The Future of Books

You’re totally right about non-reader thing for those with e-readers. Actually, most people I know who have one just use it for show. They often still do their reading with regular books. Go figure. I think the resolution and clarity is great, but I think one just sees more with a regular book. It’s like reading a magazine vs. looking at a computer screen.

I remember the Monica Lewinsky hearings. All that stuff was publicly available on the web, free for anyone to print. And yet the bookstores were selling out. My main concern is whether this will change if printers become better, if they can someday print and bind books.

By the way, Akrypti, what do you think of this conversation? Self-publishing? Yes or no?

Is anyone else bothered by recaptcha? It stops the bots…

books won’t die. they said movies and radio would die, but they’re still around. there is something about having a book in your hands and turning the pages. E-books just tire my eyes out much faster. I already surf the net too much as it is!

POD and self-publishing is a good thing. the saying “Freedom of the press exists only for those who have a press” is no longer valid.

Hey Akrypti,

Thanks! The bot-stopper is a pain, but I think it’s the best way to go for a site that requries no registration!

I totally hear you. It definitely is a credibility issue for literary writers. It’s unfortunate, but I pre-screen books through that as well. I’m a lot more likely to pick up a book if the author/book has street cred, either through recommendations, some sort of authority, or publication by a big house. There’s just too much out there, and I think we all make our decisions about how to invest our time based on how other people rate.

Plus, I agree with you on the editing. It never looks the same to the writer as to someone else who reads it. Incidentally, that’s why I like the blogosphere–instant feedback!

I think it’s probably right for certain people/fields. It’s the perfect outlet for James, for example, who teaches bodybuilding. It gives him total license to share whatever news he has, and because he has a decent following on the web, he has his own distribution channel. If, on the other hand, you’re launching what Larry calls a battle “for the soul of Asian America,” I think you need to get out to Americans, and you need both the distribution and know-how of the people already in the industry. So you’re right; it’s not for literary writers like (hopefully) me.

The unknown issue, of course, is whether or not those in the industry might change your story into something undesirable. Who knows, maybe originally Min Jin’s book had Korean Unu as the stud and Whiteboy Hugh as the dork?

Have you read the Epstein book yet? I was surprised because he was a hotshot publisher in the industry, but he actually is ambivalent about the self-publishing thing.

P.S. Three great APA fiction writers made it onto the 100 Most Notable Books of 2008: Nam Le, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Ma Jian. Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/07/books/review/100Notable-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=3

In non-fiction, that book Factory Girls got in and Fareed Zakaria’s Post American World (a good read).

The book by Ma Jian that made it is more or less “historical literary fiction,” but the problem is that the author’s politics are bursting through the seams of this novel, and in a way that distorts the historical accuracy of what the book seems to be implying (or do nothing to refute) as hard fact.

Self-publication means more ideas and more variations of those ideas are being put in the stream of commerce. That also means more noise, static. What information that you’re reading can you rely on and what can you not? You think you should be able to pick them apart from one another, but these days, it’s getting harder and harder.

I don’t think books are going to go extinct, but it IS a VERY sad comment on our society that books are going the way of all things elitist. It’s become this factor that allows book-readers to feel better than non-book-readers. With that said, non-book-readers are missing out on a LOT. They’re diluting their brains with all this immaterial media, frying their visual senses with the boob tube and their critical thinking abilities (because I don’t know about you, but I have never ever done any “critical thinking” after watching Boston Legal or Lipstick Jungle, but I HAVE after reading a good book). … Or… is that last comment made by me just an offshoot of my elitism as a book-reader? I really don’t know.

We spent centuries trying to distribute books to the masses. It was our way of empowering the nation. Once upon a time, unless you were a monk or a court scholar, you couldn’t even have access to books. Gutenberg (actually, some Chinese inventor, but I grew up in the West and regrettably am not schooled in Chinese history, but I DO know it was actually some Chinese inventor first…) allowed the working class to become literate.

During the cultural revolution, what was cherished underground? Books. During any form of political oppression, the first thing the Big Government wants gone is the books and the first thing the passive-resistance wants to get their hands on is the books. I don’t agree that the Internet replaces the channels of information distribution that books provide. The Internet is quite organic, constantly changing, and it’s a heck of a lot easier to take down a website or delete an e-book than it is to BURN a book. Plus, the act of burning a book itself is significant, one that cannot be replaced by any other act, e.g., taking down a blog.

I don’t know where I’m going with this. It’s early morning here and I haven’t had my coffee yet, but my point, if it was somehow lost up there, is that I fear we’re entering a new political era, one of Big Governments, one where the masses are now effectively dumber than before (making them easier to control by said Big Government), not so much because they aren’t empowered with information, but because they don’t know how to distill and use all the information they have access to. And a lot of this state of affairs can be attributed to the downfall of books.

Akrypti,

Have you seen this New Yorker article?

Twilight of the Books

It talks a lot about a “secondary orality” in the video age, which I think is similar to what you’re saying about the solidness of books. I agree with just about everything you said above. The internet is just an entirely different beast. The government could come and shut the entire web down, and then where would we be? Bloggers would forget everything! But with books, we remember. With books, we think more deeply. With books, we truly explore deeper issues in life.

Have you read Al Gore’s Assault on Reason? I recommend this book to everyone. Gore talks about the political process and how the important issues of our day all come down to who can buy the most 30 second ads. It’s insane, but he’s totally right.

Thanks for the Authonomy link. Harper Collins? Hmm… Do they do literature?

I just saw this on Minority Militant’s site. Looks like everyone is hurting today, even the book industry.

I wonder if corporate media is really losing influence. I saw one stat that over 50% of people still get their news from TV broadcasts despite the growth of the blogosphere. Obviously this number has fallen since the invention of the blogosphere, but I wonder if it will continue to fall. People sometimes prefer to go with the path of least resistance, and it’s easy to just flip on the TV. As an Asian American writer, of course, I agree that we need to get around that old marginalization by the mainstream gatekeepers.

Anyway, Larry, I may post an article about this sometime soon. My PUA piece is coming out in a few days. I’m thinking of ditching the “Internet Communication” piece; I figure that those who believe me already do, and I’m probably not going to change the minds of those who prefer to stay exclusively on the web.

Sweet! It’s a fast read. Tell me what you think when you’re done. Looking forward to discussing!