On the importance of the book in the digital age
10.07.2018 - Bad Segeberg, the Karl May Festival. I attend the preview: Winnetou and the Secret of the Rock Castle. Everything is fine: the weather, the performance, only Iltschi, Winnetou's horse, seems nervous. There are still a few coordination problems between him and Winnetou, played by Jan Sosniak. Stage fright, I think. "New horse," a participant explains to me. "But it'll be fine."
Bookworm versus e-booker
I enjoy taking myself back to my youth. Back to the days when I devoured Karl May books. Today, when 3D games set the pace for fantasy, the books about the heroes Old Shatterhand, Winnetou and Sam Hawkens seem like a relic from ancient times. Yet back in the 70s, young people, mainly girls, were still crying through their handkerchiefs when Pierre Brice passed away on the big screen in Hollywood style. Killed by Rollins, whose bullet was actually aimed at Old Shatterhand, but which the Apache chief intercepted with his body. I ask myself, can the e-book convey the fascination of a highly exciting read in the same way as the printed book? And what is the semantic equivalent of the bookworm or bookworm for the e-book? E-booker sounds very sober. The term lacks vividness and imagination. After all, reading with a torch under the duvet wasn't very good for the eyes back then. Today, ophthalmologists are complaining about increasing short-sightedness (myopia) in children due to excessive smartphone use. Every era has its progress. The digital is part of ours.
Heroes, supermen and community
It has become rare in our digitally saturated cultural age: the heroic, or should I say the heroic epic. Today's heroes shoot from all guns blazing and are invincible. Rambo ushered in a new era of heroes, Rocky continued it. Deadpool is one of the satirically superhumanly strong film heroes of the Marvel comic characters who made it into the film business. "Every era has its heroes", I think. In real life as well as in fictional life. everyday heroes meet in Bad Segeberg. The Karl May community: real. Real and up close. Families with children, friends, acquaintances, Karl May fans, bookworms, western romantics, kitsch lovers, curry and bratwurst fans - this is known far beyond the borders of Schleswig-Holstein. This is where a community meets that is enthusiastic about a cultural asset that has outlasted trends and continues to win over generations of readers.
ABOUT BOOKS, E-BOOKS AND THE PRINTING INDUSTRY
Karl May was born 175 years ago, the festival in Bad Segeberg is attracting record numbers of visitors and has survived difficult economic times. Karl May Verlag has sold well over 80 million books and around 3,000 copies of "Winnetou I" are sold every year. The worldwide circulation is over 200 million. The fact that a stronger shift towards e-books is also emerging here is due to the times. However, the e-book has not yet conquered the market. In the first quarter of 2018, it accounted for 5.2% of sales, a slight decline compared to the previous year. Overall, the e-publishing share is below 17%. 367 million titles were sold in 2017 and 3.5 million e-book buyers were counted. As a lover of paper and print, I like these figures. People still like paper books with beautiful covers. This is also good news for the paper and printing industry, which has suffered considerable losses over the last ten years. in 2008, it still employed over 170,000 people; in 2017, the figure was just under 133,000. As a marketing manager, these are the thoughts that go through my head in this context.
PRINT OR DIGITAL? A QUESTION OF GENRE.
I think that the genre also plays a role in whether you go for an e-book or a print title. An architecture magazine? Gladly in print. A scientific title? Gladly as an e-book! Adventure novels? Must also be a haptic experience. In any case, I belong to the target group of readers who, in addition to being open to digital, also remain loyal to print. After this exciting première evening, I reach for the Karl May book from my youth library again. I flick through the pages, feeling a piece of contemporary history, remembering the hours spent reading under the duvet with a torch. Books are life companions, haptic documents of time. I don't like storing them away in some three-terabyte archive. I experience time differently with a book than with digital reading. You can see and feel how far you've come, where you are, and you can see the end. In this respect, an e-book only conveys something abstract to me. And you lose a bit more of a sense of time.
Cover photo: iStockphoto
Responsible for marketing, social media and e-business at Steinbeis Papier. Circular economy, recycling and biodiversity are the topics close to the heart of the graduate business economist. Enthusiastic blogger for the Steinbeis editorial team.
