☠📉Are books going to die?
Book consumption is declining while audio and video consumption are increasing
Last week, we visited Transit-oriented development and dense cities. I wrote down an article which talks about big cities across the world.
Today, I’ll share with you some information about book consumption.
But before that, a request! Share my blog with your friends and family if they are interested in reading about these topics.
Book consumption is declining
Bad news — book sales are seeing a slowdown over the past decade. The time Americans dedicate to reading has gone down to 0.29 hours daily, from 0.36 in 2003.
Ebooks, which were once thought of as a growth catalyst for books, are on the decline too!
In India, the book market seems to be growing, but predominantly for educational books. With a growing young population, it makes sense that the book market was worth $6.76bn two years ago. Studies suggest that the market has not fully matured, and there is still room to grow for publishers and authors.
This trend is contrary to what I see around me. Not many people today are reading books. With the plethora of video and audio content available online, it is harder to convince people to read a book.
It concerns me that the macro-level data might not be an accurate representation of how people are consuming books. We need to delve deeper into individual book genres to know more. But finding that data is hard!
If you know of any data I could look at, let me know.
Zooming in
Last week, I was talking to a friend who mentioned how he used to read a lot of books as a kid. He happily mentioned a few series by authors. But he mentioned that he doesn’t read books anymore, primarily because it takes a lot more effort.
I have heard this from a few people —
If the book is good, it will show up as a movie or TV show eventually. So it is best to wait until a show is created.
What do you think about this? A part of me burns when I hear this.
Personally, I think books are the best self-paced form of learning. Reading a book requires a lot more focus than watching a TV show, which gets you to learn more as you read.
At the same time, text still rules the internet as compared to audio and video content, since text is the easiest content form to discover by sites like Google. I’ll write a follow-up post explaining what this means.
This alarms me because my book, The Advisory Board, is out for consumption now! If you love reading, check out the link above.
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Thanks for reading :)
Hemant