the Cintiq....

Now, it appears as if I'm just going to have to settle for a new Cintiq instead.

All Maxipad jokes aside (and I've heard far too many already) I love Apple products. I wanted to love the iPad. After his presentation I was hoping Steve Jobs was going to run back onto the stage and say "BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE!" but alas, it's the Newton for the new millennium. Still, this is just the start of what I think will be the future of publishing.

Just for the record let me start off by saying I love old fashioned books. To me a bookshelf is like a badge of honor. Look what I've read. Walls filled with books make my home feel more cozy. It gives a sense of identity to any guest who walks in. They read the spines and immediately know who you are and what your tastes are like. A beaten up book is a sign of a long loved history. It hasn't been mistreated, but rather, it has been so loved that the pages are barely hanging on to the glue and thread which affix it to the jacket because the pages have been turned so often. I take pride in my signed copies. Not all books look and feel the same. Different trim sizes, different papers, different inks. You can give books as tangible gifts. etc. etc. etc. I could go on for hours.

I hear from many author/illustrator friends of mine who wonder, "What will happen to the publishing industry? What will happen to the picture book?" Well, after hearing many conversations it seems like a majority of people feel (or hope) that picture books will never go digital. To this I say, "I really doubt that."

Here's a list why...

1. THE MUSIC INDUSTRY- When I was in art school the talk of mp3's and the future of the music industry was in question. As an artist CD covers would be a possible means of income, but if music went all digital then who would need the package? At the time our argument was, "CD's will never be replaced. The sound quality is better and it just feels great to have that intimate package with lyrics, photos, and artwork. I also take great pride in my own CD collection and I LOVE going to record stores." 

Fast forward 10 years and here we all are with our ipods getting songs off of bittorrents and itunes. It's easier, it's cheaper, and that CD collection you once loved actually did clutter up the corner of the studio. I honestly can't remember the last time I bought a CD.

2. KIDS LOVE TECHNOLOGY- Remember board games? Remember building tree forts? Remember the quiet drives during long road trips to the Grand Canyon with your parents and all you had was a copy of Teen Beat Magazine and maybe a few campfire songs? "Kids still do that stuff!" you might say, and perhaps they do, but do they do it as often as when YOU were a kid? Look around you. See the kid playing Nintendo DS at the dinner table in the Chinese restaurant? See the kids in the back seat of the car watching movies off the monitors pressed on the backs of the front seats? See your kid surfing the web more often than watching TV these days?

Get the point? 

Put a book and an iPad in front of a kid and I guarantee you that most of those kids will grab the shiny plate that plays music, video games, movies all in one device. You may not like it, but hey, kids are kids no matter how hippy their parents are. 

But they're so expensive! No one will want to spend that kind of money!

3. TECHNOLOGY GETS CHEAPER AND MORE INNOVATIVE AS TIME GOES ON-

There's an answer for every argument you make.

    A. eBooks can't get wet.

                See the underwater camera, waterproof watch, etc.

    B. They're too expensive

                The first ipod (about 8 years ago) was the size of a brick and for 1Gb of memory you had to pay $300. Now you can get a smaller 8Gb Nano in color for about $120 that also plays video, records video, plays games, etc. (Free if you get a laptop)

    C. They're not as intimate as books. I can't read this thing to my kid in a bed

                 Kids won't miss what kids don't understand. This argument demands a certain nostalgia that they themselves haven't experienced yet. What makes the book more intimate? Is it the feel? Is an eReader too cold and hard to snuggle up to? Oh, did you know that they already make LCD screens that look and feel like paper?

    D. An eReader will break too easily and I'll lose everything.

People can sync all their info with a dock to a laptop or a desktop computer. If your eReader breaks, then, sure, that sucks, but at this point you'll be so invested in it that you can't live without one. See the Cell Phone.

Book lovers- See water logging, sun bleaching, and fire.

4. PUBLISHING INDUSTRY IS ALREADY SUFFERING- The publishing industry is suffering in more ways than one. First off, people don't read as much for leisure as they used to having other forms of media available to their disposal. Hey, don't argue with me, read the statistics. Publishers even have to battle with retail book stores on what can be on the cover of the book in order to acquire book shelf space. If a book chain doesn't like the cover then you may not find that book on their shelves. Then there's the cost. The cost of printing, the cost of shipping, the cost of shipping back from the bookstore what isn't sold, the cost of storage, etc. If you eliminate the cost of printing and shipping along with the manpower hired to do those jobs then you save yourself a considerable amount of overhead, which is why you saw five major publishers hop on board with Steve Jobs in his little slide show. Look, I'd hate to see that whole entire half of the publishing industry disappear but here are the facts.. Look at the newspaper industry. They're all dropping like flies! Magazines too! The printed word is moving online because it's free, it's fast, and you can get any information from an endless number of sites and sources (this can also pose as a problem but that's a rant for another day) Heck, I used to be a paperboy when I was a kid and now it's some creepy guy in an old 1980 Civic hatchback with a crapload of Penny Savers in his trunk. WHERE IS PAPER?!

5. PIRACY- This isn't so much a checkmark for eBooks than it is for the printed medium. This is the biggest problem I see with eBooks and the scariest. Honestly, there's no way around it. It happens. Movies, video games, music, pretty much anything digital is pirated and it can't be stopped, but industries trudge on. They take their losses and try to profit with what remaining customers they have. This actually may be the one thing that would give hope back to the printed word and there is no saying that publishers wouldn't go back to print if eBooks didn't workout. ON THE OTHER HAND, WE HAVE LIBRARIES! You can check out any book for free and it hasn't hurt the publishing industry any. Sadly, those libraries are checking out books for free and people STILL aren't reading! In fact, you don't see people xeroxing books and selling them in Times Square do you? Is the market of bootlegging books even profitable to a digital hacker? I kind of find that people who read books will always read books, and they're a rare sort of breed. They'll read a book lent to them by a friend, and if they liked that book they would still want to have that copy of the book handy to them in the house and so they'll go to the bookstore to get their own copy. I tend to think that the avid book reader is the type of person who loves to just have books around. Period. You can't get a cheaper ebook because there's no need to dump unwanted stock. iTunes has never had discounted sales on certain titles for prolonged periods of time. You can't get a cheaper paperback price. The eBook price is just that price.

