THE FADING OF PRINT  

One of the best things that ever happened to humanity was the invention of movable type. The fact that Korea had such type some 50 years before Gutenberg developed it in Germany in the 1456, is merely a footnote in history. But in all countries that eventually adopted the technique, it has brought literacy to the masses, enabled us to keep a more memorable record of our past and pass on knowledge more easily than ever before.

Although print has proved to be a steady and constantly improving stepping stone in human progress it's days are limited.

To understand why that is inevitable is to realize that industries and products of those industries too have a lifespan. It may be longer or shorter than that of a human but it does exist. Today print is a mature and ailing industry. Look around you. No publisher, certainly no book publisher, is producing enough profit to remain in business. The best of them have been forced to curtail investment in R&D, trim staff costs and skimp on marketing and innovative gambles.

Television now provides about 70 percent of the information absorbed each day by the average North American. Just a few short years ago, most of that was provided by daily newspapers. Today only community newspapers can consistently remain in the black, because they provide what the major papers do not. News of local interest. Big city, national and international news can best be provided today by worldwide television.

Let me show the examples of a print book, a novel, non-fiction, selflearning or historical. On average such books are now retailing in the $30 price bracket and contain about 210-pages.

Most buyers don't consider why prices are so high. It is not for the information contained therein. The research, the experience the writer is trying to transmit, and the writing and the time involved is a mere fraction of the retail price. The main costs are to construct the vehicle that carries those words. The paper, the binding, the cover, the type-setting, the printing, the transportation, the warehousing, the marketing, the advertising and a host of lessor operations. All are necessary to bring the story contained within to the reader. Worked great for 400 years. Today it is on its way out. The cost of the vehicle is many times the cost of the story. Perhaps 70 percent of the total book price is for the vehicle designed to carry the words. When this occurs, phase-out has to follow. Even perfume packaging, one of the most outrageous examples, isn't in the same league. At least the perfume price drops as one buys larger. With books they just get even more expensive.

Big city newspapers are running into the same problem. Their unionized distribution and production costs are killing them. Why is home delivery today such a problem for circulation managers? There isn't enough money to pay young people to distribute them daily. The newsboy, a street icon 50 years ago, is now a memory. Which may be one reason I don't write for major city papers. Such papers claim a big slice of geography is their "marketing area", hence forbid writers to write for any other paper. Because they can't pay nonunion writers the same as the unionized staff they are today stuck, because of hiring practices of the past, with only staff material. As staff is reduced, a paper gets thinner. You may have noticed. Therefore it is now more profitable for a writer to syndicate his column among a number of small city dailies and weeklies. With todays computer technology distribution is a snap via a half dozen different modes of distribution: fax, modem (E-mail), disc and courier.

Between book publishing and electronic publishing, the cost spread is even more immense. If $20 out of a $30 book is for the vehicle (pages, cover, binding, etc.) how can that compete with books (like mine) that cost me just 35 cents (in lots of 1,000) for the best computer disc. The disc is my book vehicle.

The writing, presumably, in most cases the real reason a person purchases a book, now can ride, if not for free, for a minuscule fee. Hence, the retail price of the book, certainly in my case, is at least half of the same book in the Gutenberg format.

Because marketing such products can be quickly and inexpensively accomplished through the use of basically cost-free bulletin boards, fax sampling (free in any telephone calling area) or via the thousands of electronic communications networks that now exist, the word spreads rapidly and sales just flow in. Production is a breeze because producing such books is just a matter of electronic duplication. Sort of a quick photostat process without the photo or the stat. I produce a book in 42 seconds on the same computer that wrote the book.

Overseas sales require no heavy shipping or foreign printing -with the same problems as here only multiplied. The text can be zapped electronically ready upon arrival to be duplicated in the country involved. Even translation to another language involves less trouble than with the printed word. A translator can read one side of the screen in English and type the desired language on the other side. Forty-two seconds after that is completed production can start to flow.

Another big feature is that no inventory of any size is required to keep on hand. Hence no big time financing is required. Books are basically produced when sold. Since you can make at least 500 books in a 10-hour day with one machine, all it takes to step up production, if required, is to hook up a few computer disc drives, say ten, and in a day one person can produce 5,000 books. In my case 5,000 books provides 1,000 5-volume sets which sell for $70 per set. Without using a calculator most people can see that comes to $70,000 for a day's production. Writers, once they learn how economics work, earn more.

The last time anything of this magnitude occured was in 19th century England when the loom was invented. It used to take 50,000 man hours to hand-spin 100 pounds of cotton. With the new looms, in a very short period it took 132 hours. The price of cloth dropped precipitously and everyone could afford to actually wear machine-made clothes. Watch what happens now.

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