http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-07-28/the-future-of-books-ceo-ingram-skip-prichard-feels-confident/?cid=hp:topnav:bookEarlier this summer, as booksellers and publishers left the annual BookExpo America conference in New York City, it was clear that the book industry is on edge and worried about the future of the business. Many are proclaiming printed books will vanish as relics of an old era, collected only by dedicated enthusiasts. With the demise of the printed book, profits will evaporate. Cheaper digital versions will threaten to erode author royalties, collapsing a system where a bestselling author subsidizes the new, up-and-coming writer. Comparisons to the music industry make their way into every discussion as fears mount that physical books will go the way of the CD. All of this gloom and doom only adds to other dismal facts for the industry—the steady decline of reading in America, massive cuts in public libraries, and the recession's shuttering of hundreds of bookstores.
