Print is Dying, Blah Blah Blah

Richard Curtis, on "the shift to a new publisihing paradigm":

A generation that defines books as material objects is giving way to one that regards them as quanta of digitized information. This new culture thrives on the vivid colors of television and videos, the frenetic interactivity of email and messaging, the emotional stimulation of video games and of channel- and web-surfing, and the instant gratification of cell phones and googling....For many jittery young people, printed texts on a stack of paper are, as one editor said, “kind of boring.” “If all it is, is a book, merely words” he elaborated, “it’s hard to get excited. I ask myself, ‘What else is it besides a book? Is it a video game? A movie? A web site?’ It’s got to be more than a book to turn me on.”

Blah blah blah, print is dead, nobody reads anymore, kids are hyperstimulated, books are dying, Big Publishing is dying, Blogs are the Future, the gatekeepers are going away. Blah blah blah.

Comments Steve Eley, over at Making Light, "If blogging helps the best writers launch careers, it's by helping them get book deals. If that changes in several years, it will have to be under a new economic model, and with an audience that does not assume that anything on the Internet will be free by default."

Sure, publishing is changing, and new media are making self-publishing easier, faster, and more accessible. So did the printing press. So did the mimeograph. So did DTP. I'm not chopping up my bookshelves for firewood anytime soon.