The Future of Reading: Your Questions
School Library Journal has just published an extensively footnoted essay I wrote about the future of reading, book publishing, This Is Not Tom, and some other things.
I'm going to use this blog post as a space to answer questions about the essay and continue the conversation about the future of publishing, but none of this will make sense unless you've already read the essay. Feel free to leave more questions in comments; I will update this post frequently over the next few weeks. Questions so far:
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Q. What's this about Cory Doctorow abandoning his publishers? His new book is with Tor?
He does have a new book with Tor, but his short story collection With a Little Help is being published without assistance from traditional publishers. He is giving away ebooks and selling print-on-demand physical books. (He talks about this experiment here.) He's detailing the financials of this experiment publicly for readers and other people interested in publishing to determine if it makes financial sense.
Q. I like the smell of books, and I like cracking a book spine, and books aren't going anywhere.
Well, okay, you might be right, but I would argue that whether you're right doesn't actually matter. What keeps me up at night is not the thought of the format changing but rather the thought that there will be no physical place to buy books, and therefore a totally unregulated market.
Ebooks don't need to take a larger share of the market for the bookstore business to be in big, systemic trouble. We knows this because the bookstore business is already in big, systemic trouble.
Q. Can you explain why the millionth copy of a book makes more money for a publisher than the first copy of a book?
Yeah. Many of the arguments in the essay begin with the fact that publishers would rather sell a million copies of one book than a thousand copies of a thousand books. I promised that an explanation of why this is would make your eyes bleed with boredom, and because I don't want that to happen, I'm going to keep this brief, but:
A. The more copies of a title you print, the cheaper it is to print it. (This is particularly true if you are printing it in China, which you probably are).
B. Most of the costs associated with a book--layout, editing, copyediting, jacket design, shipping, etc.--are upfront costs.
There are also a lot of other reasons, but I'm worried about eye-bleeding.
Q. When are you going to finish This Is Not Tom?
A. Yeah. Soon. I told noted nerdfighter Valerie2776 that I'd finish it by the end of 2009, but that ship has sailed. I hope to finish it very, very soon and put it up with satisfyingly difficult riddles, but it's hard to balance my desire to finish TINT with my desires to 1. pay the mortgage, and 2. prepare for baby.
posted by John Green @ Saturday, January 02, 2010
22 Comments
22 Comments:
"Any patron can walk in and download a book in 30 seconds"
In the environment you describe, why would anyone walk into a library? Indeed, what's the rationale for the continued existence of more than one library?
Ah, I miss TINT! But mortgage and babies are much more important.
Happy new year!
I haven't been reading the TINT story, but David Foster Wallace and Kurt Cobain are two of my favorite people ever. Thank you for reducing their degrees of separation.
Dear Anonymous, I work in a library, and I'm working there tomorrow. I can guarantee you that tomorrow when I open the doors, there will already be a mass of people clamoring to get in, and when they enter the library, they will make a beeline for... the public computers. These are people who don't have computers or internet access or printers in their own home, and so they come to the library to use ours. Libraries serve many other functions than just a storehouse for books, and despite what people think, they can't be replaced by the internet.
My library is a community center, a public meeting place, a resource for teachers and students, a place to study, a place for tutoring, a place for storytime, a place for parents of young children to meet, and a place for teenagers to hang out after school. Oh, and we also have books, movies, music, audiobooks, magazines, newspapers, a Russian fiction collection, and yes, downloadable ebooks.
(Can I say one more thing about storytime--storytime helps kids get out of poverty. I am not kidding. Research shows very clearly that being exposed to books and reading at a very young age, being read to, and being shown that books and reading are fun, gives kids a tremendous advantage when they enter school. Parents should absolutely read to their kids, but for those who can't afford to take as much time as they like because they are working around the clock to make ends meet, the library is the great equalizer. Having public computers for people who don't have their own works the same way.)
I just tweeted at you that I am looking forward to this conversation continuing, and then thought I'd check the blog to see if that's happening here, and yay, it is.
