Future of books and newspapers looks bleak

In the past year, without necessarily making a conscious choice to do so, I have found myself making a shift from reading physical newspapers to online reading. As part of my morning routine, I automatically open the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and some local business publications online.

Gone are the days of wrestling with unruly newspaper pages, squinting at the small print and dealing with ink-stained fingers. This has been replaced by comfortable browsing through content which is current, quick to access and well classified for ease of reference. If the financial health of newspapers is anything to go by, this trend is gathering pace worldwide.

In the most technologically advanced economy, the US, legendary names such as The Los Angeles Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Chronicle and The New York Times, are all losing money. Other papers have closed down. The situation is dire enough for the US Senate to hold hearings on “The Future of Journalism.”

Newspapers are obviously concerned about the commercial viability of an online world where passwords can be shared and articles emailed around. They shouldn't be. Dedicated newspaper readers, once they make the shift, will pay for good, objective content. Many accept that not everything accessed via the internet, or wirelessly, can be offered for free. However, there are some rules to playing the game well. Apart from quality journalism, which goes without saying, the layout of an online newspaper is critical, both in terms of clarity, quality and ease of use. Branding guidelines need to be consistently applied as readers want to experience the familiar.

The most important aspect is financial discipline in resisting the urge to enhance revenues by selling too much advertising space. Nothing is as off-putting as messy, noisy content cluttered with unsolicited adverts, particularly of the moving, flashing variety. If I am reading a newspaper, I do not want to feel exploited in terms of my time. South African newspapers, which tend to lag behind in this area, could do worse than looking at the New York Times website as a model.

On a similar note, as a book lover, I was very sceptical about replacing a physical book with an electronic tablet. However, having re-read my blog last week, I decided that some technological advancement on my part was necessary. I thus succumbed to purchasing a Kindle on Amazon.com. Irrespective of the fact that accessing the functionality of a Kindle is far from effortless in South Africa, I have been very pleasantly surprised. The Kindle is revolutionary. Once housed in a cover, it feels just like a book. Its display has been calibrated to replicate the visual feel of a book page, rather than a computer screen. The benefits of one device storing 1500 books are obvious. No more lugging of weighty books on holiday. No more bookcases heaving with decade-old fish moth-attracting collections of paperbacks. Amazon also offers the option of sampling the first few chapters of a book for free.

In the US, where Kindles operates on a wireless basis, one can subscribe to magazines, blogs, podcasts and daily newspapers, which are automatically sent to one's device. The wireless capabilities are obviously not available in South Africa. Instead content is sent to a user-specific Amazon website page, and can be downloaded to one's Kindle via a USB port. One of the main benefits is that Amazon sells all Kindle books at a 50% discount to their paperback editions.

Given that in South Africa we already pay a hefty premium on books, this is a great saving. Amazon has now clearly moved from being a distributor to becoming an online publisher.

So what does the future hold for newspaper and book publishing houses? I have no doubt that in the next decade, with Generation Y emerging as a strong consumer force we are going to move to an entirely electronic world.

What would I do if I was a publisher today? I would focus on establishing inventive electronic platforms and on marketing those as aggressively as possible, particularly to the younger generations. There is a window of opportunity to innovate around the emerging trends. Given the pace of change, however, left for much longer, the only remaining options will be to chase others by replicating and imitating. Or close the covers forever.