Demise of Books? Not for a while.

I don't necessarily despair for the future of books but I wonder about the QUALITY of writing as publishing becomes more and more corporate and the small presses get squeezed out. Will we have the kind of diversity we had in the past-or will there be more movie and gaming tie-ins and the superficial writing that will produce? Will we see literary writing continue to deteriorate as pop/celebrity scribbles and phony memoirs proliferate? Writing may not die but it can be devalued and reduced to the point where the art form languishes and innovation is nonexistent. THAT is my greatest

concern.

Cliff, I honestly don't see that as an issue either. I think there are passionate writers and readers out there. We are in the midst of "hit" madness in the movie industry but the art of films, film festivals and online shorts like found in iFilm.com are still rampant.

Generally, it is all about the long tail. We have and will continue to see reductions in prints of books that are not going to be bestsellers. But these authors will still write because they are passionate. And they will find readers because they share that same passion. The 'long tail' dynamic has shown itself to be true in a number of industries.

Lou, I have to side with Cliff on this one, but for a reason that neither of you have raised. My fear about quality being jeopardized has less to do with diversity being endangered and more to do with the likely deterioration of the quality of editing, if not the very practice of editing. I am happy to see that mine is not the only voice in the blogosphere addressing this topic, but that does not prevent my using my own stuff as a point of departure!

http://therehearsalstudio.blogspot.com/2007/05/on-practice-of-editing.html

The fact is that behind every great author (fiction or non-fiction) is (at least) one great editor, who is just as passionate about the text as the author is. I do not see these guys being covered by that "'long tail' dynamic."

Also, I think you have to be very careful with your bricks-and-mortar statistics. I am less interested in the macrostructure of bookstore population and demography and more interested in the "microstructure of products" the flow in (from distributors) and out (to customers or back to distributors) of those shops. Of the examples you cited, Borders is that only one that seems to get beyond "same old stuff" in what they put on their shelves; and, even then, they seldom have stuff I want to read. Also, if you want to look at the shops rather than the books, you also need to look at the population and demography of the INDEPENDENT booksellers. It used to be that just about any walk I took in San Francisco would take me past an independent bookstore where I could linger and browse for a bit. These days, the main thing I see is signs advertising awesome discounts for everything-must-go sales!

I was wondering when you were going to show up on this topic Mr. Smoliar. Here are my issues with your argument. First, why would the quality be jeopardized. There is nothing stopping a long-tail author in finding an equally long-tail editor (even if they don't work for Harper-Collins). Short film creators and directors seem to do just fine in finding a long tail producer. The same paradigm should hold.

As for the bricks analogy, your points only applies to the health of bookstores and boutique bookstores, not to the books themselves that they sell. Referring to Chris Anderson's Long Tail, books/music are classic examples of where fans of a niche topic will find the goods. Those individuals will still (at least for the foreseeable future) will want that niche good in the form of pulp and binding.

Lou, the question of the quality of editing probably has to do with the extent to which the task of editing is defined by an institutional context. Fifteen years ago I had cultivated a rather broad skill set for reviewing book reviews submitted for publication in the professional journal ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE. I do not think that skill set would serve me very well at Harper-Collins, not to mention THE WALL STREET JOURNAL! (The argument behind that proposition can be found, at least in part, in the hyperlink I provided with my last comment!) Of course I could always set myself up as the editor of my own institution (i.e. publishing house); but even that requires having some kind of context (possible of your own making). Ferlinghetti did this with City Lights Press; but, of course, he had the context of the whole Beat Generation!

As to your second point, I was just responding to your making a case for the state of the book industry on the basis of what I called the macrostructure of bookstores! You seem to be arguing that the paradigm for the production of short films can also apply to books. That may be; but, if I make something on a shoestring (or even a maxed-out credit card), and then post it for sale on Amazon.com (which a friend of mine did for a book he wrote and I assume can also be done for audio and video podcasts), does this constitute a paradigm shift for the book/video industry or a rejection of it in favor of a new approach to commerce? This may be a verbose way of saying that any debate about the "end of the book" should begin not with the question "What book?" but with the question "What end?"!

"What end?", fantastic ending point! That is the question.

Despite the general theme of the article, Lou, I still feel as if books are a medium that's relevant to today and will continue to be relevant in the future. In fact, just as you are, I'm reading a book as we speak (catching up on some old stuff with Scoble's Naked Conversations). You're also right about booksellers. There's nothing more entertaining to me than walking into a bookstore to choose a new book to read. However, I think you and I are a bit different from society's norm. The Jenkins Group recently did a survey on literacy and has some startling facts. After they leave college, only 42% of students will read another book again. Unfortunately, statistics like that cannot be ignored, and it does seem as if society is paying less and less attention to the printed word. Thanks for your comments.