Not sure for how you read in recent dates, for me there is a significant decline in the print book readings.
It is not because of COVID-19 I am not going out, as if I want to read print books I can always buy from online stores. Just like my wife did, I prefer print media.
Do not get me wrong, I did read, but via my tablet device online, from various Internet resources, in the matter of fact, I read even more, since I can read on the sofa and bed with low light, since the display carries light to make reading possible.
Only activity that I did in print media was handwriting journals. As a traditional business I believe still mainstream for certain kinds of books, like for collection books or something highly targeted for print media design, for the touch, 3d pop up or something that did creatively that made the target user rise the desire to own a copy in the print media form. But for the rest of the book, I believe ebook selling will be more and more popular.
From the publisher point of view, it is a content distribution business, whether or not in print format, they may not be that brother, but it is important that digital channels like bookstores continue to sell their copyrighted book, in another word, exclusive and permission based product selling approach.
With the modern world the world is advancing in the fast speed, whatever content in each of the book will not be 100% unique, for some people, quickly skimming the table of content already know what the book is all about and to decide whether to worth spend the time to read it.
For all the users it is worth first developing their own reading list, so you will not be influenced by the various marketing and advertising that attempt to persuade you or raise your want to get their book. I think that this is the only way to make sure we are investing our reading time to get the most out of it. Any book and any subject, it easily gets a lot of so-called experts or professionals who anchor and keep publishing their book into the target niche, so they all appear as experts in the field, if you buy one, you are most likely buying another book from them.
Print book and media is declining, but we human will not mean read less, it just we change the habits and consume information and content in the digital format, I prefer to called them rich media, since it can be video, audio, interactive application and content, to provide much more engaged experience than the pure print media experience. No to mention the Virtual Reality (VR) and making it like gaming to easily absorb the content, all is something we can not do, but it is possible in the modern world.
We also have the print on demand (POD), lot of good author who have the idea, but publisher do not want to publishing their work, they can choose internet platform to print and sell their works as well, so you ask me, I think readings will continue to survival, but adapt to modern and future market behavior.
