Print (And Digital) Books Are Doing Just Fine, Thank You

To paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of print books’ death have been greatly exaggerated.

Starting around 2007, when ebooks started to take off, print books’ demise was widely predicted, pointed out Tom Cox, VP mass and distributor sales for Random House and chairman of the newly formed Magazines and Books at Retail Association, during a presentation at Magazines at Retail 2016. In fact, as recently as 2014, The Huffington Post declared: “It’s official—the book is dead.”

Flash forward to today, and the media are declaring that physical books are “back” or “on the rebound.”