Anthony Painter

OK, I did it. I bought the IPad; I’m a fashion victim. And a long haul flight to Japan gave me the opportunity to experiment with e-books. I read two books on the flight and noticed my behaviour changing along the way. And this behaviour shift will have consequences for the entire book industry. First though, let’s get the big issues out of the way: will the book survive? It will but will change radically.

If I was Waterstones I would be in a state of deep concern. I have a near monopoly on the High Street and so my business will survive as long as books do. And they will survive as there is a psychological attachment to the media in a way that there wasn’t to the same degree with CDs. Nonetheless, I would imagine that within ten years 20% at least of Waterstones sales will disappear which shifts the economics of iconic stores such as their flagship on London’s Piccadilly. The simple fact is that previously someone could browse the store then go and order from Amazon should they choose. That was bad enough. It’s even worse with e-books. Potential purchasers can go over the road and hook up to a Wifi connection and download it. They can even get a 3G connection *in the store* and download it right under their noses. What’s more, Waterstones don’t even sell the format of the book that people want!

Yesterday in a subway station I saw a Japanese guy reading manga on his iPhone. He was stood right in front of a kiosk which relies on manga sales to survive but would have bought (?) the manga online. It is not only booksellers who face challenge from new technology but newsagents will do also. But booksellers have a greater degree of control over their own destiny.

Surely Waterstones can use their power to both protect their business and improve the offer for their customers? For example, when you buy a CD you get to load it onto your Iphone. That is not the case when you buy the traditional version of the book- you don’t get it in digital format as well. Personally, I would be willing to pay a couple of quid extra for the traditional version of the book if one was able to download the electronic version also. Others would no doubt be just as willing. So Waterstones needs to get ahead of the game without going down the questionable route pursued by Barnes and Noble in the US which offers its own proprietary e-reader and online store. It will be blown out of the water by IPad and Kindle. If it succeeds in this then that would be very good news for independent book sellers also. The big fish would help the tiddlers instead of swallowing them up.

So that’s retail. What of publishing? Back to my changing reading habits. The first book I read on the IPad, I read in traditional fashion: largely a linear exercise. I made the same amount of notes that I would do normally (and hope to have a way to export those notes soon- still a way to go!) Then, and completely unconsciously, I started to read the second book in a completely different fashion: I began to read it more like a website. I had shifted to hyperlinked reading rather than linear reading. This has consequences for both publishers and writers.

Once books are read in this way, are they books at all anymore? For example, why not instead sell a package of materials that constitute the author’s argument? It could comprise a TED style talk, an overview of the argument with links to further analysis and evidence and even hyperlinks to external sources. The ‘book’ would then become a richer and more involved experience. You could even build communities around the ‘book’ and link it with social media. Imagine if your Twitter followers or Facebook friends see how involved you are with a particular ‘book’- will they not be tempted to buy in also?

And writers will need to be architects of their ‘books’ rather than authors per se. This applies mainly to non fiction as fiction books will remain largely linear- a story has a beginning, middle and end. Though even here there is no reason why rich content should not become part of the experience. It could even see revival of the wonderful ‘Choose your own adventure’ books that are probably the only reason- along with Roy of the Rovers and Match- that I continued reading in my primary school years.

All this is wonderful news for those publishers and writers who are prepared to innovate. If they are also prepared to work with retailers to innovate new products and distribution then it could be a golden age for the book industry. And all of this will be wonderful news for the reader.

In all honesty, I would be amazed if books in the digital age didn’t radically change our reading habits- in my case they are already doing so. iPod changed the volume and variety of the music I listen to and I expect iPad to do the same for the books I read. It is also radically changing the way I read and I find that extremely exciting, Oh, and this was written on a train heading to Kanazawa on WordPress for iPad. Brave new world. I wonder what Huxley- as a writer- would have made of it all?