The Death of Print Has Been Greatly Exaggerated

Dr. Egon Spengler captured the expectation of the publishing industry back in 1984 when he curtly declared “Print is dead.”

Still, that solemn pronouncement took a while to reach fruition. But the experts looked at the arrival of Generation Z and concluded that Zoomers, at last, would deliver the coup de grace to physical books.

After all, Zoomers grew up with smartphones. They consumed stories through social media. And besides, they could load thousands of novels on a Kindle instead of keeping a single battered paperback in a side pocket. Surely the generation raised online would finally make print obsolete.

Instead, young adults’ growing penchant for buying physical media is extending to books.

New research from Cambridge University Press paints a striking picture of American readers born between 1997 and 2012. In 2025, 66 percent of respondents identified themselves as readers, up 14 percentage points from 2022.

More surprisingly, 65 percent reported reading at least one print book during the previous year, up from 59 percent.

It’s official: The most digitally native generation in history is becoming more attached to analog books.

And in another twist nobody saw coming, the internet may be part of the reason why.

Read the full post on Substack.

The same idea behind this post informs the Souldancer 10th Anniversary Campaign.

Ten years after its original publication, my Dragon Award-winning novel is getting its definitive hardcover treatment, alongside the new companion novella.

This anniversary edition was conceived as a book worth keeping on your shelf. If you want a thrilling story you can devour on your phone while making the deluxe hardcover your new conversation piece, back the Souldancer 10th Anniversary Campaign on Kickstarter.