
The global COVID-19 pandemic has affected so many aspects of life, but as a reader I’ve actually felt fairly little impact.
I still read eBooks on my Kindle, and was able to order physical books online. Now that local retailers and my library are operating (somewhat) normally again, I can go buy them in person again too.
So, what’s changed? I think the lasting impact that COVID-19 will have on books and readers is a bit more subtle than how we actually purchase things to read.
Publisher’s Going Online
Like so many industries, publishing had to adapt to its employees working from home. I believe the pandemic may have been the catalyst to finally get the monolithic, and notoriously slow, publishing industry to start moving more quickly. The realization that many jobs can be performed remotely, and that customers can be interacted with directly out of necessity is a sea change. Whenever we collectively decide the pandemic is “over”, I think we’ll see these publishing industry changes as permanent, like we will in other large creative industries. I don’t think there’s any going back from the industry making a change to be somewhat leaner and more agile.
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