THE BOOK IS NOT DEAD

 Why the Printed Word May Matter More Than Ever

An Op-Ed on publishing, literacy, artificial intelligence and the enduring cultural power of the book

By: Lennard Goetze, Ed.D

There was a period, not very long ago, when the obituary for the printed book seemed almost ready to be written. Bookstores were disappearing. E-books were arriving. Information that once required a trip to a library could suddenly be summoned from a computer and, eventually, from a phone carried in one's pocket. Search engines replaced encyclopedias. Social media compressed ideas into posts, captions and fragments. Video became ubiquitous. The very notion of sitting quietly with several hundred pages began to look almost antiquated.

The numbers reflected a genuine disruption. The number of physical bookstore establishments in the United States declined from 13,136 in 1992 to only 6,448 in 2016—less than half the earlier number. Between 1995 and 2000 alone, the number of independent bookstores reportedly fell 43 percent.

Libraries faced their own crisis, particularly around the Great Recession. The American Library Association reported in 2010 that nearly 15 percent of public libraries—roughly 2,400 locations—had reduced their operating hours, while 13 state library agencies reported being aware of public-library closures caused by budget problems during the previous year.

Yet something interesting happened while we were preparing for the disappearance of books. They did not disappear. In fact, there is mounting evidence that the book has demonstrated remarkable resilience.

The Association of American Publishers estimates that U.S. publishing generated $33.4 billion in revenue in 2025, an increase of 2.5 percent over 2024 and approximately 16 percent above 2021. Trade publishing alone reached an estimated $21.7 billion.

And print remains remarkably powerful. In 2024, print formats represented 50.5 percent of overall publisher revenue. Within consumer trade publishing, hardcovers and paperbacks together accounted for nearly 73 percent of revenue. Print book unit sales increased again in 2025, reaching approximately 762 million copies through outlets tracked by Circana BookScan. It marked the second consecutive annual increase reported by that source.

Even the neighborhood bookstore—the institution supposedly doomed by e-commerce—is demonstrating renewed cultural energy. Independent bookstores staged a notable comeback after their earlier collapse; Harvard Business School researchers documented a 35 percent increase in independent booksellers between 2009 and 2015. More recently, the American Booksellers Association reported continued membership growth and hundreds of new bookstore openings and new store models in 2025.

Perhaps we misunderstood what was happening. Perhaps technology was never killing the book. It was forcing us to rediscover why we needed it.

The Book Does Something Different

Reading is not merely the transfer of information. A book asks something of us. It asks us to remain with an idea. It asks us to enter another person's imagination and temporarily surrender the constant temptation to click somewhere else. It asks the author to organize thoughts with sufficient discipline that another human being can follow them from beginning to end. That process is profoundly civilized.

Through books we encounter people we will never meet, cultures we may never visit and historical periods we cannot experience ourselves. We inhabit another person's grief, ambition, discovery, faith, fear, humor or imagination. Reading therefore performs one of society's quietest acts of diplomacy: it teaches human beings to enter worlds beyond their own.

Writing performs the complementary act. To write seriously is to take the noise inside one's mind and impose structure upon it. Experiences become observations. Observations become ideas. Ideas become sentences. Sentences become arguments, stories and philosophies.

There is something peaceful about that transformation. Human beings have always needed ways to make sense of what happens to them. The book remains one of our most intimate technologies for doing so.

Why Write? Why Publish?

This question becomes particularly important now. Why spend months—or years—writing a book when someone can publish a thought instantly online? Because a book says something different. A post says, I have something to say. A book says, I have thought deeply enough about something to build a body of work around it.

For the scientist, physician or educator, a book can organize years of knowledge into something teachable. For the entrepreneur, it can establish a philosophy behind an enterprise. For the advocate, it can become the intellectual foundation of a movement. For the survivor, it can transform experience into guidance for someone who has not yet traveled the same road.

For the novelist, poet and storyteller, the book accomplishes something equally important: it preserves imagination.

Publishing is therefore more than commercial distribution. At its best, publishing is an act of preservation. This happened. I learned this. I imagined this. I believe this matters. Here is what I want another human being to understand. The book gives those thoughts a home.

Then Came Artificial Intelligence

And now we have entered another technological revolution. Artificial intelligence can summarize information, organize research, generate language and accelerate portions of the writing and publishing process. It is already creating enormous disruption within publishing, including difficult questions about authorship, originality, copyright and the proliferation of machine-generated books.

But AI may also produce an unexpected cultural consequence. It may increase the value we place upon authentic human authorship.

