THORN: Will revolution spare book?

By Patti Thorn, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published June 13, 2008 at 3 p.m.
Updated June 13, 2008 at 5:43 p.m.

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Would you be likely to use an e-reader rather than a traditional book?

Photo by Damian Dovarganes / Associated Press

Amazon.com's Jeff Bezos holds the Kindle, a portable, wireless reading device, at BookExpo America.

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In one room, a man was discussing the decline in people who read for pleasure. In another, an expert was predicting the decline of that ages-old object we call the book. And in yet another, a prominent author was bypassing the petty concerns of the book industry altogether and going global: He was predicting the decline of the world as we know it.

Talk about your downer conventions.

Let's just say that by the final day of the recent BookExpo America, my state of mind was in serious decline. Hey, you try listening to all this gloom and doom without looking for a plastic bag to throw over your head.

This year, the book industry's annual trade show was held at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Giant banners promoting various titles seemed to indicate business as usual (I particularly loved the one of Michael Moore with the tagline "He's back!" - which proved amusing when Moore was a no-show at a scheduled appearance). But despite such trappings, it was clear that industry upheavals are making business more challenging than ever.

Survival was the order of the day. Among the nearly 30,000 attendees, there were:

* Authors grasping for ways to be noticed in the crushing number of books (more than 400,000 released in 2007);

* Publishers fighting to remain relevant in the face of the Internet and other technological changes;

* Booksellers scrambling for customers as digital advances threaten their brick-and-mortar livelihoods.

Amid it all was the most frightening issue of all: Is anyone still reading?

The answer to the last question, if you believe a recent National Endowment for the Arts report, is: well, not so much. The report released earlier this year shows sharp declines in reading for pleasure over the past 10-20 years, in all age groups and education levels. Even the number of college graduates reading literature has dropped nearly 20 percent since 1982. In addition, readers' comprehension skills are falling.

Why should we care? Because readers make far better citizens. The report showed strong correlations between reading skills and civic involvement, as well as employment.

"Is everybody good and depressed?" said David Kipen, NEA director of literature. "I am."

Kipen then launched into a discussion of the NEA's new community reading program, The Big Read, designed to combat the stats.

But readers weren't the only thing at risk. In many panels, publishers debated the future of the book itself.

Sure, many echoed the statement of one panelist, who proclaimed with confidence: "There will always be books. People love the feel of them, the texture of them, the smell of them." But as the expo wore on - with talk of digital advances dominating - these traditionalists began to seem as out of place as those sad-looking polar bears you see in magazines, clinging to a few tiny ice floes.

The change was as close as the convention floor, where an Amazon representative showed me the company's new electronic reading device, the Kindle.

Even a Luddite like myself could see the advantages of this gizmo, no bigger than a paperback. Users can download any of 125,000 digitized titles - many best-sellers - from Amazon within seconds. Better yet, the books are delivered wirelessly. If you're stuck in the airport or at the hair salon, for example, a few clicks will bring you the latest title for around $10 - a huge savings from the typical hardcover price. You can also read your favorite newspaper, delivered automatically to your Kindle every morning.

No paper. No ink. No fuel to ship books to stores thousands of miles away. No brainer.

In a presentation to hundreds of convention-goers, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos extolled the virtues of the Kindle, as if he'd been granted an hourlong infomercial. ("This is Gutenberg cubed!" he flashed on a screen, along with other customer raves.)

This didn't exactly impress his audience, filled with booksellers who could potentially be put out of business by such a device. By the end of his speech, many seemed as if they might take a match to Bezos and his much-touted Kindle.

But even more significant than any strides with the Kindle was the Association of American Publishers' recent announcement that it was endorsing a standardized format for e-books. This will, theoretically, allow digitized titles from various publishers to be used on many different devices - a change from the current chaos in which different formats require different reading devices, making use confusing and inconvenient.

Can the digital book tipping point be far behind?

If the fate of the book remains an open question, publishers agreed that, in the meantime, they must produce the objects more efficiently.

One of the expo's themes was going green, and insiders spent hours talking about recycled paper, soy-based ink, carbon "footprints" and the scourge of returned books, which end up as piles of shredded paper.

Many admitted this newfound green bent came from concern for their image as much as the environment. As more publishers market books urging readers to be more eco-friendly, they could hardly ignore the trend themselves.

And if there was any doubt, keynote speaker Thomas Friedman erased it with his speech, noting that Americans can no longer afford to go about business as usual. The author and New York Times columnist talked about his August title, Hot, Flat and Crowded - a call to eco-action.

Friedman noted that Americans are facing a convergence of grave threats, including climate change, rapid population growth, diminishing energy resources and "petro dictatorships." Forget the color-coded terrorist alerts, he exhorted. "The simple name I'm proposing (for our dire situation) is Code Green."

The author argued that to survive and thrive economically, Americans must lead a green revolution - and not in the current token manner.

"Have you ever been to a revolution where nobody got hurt? That's the Green Revolution we're having . . . That's not a revolution, friends. That's a party."

Friedman received big applause from the audience, which then poured into the halls to continue talk of survival - mostly of their own bottom lines.

In the past, publishers' attitudes toward change seemed much like America's approach to global warming: Let's worry about it later. This time, though, the ground appears to have shifted. One HarperCollins executive noted a significant adjustment in her company's mindset. The business was no longer about format, she said, but ideas.

"We are author publishers," said Anna Maria Allessi, publisher of HarperMedia. "In my opinion, we're trying to talk about authors as much as we talk about books, and that's a subtle but important distinction."

No wonder I did a double take as my shuttle bus to the convention happened to drive by the Los Angeles Central Public Library. The gray building, with its grand entryway flanked by spires of evergreen trees, seemed proud and resolute, a stately lady.

Or was it just a stodgy old museum?

As the convention wound to a close, I had my guesses. But the answer remains the same as always: Only time will tell.

thornp@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5419

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