What is the future of the book and the book publishing industry?  That was the question that was in my mind while attending the Book Expo America convention this past week end.  In a business that is mature, flat to down in unit sales, and seems to dearly hold on to past business practices, what might be the road map for success over the next twenty years? 

First, let’s take a look at other content businesses, what has happened to them in this digital age, and what that might indicate for the book business.

Music is relevant in that the music business was disintermediated by the Internet.  It is not relevant in that the listener still uses speakers, earphones and ear plugs and, except for convenience and portability doesn’t really care whether the music comes from vinyl, tape, CD or audio file [except of course for dedicated audiophiles]. The physical listening experience is the same. Reading a book is a physical experience that would be fundamentally changed by moving to a screen.
Television/video has also been changed by the Internet.  Viewing is now on a variety of screens, and is essentially becoming on demand.  Even though the variety of screens has increased, viewing is still on a screen, as it has always been.  Where video can give a glimpse into the future of books is that, at least on the Internet, the power of gatekeepers has lessened.  “Viewer generated content” might be analogous to self publishing via the …

One of the many unique aspects of the time in which we live is that it is no longer unusual to have more than one career in a lifetime.  Since the beginning of the Information Age 30 years ago it has been increasingly common for adults to have two or even three careers during their lifetimes.  Historically this is absolutely understandable.

Three hundred years ago one usually did the same work that one’s parents did, and usually in the same place. One hundred years ago, in the middle of the Industrial Age when new careers or jobs were being constantly created, people started to do different work than their parents.  While you might have entered a new field, you usually spent your entire work life in one profession or with one company, until that day when you turned 65, got the gold watch and retired.  It must be noted that the life expectancy three hundred years ago was around 45-50 years and that one hundred years ago it was 55-60 in the U.S.  Now that life expectancy is 75-80 years.

We are now living in the mature stage of the Information Age when everything is much faster, we are all living a lot longer, and we are working to an older age[It was not until 1986 that the mandatory retirement age of 65 was struck down in the U.S.]. The logical extension of these trends is that many people are having two or more careers.  A lot of the changing of careers …

There have been many posts on the subject of disintermediation in this blog. For those new to evolution shift, please check out this post and this post. I firmly believe that we are living in one of those short periods of time when the world gets rearranged in large part due to historically powerful agents of disintermediation. Gutenberg’s printing press in 1455 changed the world so much that fifty years later it had become a different place. The Internet is doing that right now. I believe that we are in an age of disintermediation. Every week there is a news story that brings this home.

It is well documented that the CD business has been in decline ever since Napster came on the scene in the late 1990s. The industry became alarmed that sales first stopped increasing on a unit basis. Then when they arrogantly increased prices without adding value to stem the decline, sales declined further. Then, having no historical awareness of the winds of disintermediation that were starting to blow through their industry they actually started to sue customers.[ It is clear that an industry has no clue about what is happening to it when it initiates legal action against its customer base]. All of this was done when sales were decreasing annually by single digits. The alarm of course was that sales had historically always gone up, so a drop of 5-10% a year was both unheard …

We are now into the global stage of humanity’s evolution.  When viewed over the span of the past 10,000 years it is clear that we have moved from tribe to village to city, to state, to country to planet.  In speeches I give around the country I discuss this “Flow to Global” as one of the forces currently reshaping and restructuring the world.

This reorganization into a global economy and market place has, can, and will cause pain at the local level.  Industrial Age manufacturing businesses in this country have been moved offshore to lower cost countries.  Call centers open in India and the Philippines. As individuals we have to understand our economic value is increasingly measured on the global stage.  Unfortunately, our political leaders seem to be reactive and pander to those in pain rather than provide new direction. What can local communities do to stay robust, promote community and still be a part of this global trend? 

Great Barrington, Massachusetts has come up with an answer that is creative, fun and sounds like it might actually work.  This town is in the Berkshire Mountains.  A number of local businesses have agreed to accept an alternative currency called BerkShares and to give a discount of ten percent to those who use them.  These alternative bills have different people on them than the dead presidents and statesmen on US currency.  Herman Melville is on the twenty, Norman Rockwell on the fifty, Robyn Wan En a champion of locally supported agriculture is on …