The chief executive officer of Simon & Schuster, Jack Romanos, who announced yesterday that he was retiring after a 40-year career in publishing, acknowledged that times are tight for the industry and anticipated an increasingly digital future.

“I feel there is enormous pressure on book publishers for leisure time, with all the competition from TV and the Internet and DVDs and cable television and all the other possibilities, which is why I think that growth has been modest,” Mr. Romanos said in an interview.

“I do think the digital option — electronic books, print-on-demand and any other application of digital content, are extremely positive ramifications for our business and that in the next decade that’s what executives should be focusing their energy on.”

Mr. Romanos, who turns 65 on November 1, said that retirement makes sense, professionally and personally. Simon & Schuster, which publishes such best-selling authors as Stephen King, David McCullough, and Bob Woodward, is enjoying record-breaking growth in an otherwise slow market.

“I’m just blue collar enough to think that 65 is a magical number for retirement and that giving other people the opportunity to step in seems right to me,” Mr. Romanos said, who joined Simon & Schuster in 1985 after working at Fawcett Publications and Bantam Books and became CEO and president in 2002.

Mr. Romanos will be succeeded by Carolyn Reidy, currently president of Simon & Schuster’s Adult Publishing Group. Ms. Reidy, 58, said she anticipated no changes in the kinds of books Simon & Schuster releases, ranging from novels by Mr. King and Don DeLillo to works by Messrs. Woodward, McCullough, and others that have established the publisher as a leader of political and historical titles.