Autumn Keynote 2026 - The Death Of Analog

Since it's inception, books have, and will most likely, remain an analog product. The printing press has been the forefront technology for this format for over centuries. Yeah there is a digital format for this media. If you can truly call it that. But it does exist at least. However, the book will forever remain an analog thing. That's not something horrible to scoff at. However, what it horrible is how this media gets distributed and shared amongst the world. It's shady at best. Yet, it's not the most effective way. Or isn't the most effective way in today's standards of process.

This keynote won't definitely be selling you moxie for a new idea. What more can you really do with a book medium at this point anyway? No, for Schoolyard, it's about passing the buck onto the platform for Schoolyard Digital, and the content it builds. Independent publishers and authors have to come to a reality sooner or later. Your printer is making more dollars than you getting your product printed and sold. Now as a industry of print and paper, the whole world has accepted this construct. Yet it has always fell flat, because it only rewards what it wants to reward. Is talent front and center in this equation?

And that's a loaded question for any creative industy. For Schoolyard, the answer could simply be a resounding "No"! Looking at history (or "His Story" for humor reasons), politics play a much bigger role in what is palatable for consumption. Sure there's some crafty ways to make it look like talent. Even then, the "talent" must succumb to the strings of political atomspheres.

So why does analog die now at Schoolyard? Well analog has it's own political problems. Class warfare produces whom gets to create safely. And whom doesn't get the safety to create. So for the sake of the company, I just finally rather focus on building the Schoolyard platform and it's digital branches. Of course physical products won't simply go away. We can't lessen the power of digital and it's tangible value, that's constantly taken for granted.

As you know for Schoolyard, we've always made sure your digital products are more affordable than it's physical sibling. And even with physical, with razor thin (extremely razor thin at that), margins to provide value to that product as well. So the digital front for us has always been tangible and valuable. Even when the physical product is not in your hands, you get the digital for temporary replacement. (even when you specify for the physical product) So I will always make digital feel as important as a analog product. But it's time for more digital to go above and beyond.