When unlimited quantities of competent language can be generated almost instantaneously, the scarce commodity is no longer words. The scarce commodity becomes a human point of view worth listening to. Who lived this? Who discovered it? Who believes it? Who struggled with it? Who is willing to put his or her name on these ideas and defend them?

AI can help an author research, organize, edit, translate and explore. Used responsibly, it can lower barriers that once prevented people with important ideas from developing them into publishable work. It can make sophisticated publishing tools available to individuals who might never have had access to traditional publishing infrastructure. But technology also makes the author's identity more important, not less.

The future book may therefore carry a new kind of value: not merely information, but authenticated human perspective.

A Technology That Has Been Evolving for Centuries

Perhaps the greatest mistake is asking whether the book will survive technology. The book is technology. The scroll was technology. The codex was technology. Movable type was technology. The printing press was revolutionary technology. The paperback was a technological and commercial innovation. So were desktop publishing, print-on-demand, e-books, audiobooks and digital distribution.

The book has never been frozen in time. Its container evolves while its central purpose remains remarkably stable: one mind communicating an organized body of thought to another. That is why the resurgence of publishing should matter beyond publishers and bookstores.

A society that reads preserves its ability to concentrate. A society that writes preserves its ability to think. A society that publishes preserves its ideas beyond the moment in which they were created. And a society that maintains libraries and bookstores preserves physical places where ideas can still be discovered rather than merely delivered by an algorithm.

The great cultural challenge of the coming decades may not be choosing between books and technology. It may be learning how to use technology without surrendering the intellectual habits that books helped civilization develop.

We should encourage children to read. We should protect libraries. We should support bookstores. We should encourage experts, elders, innovators, teachers, advocates and ordinary people with extraordinary experiences to write.

And perhaps we should redefine what it means to become an author. Writing a book is not merely producing a product. It is saying: "Here is what I have learned during my time in this world. Here is the story I believe deserves to survive me. Here is an idea I want to place into the hands of another human being." Civilizations have always found ways to leave messages for the future. Ours should continue writing books. Not because we are resisting technological evolution. Because we are part of it.

About the Author

LENNARD GOETZE is the CEO and Founder of BeMore Advisory, a strategic development firm dedicated to helping professionals, organizations, innovators and mission-driven leaders determine what comes next—and build it. BeMore Advisory combines business evolution, strategic communications, publishing, program development, partnership building, reputation enhancement and educational marketing to transform established expertise and promising ideas into greater opportunity and measurable impact.

A longtime publisher, campaign developer and Chief Business Upgrade Strategist, Goetze has built his career around recognizing the unrealized potential within people, organizations, intellectual property and professional initiatives. His publishing background has included developing educational platforms, professional publications and thought-leadership content that turn specialized knowledge into accessible, influential communications.

As a Partnership Campaign Blueprinter, Goetze specializes in identifying connections that can accelerate growth—bringing together professionals, organizations, advocates, businesses and complementary resources around shared opportunities. His work frequently extends beyond traditional marketing to the creation of new programs, networks, campaigns, collaborations and pathways to visibility.

At the center of his work is the BeMore philosophy: successful people and organizations often already possess the expertise, credibility and ideas they need. The next challenge is discovering how to leverage those assets to evolve, expand their influence, create new opportunities and build a lasting legacy.

 

THE BOOK IS ONLY THE BEGINNING.

This article is part of BeMore BEYOND THE BOOK, a workshop created and presented by Lennard M. Goetze, Ed.D. to help published authors transform their books into platforms for visibility, authority, opportunity, enterprise and lasting impact.

 

Your book carries an idea. What will you build from it?

Discover BeMore BEYOND THE BOOK and explore what comes next for you, your message and your work.

 

Visit: BeMoreAdvisory.com
BE PUBLISHED. BE VISIBLE. BE INFLUENTIAL. BE MORE.

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EXTRA 

YOU WROTE THE BOOK. NOW WHAT WILL YOU BUILD FROM IT?

Finishing and publishing a book is a significant achievement, but for professionals, entrepreneurs, clinicians, educators, and thought leaders, publication may be only the beginning. The greater question is: What can the book now become? Beyond readership and sales, a book can serve as the foundation for a professional mission, business, institute, educational program, consulting practice, community, media platform, or movement. It can evolve into courses, lectures, podcasts, partnerships, and new opportunities. Most importantly, a book can become an author’s most powerful calling card—demonstrating not merely who they are, but how they think, what they know, and why their ideas matter.