The latest ultra-low-power reading medium: It's called the book

Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail which we highly recommend, has compiled some impressive statistics about the ongoing meltdown of hits in the mainstream media business. He has stats showing that TV, music, radio, DVDs, and newspapers are all showing lower interest by consumers. And his data about Internet advertising echos our data, being up significantly over last year.

However, he does have one bit of surprising data in his list though: book sales are up slightly for the year over last year. And no, it's not just because he published a book; interestingly, this year hasn't really had any blockbusters like The DaVinci Code.

I can't cite any real drivers for book sales being up, but anecdotally, I'd have to say he may be onto something there. I know my Mom and her friends have become used book table addicts (these are tables in supermarkets that sell used books for $0.50 or $1). And my local video store in town has just added gently used books to the front of the shop and is displaying them ahead of even the latest DVDs. Is it possible that book reading is becoming fashionable again?

I often talk about changes in technology that reshape industries. But it's easy to ignore the fact that technology has changed the book publishing business as well, and substantially reduced the costs of book production and distribution. eCommerce has reduced the barriers to entry for small book publishers too. The result: the economics of publishing books is actually getting better over time. So even as we continue our charge toward the paper-free society (which, as someone once wisely noted, is arriving about as fast as the paper-free bathroom), good old-fashioned books may be demonstrating their timeless appeal to consumers.

Technorati Tags: Books, Marketing, Publishing, Publishing 2.0