Gutenberg Heritage
First Cloud blog. Please forgive if it's in any way clumsy.
This is not a blog about history. The 'heritage' in the title is here and now... all around us. This is a recurring theme for me at the moment but I'm prompted to write by Some Inconvenient Truths which you can find here if the link above has expired. http://meandmybigmouth.typepad.com/scottpack/ - being new I don't know if you're on the Cloud, Scott but assuming you are... good blog.
I think we all accept the significance of moveable type and the Gutenberg Bible. That book was apparently published in the 1450s - a long time ago in our generation-long worldview. Its surely fair to say, though, that mass publication was still some time away dependent as it was on a mass (literate) audience. I'd venture further and say that our modern publishing 'industry' has more to thank compulsory education (c. 1850s?) than moveable type. That's 160 years ago. Waterstones (a subject of Scott's blog, in case you haven't looked yet) was established in 1982.
Ok.
To me, the threads of human history look like heartbeats on a cardiotach - a big jump followed by some smaller jumps then a long flat bit - although without the regularity. A short period of massive change then a longer period of optimisation. The Ford Model T was a paradigm shift. All we've done since is optimise the engine and make the outside bit look cooler. Were the movers and shakers of America in 1908 preparing for a revolution in personal transport? Nope, they were spending the majority of the national transport budget on... train tracks. They got an uncomfortable shock.
(In my own worldview, we are in the 'quickening' a period where the heartbeats get quicker - much quicker to judge by what's happening around us at the moment.)
I'd be sad to see the likes of Waterstones disappear - just as I was when Woolworths fell gracelessly. It would be a great shame if my children stopped reading good old books in favour of a Kindle or other digital device. I am, I must confess, a little scared of the possibilities. Like most of us, I prefer the cosiness of what I already know - my comfort zone.
However, the world is changing around us at an unprecedented pace. Yesterdays monoliths - the big publishers and retail outlets, for example - show signs of crumbling and with them their 'rules'.
As a novice writer I'm finding this website incredibly valuable. I'm learning (I hope) to write for publication. I'm learning the 'rules' of writing for publication. Book publication. But the business of publishing the printed page is a terribly wasteful process - I've seen the *massive* rolls of paper being transported daily to large presses. And the rules of the book publishing 'monolith' seem very unfair (as in stacked against me). Sure, I need a great editor but do I really need the book cover, the middle-man, the marketing, the book launches, the schmoozing? Particularly since its really my money thats paying for it if I write the story. Of course, I do. Thanks, in part to Waterstones.
Ok, I've rambled. Perhaps the nub of what I'm saying is that we are in a time of rapid change and with change comes loss - we have to let go of some nice things. If we are to accept change (as surely we must) we have to accept the loss... and move on. A book, when you strip it down to its pure basics, is just a story. And we've been telling stories for millenia. A digital book a la Kindle is stripped back to its basics - the story. And that's what we do, write stories. If Waterstones becomes a casualty of change I feel sure that's not down to the staff culture. I've always respected it as a retail outlet. They have a more visionary competitor in Amazon because Amazon are taking the story out of the High Street.
I'd be sorry to see the book (or Waterstones) disappear. But I have to draw the conclusion that it probably will. Perhaps much quicker than we'd expect.
So now I'm wondering more and more what that means to my craft. Part of the nature of rapid change is that it is rapid. And it wasn't raining when Noah built the Ark.
Anyone care to throw out some ideas/scenarios on the theme of 'writing stories for the future'?
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8 Comments
There's also the interesting debate of what is the raw form of what we do, anyway? For those who write fiction, it must be the story. And that story can start public life as anything from a film to a game.
Three thousand years ago warriors used to fight battles and kill each other using bronze swords. Then there was a shift in technology and some warriors equipped themselves with iron swords, which trump a bronze sword every time. This was a shift in technology and, if you like, market forces dictated that the superior technology won. But the warrior wielding the technology was still a warrior.
Thirty years ago domestic video tape recorders/players became available, essentially in two formats. VHS and BetaMax. They recorded movies and TV. In this case the inferior technology triumphed, due to skillful manipulation of market forces. Nevertheless, the writers and actors (the warrior equivalent) whose work was presented through that medium remained writers and actors largely unaffected by the technology.
So, e-books. Is it just another technology where the warriors (the writers, publishers) do what they do via that medium instead/as well or is it more than that. As with all metaphors this one is imperfect. I suspect it is more than that. There's something magic about a book. There was something magic about my old 12 inch vinyl LPs, but apart from the nostalgia of my youth I have everything on CD or mp3 and the musicians still play.
I think that writers write and that part won't change. The marketplace is changing.
As a balm to the pain you feel about the hard copy written word, I think that many if not most publication is done on recycled paper.
It certainly is in the Press Industry.
Trains are too expensive for most people. It costs more to travel by rail-mile than by car, if the fare from London to Birmingham counts. ( non saver fares). But then they load a congestion charge on you so it cancels out.
Also you can't escape from my village without the car - public transport is non existent - I have to shop for an elderly neighbour who can't afford a car and the nearest Railway Station is 10 miles walk away.
Perhaps I should buy a Downhill Bike for her, because she is only 84 years old.
The only train I like is a steam one - that says something about me, does it not? :-))
I think the car will prevail, but it will be powered by Hydrogen and the exhaust gas is water.
As you say, the marketplace is changing. Seems to me we're wise to try and understand what is changing it. Sometimes the market changes due to things we're not aware of. Sometimes the change is a complete shock - I think the internet is one of the latter. Sometimes the change is so big and meaningul that we can't really assimilate it - look at the way mobile communication is changing things around us.
What we're calling e-publishing might well change the way writers write.
I appreciate your point about paper recycling. However, I always suspect that kind of 'stat' (not your mention of it, of course) because it's currently trendy to say stuff like that. I've worked in publishing. The business is bloated and terribly wasteful from beginning to end. And we've learned to live with it. If there's a less damaging alternative bring it on, I say. But, of course, Mr Mudoch would disagree. And who's influencing the decision-makers more? Mr Murdoch... for now.
I've got family in Devon and the north of Scotland so I know the significance of the car on life in small towns and villages. I love cars. And driving. And I've driven many, many thousands of miles. The fact that the train fare is more expensive than the car trip is one of the ironies of modern life, though. I have family in Liverpool too. A short train journey these days. Cheaper to drive. Madness!
My blog is not really about books (or anything else) disappearing as much as an attempt to stir up debate on the future of our carft/trade. Change *is* afoot. I'm trying to understand what, if anything, I need to do to go with it.
I assume your spelling of "carft/trade" is your sub-concious leaking out of your ditigs :-))
Your DNA is like a road trip from Land's End to John o'Groats - no wonder you are worried about the future of transport.
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