The Book Is Not Dead, It's Just Shapeshifting

So says the Guardian.

From the article...

Now that the Great Panic of 2000-2010, the world of print's freak-out at the threat of digital, is subsiding, at least in the world of books, we can begin to discern the shape of the future and enumerate the potentially positive aspects of this historic paradigm shift.

Make no mistake: as in every previous IT revolution, there will be (already is) a creative dividend. For instance, the print boom of 1590-1610 liberated Shakespeare and his successors, from Jonson to Donne, and sponsored an explosion of ephemeral publications, the inky compost that would nurture the best of the Jacobeans. Similarly, in Edwardian London, new media shaped the careers of Joseph Conrad, Arthur Conan Doyle, Henry James, and countless others. Heart of Darkness was first published as a magazine serial.

I've no doubt that, with the benefit of hindsight, literary historians will note that the first decade of the 21st century witnessed some equally profound shape-shifting in several familiar genres.