Shock and Yawn

Of all the ways to win a popularity contest, working in publishing and writing a book called Print Is Dead has to be at the bottom of the list. While the subtitle—Books in Our Digital Age—hopefully puts the argument in a bit more perspective, the title by itself always seems to set people off. In fact, it has earned me many a chilly reception (think Benedict Arnold, not Paul Revere).

The cold shoulder is especially evident at work (I'm employed at a major book publishing house). One co-worker, after I got into the elevator with him and a female colleague, said to her as we started to rise to our offices, “Don't talk to him, he's writing a book called Print Is Dead.” The tone of his voice was that I'd betrayed them by writing a book that went against everything they stood for (or, at the very least, called them obsolete and put into motion an idea that would cost them their jobs). A second later, of course, he started to laugh, adding, “Just kidding.” But his initial comment was telling. This was six months ago, before anyone had seen a galley of what I was writing. He was reacting purely to the title, to the idea.

Another colleague, the publisher at a company where I used to work, asked me the title when he heard I was writing a book. I told him. His response was short—it consisted of just two words—and is more than likely unprintable in these pages. Again, a moment later, he laughed in a way that was meant to signify that he was just giving me a hard time. But his first response—to protect print's honor—had been instinctual, like a mother bear defending one of her cubs.

I've received these kinds of reactions often in the past year when I've told people about Print Is Dead. More often than not, publishing people have been offended that I could even suggest such a concept, let alone write a book about it. But despite this reception, I've never thought of backing down and changing the title, even after a friend's wife took me aside at a dinner party and politely suggested, “Why don't you just call it Out of Print instead?” True, it's a confrontational title, which is one of the reasons I like it. But I chose it not just to shock but also to get people thinking.

While I realize that this is a sensitive if not controversial subject, I also think it's an important one, and one that we in publishing need to be spearheading. Because whether we circle the wagons, raise the drawbridge or stick our heads in the sand (or do all three if we're in serious denial, not to mention metaphor overload), all around us the world is changing in monumental ways. Our industry, so far only touched at the fringes by the Internet and the enormous changes it has brought, is sooner or later going to have to embrace a digital culture and an electronic mindset. If we don't, we'd better prepare ourselves for either piracy or silence.

Of course, this idea is neither new nor entirely mine; it has been more than a whisper for more than a decade as print-on-demand machines and eBooks, along with the rise of the Internet, has begun to signal that our industry—untouched by technology for generations—is about to change.

Some people don't want to be bothered by bad news and would rather stay with the status quo until they one day wake up to find it all gone. My book is getting in the way of their rosy outlook; that's why they get angry. Things are changing, and they don't want to have to hear about it. To my mind, that's like people getting mad at Paul Revere because he woke them up as he rode through the countryside yelling out that the British were coming. I mean, how rude. Didn't he know that people were sleeping?