The End of Books?

It’s a bit of an old yarn that book publishing is changing and that some day we may not read books and that everything is going digital. Sam Harris, known more for his atheist ranting more than anything, entered this fray the other day on this topic. His article gets a little bloated in length, but the first two paragraphs tell us what he has to say. I clip them below, but first a question:

Are you reading not only news but also magazines, journals, and books increasingly online? [I am.] More than, say, a year ago? [I am.]

From Sam Harris:

Writers, artists, and public intellectuals are nearing some sort of precipice: Their audiences increasingly expect digital content to be free. Jaron Lanier has written and spoken about this issue with great sagacity. You can purchase his book here, which most of you will not do, or you can watch him discuss these matters for free. The problem is thus revealed even in the act of stating it.  How can a person like Lanier get paid for being brilliant? This has become an increasingly difficult question to answer.

Where publishing is concerned, the Internet is both midwife and executioner. It has never been easier to reach large numbers of readers, but these readers have never felt more entitled to be informed and entertained for free. I have been very slow to appreciate these developments, and yet it is clear even to me that there are reasons to fear for the life of the printed book. Needless to say, many of the changes occurring in publishing are changes that neither publishers nor authors want. The market for books is continually shifting beneath our feet, and nobody knows what the business of publishing will look like a decade from now.