How to Publish Without Perishing
Written by John Allsopp. 1 comment
Celebrated Science author (his book on chaos theory popularized the subject back in the late 1980s), James Gleick, has an essay on print publishing in the age of the web at the New York Times. He’s definitely one writer always worth reading.
From the article
One could imagine the book, venerable as it is, just vanishing into the ether. It melts into all the other information species searchable through Google’s most democratic of engines: the Web pages, the blogs, the organs of printed and broadcast news, the general chatter. (Thanks for everything, Gutenberg, and now goodbye.)
But I don’t see it that way. I think, on the contrary, we’ve reached a shining moment for this ancient technology. Publishers may or may not figure out how to make money again (it was never a good way to get rich), but their product has a chance for new life: as a physical object, and as an idea, and as a set of literary forms.
and may favorite bit
Go back to an old-fashioned idea: that a book, printed in ink on durable paper, acid-free for longevity, is a thing of beauty. Make it as well as you can. People want to cherish it.
Clearly, having only just started a print magazine ourselves, we tend to agree with his thesis. Well worth reading.
Written by Steven Clark on the 3rd of December
Mmm I’m going to have to mull over this one… Clay Shirky in his first guest blog to Boing Boing reads it from the other persepective and disagrees with the idea. He sees publishers as having to work with the digital medium rather than concentrating on making beautiful objects, the argument being that book collectors are much fewer than readers.
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/12/02/to-publish-without-p.html
IMO Google indexing all those books is a good and bad thing, kind of like file sharing is for indy bands — smaller gets more attention but the bigger fish might squeal a bit.
From an interface perspective there is as yet nothing to equal the technology of the paper + text technology. Swat a fly, read it on the toilet, lay on the couch and read it in front of the television. Yes Kindles and computer screens are improving but they’re still inconvenient, you can’t fold them up and put them in your back pocket like a good paperback pulp fiction.
So while I see this digitisation as a threat to the book publishing industry it should be no more threatening than file sharing (really) is to the music industry.
A real threat to books and papers and magazines is global warming and moving public opinion. Particularly to mass media. In several years it will be unimaginable to the average person that someone would by 2 kilos of paper for Saturday’s news! That will move towards digital.
Another thing about reading a book — well a novel anyway. Reading on a screen has nowhere near the captivating suspension of reality required from a good story as can be achieved by paper and ink. Publishers need both analog and digital avenues of income. Apologies for the ranting…