I've printed the article to make some notes and questions while re-reading so I'll definitely be back to pose those. My initial reaction is that you may too easily be dismissing the question of whether reading itself is in danger in making the piece a reflection on how we read, get content, and what that content entails. But I've raised this question of the future of reading itself before (and you've answered it, quickly, as you do in the article, by saying you don't think it's at issue).
I'll definitely be back with questions that your article raises, because I do think it's a provocative piece. Thanks for using this space for the conversation to continue.
Okay, notemilly, you're right. What I should have said is, what's the point of more than one library having any BOOKS. (Although here I think the debate is semantic, is it really a library then, or just a public network computing center?)
My experience at my local public library certainly supports the idea that the library's main purpose is already provision of computing services: folks doing something (occasionally reading, granted) on computers to folks actually reading or checking out books appears to be 10:1 or more, most days.
Again, why do we need more than one library in this new environment? All the rest could quit purchasing books and provide all the other services "libraries" are so enamored of these days.
I'm NOT arguing that this is a desirable change. But it does seem to already be happening.
p.s. I'd love a cite on the storytime data, if it's handy.
Anonymous: I'll put your question in comments, but basically:
You'll go to the library and download them (or download them remotely from the library's server) because it will be legal.
Whereas stealing a book from the Internet will not be legal. (Probably.)
And I suspect that in the future (fortunately or unfortunately) stealing things on the Internet will be harder than it is now.
And yes, public computers are a huge part of a library's service, but so is the free delivery of text-based non-free stories.
As for storytime stats: I googled, and a quick study of three cities (a small on in california, a medium-sized one in Texas, and a big one in Pennsylvania) show storytime attendance in 2009 higher than it was in 2000. Not a scientific number by any means, though.
Anonymous, most of what I know about storytime comes from this book, but here is some information about the gap in reading skills observed when children enter school, and this article lays out what I'm talking about with specific citations and endnotes.
As for what's the point of libraries having books--does everyone in the world have access to a Kindle, or other portable ebook device? Because if not, I can't see how ebooks could possibly replace free books from the library in terms of portability and ease of access. The library is available to everyone; emerging technology is not.
I don't even know if any of this makes sense, it is just what I was thinking.
Here is my concern: this change could alter literacy and just the general way people learn. Maybe I am thinking too conspiracy like, but it seems to me, adding stimulation to an activity that is meant to be calm and solitary (perhaps one of the last activities like this left), will only increase the rate at which ADD and other learning disorders happen; it also could further the change that has happened in the way we communicate. Already this sharp increase in internet speak has transferred into a verbal communication. We see the young generation shortening words very similar to how they would do on the computer (tots it haps all the time). Though grammarians do not accept these changes, it doesn’t mean it will not happen. It is in the nature of language to change, and for older generations to stubbornly stand behind theirs. If this is already affecting us, with a dramatic decrease of published books, and an increase in this new form of reading, won’t we see a more dramatic change in language and how people communicate, and thus a change in the need of our “kind” of literacy in both verbal and written communication? As adults, currently it is plausible to think that the majority of reading getting done is in small bits of scattered internet pages. If this keeps up, an ability to consistently comprehend what one is reading will no longer be necessary, making literacy and the ability to be literate different than the way needed it to be in the past. Will changes in educating young children in reading begin? Am I totally out of line in thinking this, and if not what I must ask, is this change good for where our future generations will need to go? What do you think?
What's this about Cory Doctorow abandoning his publishers? I hadn't heard that. His new novel is still from Tor. (?)
Also, great essay.
I think the answer your gave for "why the millionth copy of a book makes more money for a publisher than the first copy of a book" seems like it could have been written more clearly, i.e., "You only have to pay one author, editor, designer, etc., instead of 1,000. After that, you're just paying for paper." Oversimplification either way, but a concise transmission of ideas.
Also, when you said the market is "fairly good at valuing things," do you mean assessing what something is actually worth or actually giving the value to that thing? It does both, though in a very nearsighted fashion. The market is terrible, for instance, at investing in slow progressing innovations that can potentially change our way of life in the long run. There's a reason DARPA--a government-agency--invented the internet and the stock market had no role until the final product was out.