Then you have to ask that same culture of readers those same questions.. Would those same readers prefer getting a hacked downloadable copy? Does the act of reading increase if that book were free? And in response to hacking would an eBook go the way of the DVD and try to also deliver BONUS FEATURES? The making of the picture book etc? Sketchbooks? Interviews? 

Is piracy going to be that big of an issue to a culture that already prefers doing other things to reading?

So, if you're an author, illustrator, or both, where do we go from here? Hey, I don't know I just make pretty pictures. It's always that moment of transition that cause people to freak out. I admit, I'm a little freaked out. There would really be no point in having book stores anymore (They're my favorite place in ANY mall). No book launch parties, no book signings, no more paperbacks, hardcovers, or bookmarks. The future of libraries are questionable I guess? I mean, would you have an online library? Google tried to do that and they were stopped, but what would stop a business from doing a Netflix type of service for books and how would we, the creators, be paid in terms of royalties?   

I apologize about the tone of today's blog. I'm depressing myself here. I want so deeply in my heart to think that someday we'll look back at all this and laugh, and maybe so. Maybe I'm completely wrong? Maybe I'm the little chicken screaming that the sky is falling and we should all run for our lives?

Maybe? 

There are a few things I do know with certainty....

True solid creativity can't be outsourced.

The emotional power of a good story can't be lessened when transferred from paper to screen.

There will always be people with new stories to share.

The expression of thoughts and ideas will always live on and whether it be printed on paper or printed on a digital screen the act of storytelling will be around forever.

THERE WILL ALWAYS BE READERS.

I just wish it wouldn't change, but that's just me.

Long live storytelling.

Long live bookstores and the culture of gathering to a book event.

Long live the printed word.

Comments

[julia]

Cool to hear your thoughts on this, Dan. Things are moving quickly! (I haven't bought a cd in forever either)

The only thing I cannot wrap my head around is: wouldn't it be more expensive to translate a page-flipping picture book into lcd "paper"? Physical page turning feels really necessary for picture books in my mind, any other form of word (novels, mags, etc.) can easily translate to screen. Think about how important it is to just open the book at the beginning and close the book at the end. It is a function of telling the story for kids, don't you think?

Maybe picture books will change pacing, approach, format etc. depending on how the story progresses, according to its technology. Hmm...

[dsantat]

Very interesting points there, Julia. My comments about LCD paper weren't to assume that this technology would be used in the near future, but you never know. Compare an old ATARI 2800 from the 1980's to today's XBox 360 and you can see that the advancement of technology has improved dramatically in 30 years. I can't imagine that 30 years from now there won't be a viable cost effective alternative to the printed book. The fact that LCD paper already exists can only make one wonder what will come in the next few years to come.

The opening and closing of a book does have that theatrical feel of curtains opening and closing on a play, and I often like to tinker with that aspect when creating books. To assume that action must apply to a monitor, I think, would have to make you assume that it should be the case for the start and endings of movies and video games. I don't necessarily think the act of opening a book will stop, it will just change to say, brushing your finger across the monitor or something like that. If you look at how the comic industry is approaching eBooks they've been quite aggressive in terms of adapting to the new medium and it will be interesting, for us at least, to see where they go with it because it is such a visual form of storytelling much like the picture book.

[wendy]

I think this generation of kids is probably going to be the last to read physical books. my almost 2 year old already 'reads' books on my iphone - one he slides the screen forward and the other had a little arrow for the next page.
{I think the page turning thing falls into the they will not miss what they don't know category}

[kit grady]

Thanks Dan,
Very enlightening-
Kit Grady

[Philip]

Personally, I like jotting notes along the margins of all my books as ideas come to me. E-readers already have a highlighting feature, so perhaps the ability to write freely anywhere on the page is not too far behind?

[Greg Pincus]

I know I'm late here, Dan, but I just wanted to say "yeah. What you said." The idea that somehow the shift to digital is going to skip picturebooks doesn't make sense to me. I'm not depressed, though. While I don't know the future in terms of how we make a living writing/illustrating books... I do know there's never been a better time to be a storyteller in terms of reaching an audience. The music business has been ravaged, yes, but music didn't go away. Challenging times ahead, indeed, but where there are stories, there's hope!

[Megumi Lemons]

Wow, Dan, I just read this post. Thanks for sharing your insights. My husband is a newspaper journalist, I'm an illustrator, and we've had similar discussions about where the publishing industry is going. Lots to think about...

[Genevieve Kote]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts Dan!

I've had similar conversations on that topic with fellow illustrators. Some people say it's negative to think the books (or magazines) will go digital but I don't think it helps anybody to close our eyes. It is coming in the future.

One thing that I am afraid is that the budgets are going to go even lower since they won't sell the products at the same price. But the cost of living are always going up so I don't know how we will be able to do it full time at some point. And a lot of online newspapers and magazines don't use pictures or illustrations as much in their online version as opposed to their print version so I am also afraid that the number of jobs will go down even more than after the recession...

I wish we could go in a time machine forward ten years to see what it ends up becoming and then come back and act accordingly :)

[book publisher]

Thanks for sharing your interesting insights. My husband is a newspaper editor, I'm an artist, and we've had similar discussions about where the publishing industry is heading.