Holding Onto Hope For Books And Bookselling

I didn't set out to follow the development of AI in publishing, but I seemed to have fallen into a rabbit hole while researching for a couple of AI-related pieces. And it seems the debate is still raging and developments in the field keep coming in.

This article highlights the changes AI will cause to parts of the publishing sector. Expect AI to take over a lot of human involvement in marketing, promotions and publicity; translation; and audiobook narration in particular. More and more writers are using large-language models to draft books, with some employing AI to conceptualise and create book covers.

And check this blast from the past about a guy who used tech to harvest bits from the web to write tons of books and publish them on Amazon. This reminded me of "blogs" made with content reaped from other websites by bots; at least one of my posts was harvested this way. Was this the precursor of the large-language models behind the likes of ChatGPT? Who'd have thought.

Will AI eventually replace humans entirely? A lot of doomsaying is clouding the fact that the technology isn't perfect, and that it is only as good as the material it is being trained with. Visual artists have more to fear than writers, perhaps, but the article offers some hope...

Ebooks did not kill print. Audiobooks are not destroying print, either. Amazon may have forever changed the industry, but the format that makes publishing truly publishing is not going away anytime soon. Perhaps the industry will weather the AI storm as well.

What might not "weather the storm" is the physical bookselling industry. Borders Malaysia is shutting down operations and will fully exit on, of all days, this Merdeka Day. Once considered MPH's rival, apart from Popular, Borders Malaysia was an offshoot of the now-defunct Borders Group Inc. in the United States, which shuttered in 2011. Prices of books have shot up along with costs within the book supply chain, and print appears to be increasingly unsustainable.

In the US, bookstores are still around, though they're apparently not the place to work if you want a living wage. The piece about independent bookstores goes on to disabuse readers of the long-held romantic notions about working at such places: "Much as the fringe benefit of access to review copies might be nice, it does not pay the bills, whether you’re in New York City, Seattle, or a smaller community in the Midwest."

Numbers are tossed, figures are bandied about. Sobering numbers that underscore a fact that having a bookstore or library, or being able to run or work in either, is a privilege...

These jobs, so often seen as dreamy or as a calling, are coded in language that undermines their reality: you need to have another job, several other jobs, no debt, no bills, and no other obligations to survive in any place in the country to take one.

Indeed, in times of peace and plenty, such institutions can exist and even thrive as long as all the basics are taken care of and the boat is sailing smoothly. However, economic wobbles wrought by climate change, COVID-19, and conflicts in several fronts worldwide have shorn our spending power, forcing us to prioritise other things. Some TBR piles have started growing slowly or not at all.

Books have always been luxuries in the past, democratised by the printing press and later, digital technology. Good books take a lot of resources to make, especially limited-edition hardcopies with fancy covers and special paper. For those simply looking for a read or a dozen, going digital would be the way.

Like books, timepieces too were a luxury, only affordable by the rich and powerful, because of their intricate engineering. At some point the wristwatch industry re-embraced its gilded past after it was almost wiped out by the proliferation of digital watches, touting a return to tradition and craftsmanship.

Books might take a similar path, though masterpieces like Dave Eggers' artsy edition of The Eyes & The Impossible may never leave the house with their masters for a long flight with nothing to read. That's one possible path, though one also has hopes that paper books will remain viable within one's lifetime. And diehard bookworms can find succour in that, among other benefits, one retains more reading from physical books rather than digital copies on screen.

I can't bring myself to bid adieu to physical books and bookstores within my lifetime. They've been part of my life for so long, even as I have and will say goodbye to other things and people. I feel somehow, like in the US, indie bookstores that are small, cosy and offer more personalised service, will become more the norm than emporium-sized mega bookstores that have diluted their brands by offering more non-book items. Air-fryers in a Popular outlet? Alamak! And not a recipe book to go with them.

The meditative experience of walking along and perusing shelf after shelf of books will probably overcome our attachment to digital media, likewise the lure of finding the unexpected among rows and rows of tomes. Each book is like a treasure chest of words, forming images, vistas, and lived experiences – and one is never sure whether it's a keeper until it is read, cover to cover. And one eventually has to venture beyond the four walls of one's room, cosy as it may be.

So yes, I believe that books and bookstores have a future, even as machines evolve – or are made to – become closer to us. Even if books eventually retreat into private spaces beyond public reach, as in days of old, at least they will be there, waiting for their day in the sun again.

Romantic, much? Perhaps. Some bookworms tend to be hopelessly so.