As for Anonymous concerned about ADD in the age of technology:
Chances are that even Kindles will be inferior technology within a few years. It seems that they emerged a bit late for what they do, when you think about it. Pranav Mistry's Sixth Sense technology (which you can see described in a TED Talks video on Youtube, here) seems to be the direction we're headed in…but I don't really see this as encouraging ADD. It allows us to more fully interact with our surroundings and in much greater depth. If anything, new forms of technology merging the digital and physical world via sensors stand to give us a greater connection to the world we live in, as opposed to our current lounging in front of televisions and computers all day. It's not so much that we won't focus, in my opinion, but rather that the minute details will become less important than the gestalt.
--B0K0
Time and time again I am shown how fantastic it is to walk into a library and browse the shelves there. I have for the last few years based most of my reading choices on reviews from VOYA and Booklist but now I just see what is on the shelves and I find gold. One finds the best books, the ones they will remember the most,when simply walking around. (That is how I found Looking for Alaska). E-books will mostly be available if there is demand for them. My college recently acquired e-readers and loaded them with popular titles, none of which I wanted to read. Fine, "Twilight" is cool and "The Last Song" is going to be a movie but can one read "Hard Love" on a Kindle? There are limitations for e-books and the majority creates these limitations. A certain frenchman warned about this exact thing scores ago. Libraries go off of reviews and special requests from partons. I have gone up to the YA librarian at my library and told her about a cool book I heard about. Example: "How to say Goodbye in Robot." She had not heard about it but said she would get it for me. Sure enough, a week later it was there. Does Barnes and Noble do that for free? Personal requests for a single novel. Would they do it more than once? On top of requesting this book it remains, after you read it,for another person to read. I barely go to B&N. If I do it is to write down new books that are out and see when my library will get them. I am not worried about books I am more worried about what the content of books. I am worried if vampires will overwhelm YA lit. I am worried that "How to Say Goodbye in Robot" will not get the attention and readership it deserves because there are no bloodsuckers and Ghostboy is a male version of Holly Golightly. I am mostly worried that the best YA books are read more by adults than actual teens. Are there teens that have read "stitches." It was up for a Young Peoples National Book Award, yet the book in my library is in the adult biography section. My concerns my be unwarrented. I mean "The Hunger Games" and "Thirteen Reasons Why" are great books and have been on the NYT bestsellers list.
I suppose my questions after all the above ranting is:
Who is reading what?
And a question I posed in an article I wrote in my school newspaper about our new e-readers:
What is the e-reader's message?
What is the book's message?
As McLuhan once quipped, "The medium is the message."
John: this comment reacts to the chunk of the essay from "But to bring you back to Earth" to "shall inherit the slush".
This idea of a "gatekeeper" seems very close to David Foster Wallace's "deciderization"**. Was that an intentional influence? Or if it wasn't, what do you think of his ideas in that piece? It seems to me that you and DFW were reacting to/analyzing/[appropriate verb]ing this phenomenon of "information pollution"***, especially when the information isn't just news and other data, but- for lack of a better word- entertainment.
(I'm a little worried I'm just finding a complicated way to say something very simple... But I really like both you and DFW as writers and thinkers, so just hearing that the connection is valid would be cool.)
**It's from his introduction to The Best American Essays 2007, viewable at neugierig.org/content/dfw/bestamerican.pdf
***I term I'm taking from a Blue Man Group show. I think.
In my opinion, books are going to go the way of vinyl records: marginalised, but not dead. For me, and I dare say a great many others, the medium doesn't matter - it's the message. Sure, I like having books - my creaking bookshelves are testament to that! - But apart from a few that have significant meaning to me, I would feel no sense of loss replacing 90% of the shelving with an e-book reader and a memory card! I imagine in the future there will be several publishers still putting out a (much reduced) supply of books, as today there are still labels putting out vinyl, but in the same way that most people keep the majority of their music collection in electronic form, so will most books be kept on a electronic reader.
