Are books doomed to extinction? 
TweetFollow Us on Twitter

Are books doomed to extinction? 


Author Michael Levin says he can see the writing on the iPad.

"Unless something changes, books as we know them are doomed, and not simply because people prefer to read on their iPads or Kindles" says Levin, (www.BusinessGhost.com), a "New York Times" best-selling author, as well as editor, publisher, co-writer and ghostwriter. "You’ll see the major publishing houses starting to go away in three to five years. Their business model is in free fall. Already, we’re seeing books becoming shorter, cheaper, and diminishing in quality. You’ll soon see fewer really good authors bothering to write books, because books are no longer a meaningful source of revenue."

Levin points to several developments he says foreshadow a sad ending for books:

° Attention spans are diminishing. Three-fourths of teachers said their students’ attention spans are shorter than ever, according to a poll released in June. By 11 years old, nearly half of the kids had stopped reading for pleasure. The poll, by publisher Pearson UK, is just the most recent survey/study documenting shrinking attention spans and a corresponding drift from books.

"Part of the problem is children don’t see their parents reading," Levin says. "Obviously, the kids’ aren’t the only ones with diminishing attention spans."

° Major publishers are producing lower-quality books. The big publishing houses today are more interested in a quality marketing plan than in the quality of the book, so we’re being deluged by low-quality books. One reason is that many large publishers have stopped taking on the expense of marketing books, but they know it’s necessary for sales. So they take on authors with a marketing plan and budget. They’re also less interested in “star” authors, who demand higher royalties. They also lost authors when they eliminated advances in response to the 2008 recession.

° Books are moving to devices, where content is free and time is thin-sliced. Online, you don’t expect to pay for content. People will expect books available online to be either free or very inexpensive, and if those books turn out to be one chapter of ideas and eleven chapters of Hamburger Helper, they will be less willing to pay for them. Also, people don’t spend much time going into depth online; books are supremely inappropriate for the surface-skimming nature of the Internet. Once people have bought a bunch of ebooks they’ve never started, they’ll stop buying them altogether.

° Authors have a more difficult time earning a livable wage. Fewer authors can earn enough to make writing a full-time job. The audience is shrinking and fewer people are willing to pay $15 for a paper book when cheap alternatives are available. “We’ve already seen more books written to promote a product, service or company, or to brand the writer so he or she can pursue a more lucrative field,”

"Most books of the future will be marketing tools, since that’s the only way they’ll be profitable," Levin says.

Levin does find reason for hope, but it will require publishers to change how they do business.

"They need to stop trying to go after the mass market, which doesn’t exist anymore, settle on a niche and develop a brand. Publishers that stand for something in the reader’s mind -- like Harlequin stands for romance -- are built for the long haul," he says.

Instead of publishing 500 low-quality books every year, major publishers should bring out only 50 top-quality winners and actually market them, he says. And publish how-to and other guidance and instructional books in concentrated form: short, powerful and to the point,

The rest of us have a job to do, too, Levin adds.

"People need to read, and they need to read to their kids or buy them books. If people stop demanding good books, there eventually will be none available," he says. "The winners, going forward, will be that minority who still read and think for themselves. It’s a lot easier for government, the military, and the corporate world to control the way people think if they aren’t reading for themselves.  That ought to be reason enough to save the book."

(Michael Levin, founder and CEO of BusinessGhost, Inc., has written more than 100 books, including eight national best-sellers; five that have been optioned for film or TV by Steven Soderbergh/Paramount, HBO, Disney, ABC, and others; and one that became "Model Behavior," an ABC Sunday night Disney movie of the week. He has co-written with Baseball Hall of Famer Dave Winfield, football broadcasting legend Pat Summerall, NBA star Doug Christie and Hollywood publicist Howard Bragman, among others. As a publishing consultant, Michael’s best-selling clients include ZigZiglar, Michael Gerber and Jay Abraham. He was the editor for Ziglar’s most recent book, "Born To Win.")

