The Future Book or the Future of the Book

Our paper begins in the early days of the 2000s, a time when techno-futurist imaginaries sprung up around two emerging digital book formats: the e-book and the digitalized audiobook. However, while many actors celebrated the opportunities they saw in these new formats, many worried over what the consequences a digital future would have for the traditional printed book. Based on qualitative content analysis of articles, Op-eds, and interviews in the centrally placed industry magazine Svensk Bokhandel, we follow and analyze the imaginaries put forth in intra-industrial debates about the future of the literature industry in a digitalized era.