But I am notoriously bad ad predicting the future, so take from that what you will!
I’m a children’s/teen librarian at a public library in a large city. There is no doubt that attendance at library children’s programs are up. Library usage is general is up, always the case in an economic downturn. The numbers of participants in our summer reading program, where kids and teens get prizes for reading was up significantly in 2009 over 2008.
To Lulu: Stitches is in the adult section at my library, too. As I assume it is in most libraries. It was written and marketed as an adult book. However, each award has different guidelines, and in the case of The National Book Award, I believe, publishers submit books to the category they think they can win. And the publisher knew that the only way a “graphic novel” (we so need a better broad term) was going to win would be in the younger category.
My question/comment to John on the essay: I agree with what you are saying about librarians holding the power to make a difference through their collection practices. But for many of us, myself included, that is something we have incredibly little say over. Most libraries, speaking for the public library world, have one person doing all the selection for one library or even one library system. I can make recommendations, sure, but so can patrons. And those recommendations are given some weight, but it’s still not my decision what books are and are not on my shelves, and I don’t get a say in what publishers or distributors my library is buying from. I am in a large city, and there are 24 locations in my library system. There is one person who orders the materials for patrons under 18 for all of those locations. One person whose thoughts and opinions go in to building our collection. One person who that is their entire job, so they are not working with patrons on a daily basis the way I am. And I would love that to change, but this model is what libraries are moving toward, not away from. I’d love to have the power you describe in your essay, but I don’t. Yes, I’m still the gatekeeper, and yes, I tell people about the gems I have found every day, and yes, I dish out jelly donuts when I am asked for them, and try to sell the crullers and the pastries and the bagels too. But my connection to the publishing world is completely cut off, as is the case for many librarians.
John,
Will TINT ever make it into another format (i.e print) for those of us riddle-challenge or for folks w/o the time to commit to the project? Would hate to miss one of your works.
Also, what're your thoughts on Print On Demand books?
Thanks,
Mark
"We must preserve that magical moment when the space between you and me evaporates, and we are all of us making a story real together."
I think you are right; as long as this does not change, things will be alright. But when authors start doing it for other reasons...
And of course, the gatekeeper idea is kind of important too...As a teen who discovered Looking For Alaska and thus, the whole world of nerdfighteria, because of a random stroll through a library's bookshelf, I have to say that I don't want things to change. But, hey, who ever listens to me?
Thanks for answering my question, John (about publishers making more money on the later copies of a book).
"In my opinion, books are going to go the way of vinyl records"
I hope not. Books have withstood the test of not generations, as one sees with vinyl records, but of millenniums. (At least two.) One major book: The Holy Bible.
@Snottlebie:
Yep, another teen here who discovered Looking for Alaska on a stroll in the library. My high school's librarian not only bought the book, but put it on the 'featured' shelf. (It also snagged my attention because I remembered reading a positive blurb about it) I checked it out and proceeded to read it in the next 25 hours.
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Wasn't that $50B Amazon's overall stock value and not just its book business? Amazon deals in a variety of product lines. Granted, more than half of its revenue comes from its media business (books/music/video represented 64% of sales combined in 2007), it is growing into a more multi-faceted money-earner, with revenue streams in advertising, auction sales, housewares, and much much more.
This is not to say that I do NOT feel that traditional brick and mortar stores aren't losing business to the retail giant. But I don't know if the numbers show that massive swing away from print. Of that 64%, only a percentage is books. Of that percentage, a very small slice is Kindle sales. And, even though ebook sales outsold print books on Christmas day in 2009, I'm sure that's mostly because A) most book stores were closed and B) people just got their shiny new Kindles that morning.
I guess I fall into your middle of the road category. I believe that ebooks will be integrated into print. I don't think that we're going to see an automobile or MP3-like advancement any time soon when it comes to text. If we do, my best guess is that it will be something like a combination of the iPhone and a tablet PC.
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