 
AAPL
$567.90
Apple Inc.
+2.90
GOOG
$1,057.34
Google Inc.
-0.84
MSFT
$38.00
Microsoft Corpora
-0.94
MacNews Search:
Community Search:
view counter

view counter
view counter
view counter
view counter
view counter
view counter
view counter

Procreate – Artist Kyle Lambert Uses App...
Procreate – Artist Kyle Lambert Uses App to Create Photorealistic Portrait of Actor Morgan Freeman Posted by Andrew Stevens on December 5th, 2013 [ | Read more »
Noi Story Review
Noi Story Review By Lucy Ingram on December 5th, 2013 Our Rating: :: LUDICROUSLY CHALLENGINGUniversal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad Repetitive gameplay and a strong reliance on in-app purchases are just two of Noi Story’s most apparent flaws.   | Read more »
olloclip Releases New 3-in-1 Macro Lens...
olloclip Releases New 3-in-1 Macro Lens for iPhone 5, 5s, and iPod 5th Generation Posted by Andrew Stevens on December 5th, 2013 [ permalink ] olloclip has released a new ma | Read more »
MLB.com Franchise MVP Takes Players on a...
MLB.com Franchise MVP Takes Players on a Journey From the Minors to the Majors, Uses Mini-Games to Progress Careers Posted by Andrew Stevens on December 5th, 2013 [ | Read more »
Heyday – Journaling. Reimagined. Creates...
Heyday – Journaling. Reimagined. | Read more »
Story Me Review
Story Me Review By Mike Deneen on December 5th, 2013 Our Rating: :: EASY TO USE, EASY TO CREATEUniversal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad There are a lot of comic creator apps out there, but this one is perfect for beginners.   | Read more »
Mech Conquest Review
Mech Conquest Review By Arron Hirst on December 5th, 2013 Our Rating: :: TOO AUTOMATICUniversal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad Mech Conquest’s approach to intergalactic warfare will see many sci-fi fans go weak at the knees. It’s just a shame the use of completely automated battles may put a dampener on the action.   | Read more »
Might & Magic: Duel of Champions Upd...
Might & Magic: Duel of Champions Update Adds New Five Towers Expansion With 80 New Cards Posted by Andrew Stevens on December 5th, 2013 [ permalink ]< | Read more »
The Room Two: Barry Meade of Fireproof G...
Arguably the most anticipated puzzle game of the year thanks to the runaway success of its predecessor, The Room Two is set for release on December 12. In the buildup to this very exciting time, I had the chance to go hands-on with the game to see exactly what’s to come next week. | Read more »
Angry Birds Star Wars II Gets 44 New Lev...
Angry Birds Star Wars II Gets 44 New Levels in Latest Update, Adds 3 New Characters for Free Posted by Andrew Stevens on December 5th, 2013 [ | Read more »
All contents are Copyright 1984-2010 by Xplain Corporation. All rights reserved. Theme designed by Icreon.
http://www.macnews.com/2012/09/17/are-books-doomed-extinction%E2%80%A8
www.macnews.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2013-48
46227
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:KMKVPDANAEBPVB5WTOBOL3BIY4NYTNVZ
<urn:uuid:9ce56b84-8fe5-4e79-8782-2180c39de89c>
2013-12-06T12:14:05Z
75.101.132.77
sha1:M7ATM5VOIJR4GSDIB2FGJNVN3K6ZCD7A
<urn:uuid:45a27995-43bf-4314-9442-6c6fd37a2f45>
http://www.macnews.com/2012/09/17/are-books-doomed-extinction%E2%80%A8
response
<urn:uuid:4d07fe1f-f18c-4840-930b-716b47ded0be>
robots: classic
hostname: ip-10-33-133-15.ec2.internal
software: Nutch 1.6 (CC)/CC WarcExport 1.0
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2013-48
operator: CommonCrawl Admin
description: Wide crawl of the web with URLs provided by Blekko for Winter 2013
publisher: CommonCrawl
format: WARC File Format 1.0
conformsTo: http://bibnum.bnf.fr/WARC/WARC_ISO_28500_version1_latestdraft.pdf