A Small, Small World

The internet has made the world of publishing – and more specifically, the world of readers – more accessible than it ever had been. No longer would authors be the mystifying, or perhaps mythical, souls whose name is on the front and picture on the back of novels at the bookstore. New communication opens up for dialogues between author and audience and includes people further in the process of their favorite books. Even the publishing companies have found value in appealing to the little people. In a deal with LibraryThing, for example, some companies will send out advance copies of their books in exchange for an LT review of it. Yes, this still may be a corporate money-grubbing ploy, but still, how cool. People like me could get to review books like we’re people who matter. It’s a different way of operating than the exclusive and insular world that its seems like publishing has been. Authors also have to be connected on all the hippest social networking sites, either maintained by themselves or a lackey, as suggested in this article. Every friend/fan added extends their network a little further and would increase exposure of their work a little more, so it’s a practical business decision. But it also leaves authors open for their fans, who can leave comments – like talking to a real person! – and get cred for having cool “friends” in their Top 8. Everyone wins. But full websites and blogs are really where the action is. The pinnacle of this phenomenon, Neil Gaiman, simply breeds fangirls over at his journal – syndicated by Livejournal, where he probably gets the most attention. All in one his journal humanizes him and his craft, and keeps fans updated on the actual books. JK Rowling (who, granted, doesn’t need the exposure, but that makes the fanservice all the nicer) has a highly interactive site, answers questions on it, and has praised fansites. Jeanette Winterson maintains a fairly pretentious site with a monthly column and a link to her Myspace. And Christopher Paolini, author of Eragon, writes his own newsletters for fans. I’m always more willing to pick up a new book that I’ve kind of heard of than a complete unknown – even if the only connotation I have is “Hey, the author seemed pretty cool and down-to-earth on LJ.” Publishers and authors indulging their fans is a mutually beneficial deal; they build loyalty and exposure, we get a privileged and different look at our books and authors.

Some (other) things I thought were interesting:

Some (other) things I thought were interesting:

“A great time for small presses”, says publishing ‘vet’: http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6552045.html

A followup to my first post: whatwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com becomes the second ‘hit blog’ to have a book out later this year.

This website, which attempts to re-imagine books in terms of… what’s going to happen to them: http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog

I’m going to talk about a particular post on the if:book blog, which I wanted to post a picture of, but am not allowed to access that feature, so here you’ll have to click the link: http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2008/04/illumination.html.

How cool does that look?!

When we passed around the Amazon Kindle in our class, most of us had a reaction of mixed disgust and awe. I felt like I was going to break it; someone else (I can’t remember who) was afraid touching it would contaminate them. But when I saw this thing created by some student in the UK, I was intrigued and excited. This kind of ‘book’ looks more like an art project (and upon investigating creator Kyle Bean’s ‘portfolio’, it appears that’s mostly what it is) than an industrialization. The thought of a way of making books a technological creation rather than a machine is what is so thrilling, even if this particular instance is just a visual representation of what is a possible piece of book-future.

It occurs to me then that it is really the ‘aura’ (thanks Benjamin) of the book that concerns me, the thing as an object, and not the actual experience of reading up-close. I still have to think about the matter a little bit more, but while I had been worried that reading was cheapened when it was relegated to the world of the screen, that is actually not the biggest qualm I have with an internet-dominated world of literature. While I care less about the preservation of the ‘CD’ as an object of ‘aural’ significance, that is probably because the significance of a ‘music object’ in general has been slowly decreasing through the lifetime of the ‘music industry.’ Once mix-tapes were being handed out by guys to their girlfriends left and right (about the time that I was born), it didn’t seem like there was a whole lot of integrity left for the art object of a musical document. However, a friend of mine that grew up in a house full of jazz records disagrees, and so we see how gaps in experience lead to the degeneration of old technologies. Anyway.

If only interactive techno-savvy books could look like art somehow, be type-set in stone and arranged in a delicate pattern of buttons, if only it could remind me, just a little bit, of paper or something, then I could accept the idea as not a deconstruction/reducer of the value of text. But until that becomes a reality, the Kindle will still be a scary thing to me not only because of its alien qualities, but for its lack of observable depth.

Fence Magazine’s In Rainbows

Thought some people in class would be interested in taking a look at this offer by Fence Magazine:

“Some of you may have received an email last Thursday introducing this our latest brainstorm: we have embarked on a month-long mission toward intricacy. You see, we realize that each reader has a different capacity for monetary devotion to Fence, and we want to make our pages available to anyone who sets their devotion at one dollar or more. Just like Radiohead.

So, if you follow this link www.fenceportal.org/support and click on the word “donate”, you can become a subscriber to Fence for one year, for whatever your increment may be. Payments are processed by PayPal (it’s free and easy to set up an account if you don’t already have one: www.paypal.com). Any gracious and lucky soul who chooses to pay $300 or more will become a lifetime subscriber, and will receive a receipt for your tax-deductible donation.

Fine print: This offer only good until the end of April, 2008. The new issue of Fence will hit your mailbox in early May, so jump on it!”