Hillel Italie of the Associated Press discusses the year in bookselling and how publishers are increasingly turning to the Internet and digital technologies to help sales and profits.
Technology, often declared the enemy of literacy, has been called upon to save it. With hints of optimism and anxiety, publishers are counting on the digital text and digital channels to win over a public drawn to other media.
"There has been a lot of tension among publishers about technology. But if you ask me if I'd rather have someone watching television or someone surfing the Internet, I'd prefer the Internet because it requires some form of reading," says Richard Sarnoff, president of the Random House, Inc. corporate development group.
Bookstores and paper are only part of the market. If plans succeed, books will also be read on cell phones, promoted via blogs, e-mails and even videos, and purchased online by the page. If necessary, publishers will do the selling themselves. In 2005, Random House and Simon & Schuster joined Penguin Group (USA), Scholastic, Inc. and others who offer books directly off their Web sites.
This is only the beginning: new technologies will continue to shake up the book publishing market in the future. People will always read books and stories. But the format in which they read them and in which they purchase them is going to change dramatically over the next 20 years.
