The future of the book

I recently attended the Canadian Booksellers’ Association Summer Conference. In addition to the renewal of old acquaintances, author visits, sales presentations and other sorts of activities you would expect to encounter at a professional conference, there was a panel discussion on the future of the book industry. Although this discussion touched on many of the issues affecting independent booksellers (the fluctuating Canadian dollar, reassessments of returns policies, the economy, big box discounters, etc), the most interesting topic, to my mind, was the mindset of various publishers regarding the rise of the ebook.

Even the idea of the ebook gives me a nasty crawling of the flesh. It isn’t that I am some sort of Luddite or that, as a bookstore owner, I have a vested interest in the survival of the book. My problem is that the ebook may eventually win out over the physical book, despite the fact that the centuries-old format is the superior of the two.

A cursory listing, in no particular order, of my arguments for this position include:

1. Books have no requirement for electricity, battery or any form of power. Thus, they can be used in even the most primitive of conditions.
2. Although ebook readers have improved greatly with the latest generation of products, the resolution of the book will be difficult to surpass.
3. Transferability is less an issue for books than ebooks. While handing a book to a friend is rarely an issue (even if getting it returned is), sharing an ebook across different readers has, to date, been problematic.
4. Books are a very popular gift. Ebooks do not possess that physical dimension that is often important in gift-giving rituals.
5. Environmentally, books are superior. While much hue and cry can be raised around deforestation and the pollution resulting from pulp and paper mills, there are alternatives to these industrial practices. Electronic devices, in both production and disposal, are frightening with respect to what is released into soils and waterways.

Certainly, there are additional arguments and just as many counterarguments. Yet, because the general public has a love affair with hand-held electronic devices, publishers are looking to monetizing that small, but growing portion of the market seeking digital versions of new books.

The general consensus among the publishers present at the CBA conference was that ebooks will not likely play a significant role in the marketplace for at least 5 years. In that time, I cannot say how else the book industry will evolve as we are truly in a time of change.

In short, although the publishing industry is in a time of flux, it is almost certain that the book will survive.

(This post has been simultaneously published on both Absurd Intellectual and the Pennywise Books blog.)