Books, unlike music recordings and television/film, have been in their print form so long that I can’t imagine the mind-meld to digital occurring in ten years for a majority of the older two generations. In fact, she begins her point with an admission of its resiliency (“the [print] book is a very resilient beast…it’s very difficult to out-do the [print] book”) and I do think that a major task for any involved in digital publishing is not only providing compelling digital content, but winning over those consumers who don’t care how compelling the content is if it isn’t in print. (Which one has to do on a large scale to arrive at that sales prediction.) She also mentions Paulo Coehlo’s comparison of reticent publishers to “copyist monks bewailing the arrival of the printing press” (amusing, but a bit supercilious) and Jeff Bezos’ comparison of print books to horses rendered “obsolete” as beasts of burden by the combustion engine. Both are extremely poor analogies (I suppose you could say automobiles comprised 100% of Ford’s sales ten years after their invention, ha-ha), since no such industries had previously existed (at least not in the sense that automobile manufacturing and printing presses exist now). While that may seem to indicate that ebooks have a shorter distance to cover, it also means that the business and product models built on print are firmly entrenched in the minds of all parties involved. As such, the “persuasion” task again rears its ugly head.

Ms. Barnsley’s mention of sustainable forests brings to mind the paper industry. While 50% digital means that there still be a large number of print books, it also means that there will be a huge scaleback of industries dependent on the present model, or something like it, for their own projections. If digital jumps in dramatic proportions, publishers will put in smaller orders for paper (& ink, etc.) for their presses, and the suppliers of such materials will undergo a rather drastic restructuring. Such events may be in the cards anyway.

It’s easy, and quite understandable in the face of revolutionary technology, for an insular perspective on predicting revenue percentages to incubate. It’s just as easy, however, for one to cling to old methods and the present model to prevent “uninvited” change (even when it’s badly needed), and she’s certainly not prophesying the death of print. And she may indeed be proven correct in 2019 (just writing that number seems odd). Other, well-fortified mindsets and markets will have to lose a lot of weight in order for that to happen. So I do admit it is possible–but highly unlikely. I suppose that’s the nature of any prediction.

So my point, I guess, is that this prediction is almost impossible to make and then verify 10 years from now (although doesn’t stop wanting to guess). If what we perceive to be a book changes as much as how the internet has changed our perception of knowledge and how we interact with it and each other then this figure could even be higher or more likely non-definable.