I think the reason newspapers have declined so much, is merely the fact that they rely almost entirely on advertising to pay for the production and it's fairly

I think the reason newspapers have declined so much, is merely the fact that they rely almost entirely on advertising to pay for the production and it's fairly inaccurate advertising. I mean your demographic targeting is exclusively to those who read, which in countries with 99% literacy rates, you're basically fucked for targeting. Where as you can pay less money to advertise online, reach less people but potentially have everyone who sees it interested. Advertising on a bus is more demographically targeted than newspaper advertising, I mean generally lower income and likely don't own a vehicle. I don't own a drivers license, so why do I care about the new Ford Taurus, they just wasted money by advertising to me. However, there's no advertising in book sales. Perhaps this is why for the past ten years they've had record sales. The internet has only helped book sales, and interestingly free eBook releases also boost sales. The assumption that publishing is dead because of the internet is just stupid. We have ubiquitous clean water supplies, but people still "waste" money on bottled water. Plumbing isn't as useful to people as water in a bottle. Similarly, eBooks aren't as useful to people as books (at least so far). Kindle and similar eBook readers offer promise to removing the paperback from its throne, but tangibility and freedom are key here. I can hand my book to anyone, I can sell it on and whatever I want, this creates the incredible ability for free advertising. Most of my books are from authors recommended to me, which usually involved the person handing me the book to me for me to read. Also you can't advertise that you're intelligent and well read better than a bookshelf full of books. Then there's all the textile sensations that come with books. While I don't doubt books will likely go the way of the newspaper. I highly doubt the end is nigh for bookpublishers when they have record sales. It just stinks of the BS spouted in the 50's that the end of the automobile would be soon because of how cheap air travel was becoming. I'm still not flying to work, so I'll laugh and ridicule the people who tell me book publishers are going to go out of business when they have record sales, just as everyone should have doubted we'd be flying to work when automobile manufacturers were posting record profits and more highways were being built than ever. It just strikes me as ignorant, that so many tech news websites and the fanboys on them don't seem to grasp that newspapers and novels are far more different than Microsoft and Apple. You'd think people who can proclaim two computers so different would be capable of understanding a newspaper is not a book, alas apparently not.