Guest Post: Peter Friedman on the Next Decade in Book Culture

by Peter Friedman | Jan-04-2010

As we leave behind the "aughts" decade, the NBCC seeks the best guest posts about the future of book culture, including essays, interviews and free-range opining. How do you see book culture evolving over the next decade? Attorney and law professor Peter Friedman, who blogs daily at Ruling Imagination: Law and Creativity on the ways law affects creative endeavors and the way creativity informs the practice of law, sent this response to Katharine Weber's guest post in this series.
 
Katharine Weber details, some of the changes wrought by the internet on book publishing and concludes, among other things, “That literary work will continue to lose value as it is seen even more as just another form of communication, rather than as a work of art with its own integrity.” Weber is by no means alone in prophesying literature’s doom, but I could not more strongly disagree with such Cassandras. The fact so many people are freaking out is, in my opinion, an obvious one: we’re living through a technological revolution.
 
The ways we produce, copy, and disseminate information have entirely changed. Anyone sitting in a coffee shop can produce a document that looks as if it’s been typeset. (And I’m sure my students have no clue what typesetting is.) That document can be copied at virtually no cost, and disseminated world-wide at virtually no cost. So, guess what? The entire publishing industry as we’ve known it is a walking corpse. You can almost imagine it as a zombie -- composed of parts of Sarah Palin, Oprah, Dan Brown, and Tiger Woods -- lumbering down Manhattan’s avenues.
 
That these material changes will change book culture is a sociological truism, but the culture’s reactions to the changes will also have an effect on the material reality. Prophets of doom tend to prescribe remedies intended to recall comforts forever past. That’s why a cultural freakout is not a healthy thing. It leads to bad decisions. Had Jack Valenti and the entire film industry had their way, there would be no VHS machines, no CD and DVD burners, etc., etc. But it turned out that the VHS was the biggest financial boon the film industry had ever experienced.
 
Readers will still buy books. They’ll read books on electronic readers a lot and in codex form a lot – I’m pretty sure demand for the scroll and the inscribed tablet has vanished entirely. And there will be some illicit copying and distribution.  It's understandable that those who work for publishing houses and anyone who’s convinced her livelihood is dependent on publishing houses is freaking out. Like the businesses that once dominated the film and music industries, the monopoly held by the industry over production and distribution is now in the hands of any kid with a laptop. The film and music industries are still making money. But that money is now made in a far wider variety of ways, and is split among more parties. It’s no wonder these industries are therefore decrying their deaths. They are dying. But their ways of producing and distributing art (be it film, music, or books) for the past 100 years has as much relevance today as the horse and buggy industry’s ways had after the automobile had come into wide use.
 
The ways of making money producing books may have to change. “Freemium” models like those offered by some musicians and filmmakers no doubt will become more common. We may well see a renaissance in the lost art of book-binding as book sellers look to distinguish their wares to book buyers. New technologies will lead to new media too, including novels and histories that incorporate video and audio. And, as Katherine Weber predicts, each text will “much more potentially [be] integrated into every other text.” Weber, however, sees this “breakdown in boundaries between communication and literary work” as a threat to the integrity of the literary work. In fact, it may revive older notions of literature as the collaborative effort of entire communities of crafts-people and audiences modern modes of production had effaced.
 
There’s been literature for what, at least 3000 years? The fall of the structure which produced and sold it in the 20th Century capitalist West won’t mean there won’t be great literature. There may be more. I really think so.
 
I recently bought and re-read Lewis Hyde’s Trickster Makes this World. The Trickster is the character who operates between realms, at doorways, through openings that others don’t cross either because they don’t see them or they’re afraid of what’s on the other side. (The intro to Hyde’s book is available as a pdf here — provided by Hyde himself.) And the trickster is the artist. If there’s ever been a doorway to a new reality in the world of literature, we’re facing it head on. Let’s break on through to the other side!
Peter Friedman practiced law in New York City for 12 years and has been a law professor at Case Western Reserve University Law School and the University of Detroit Mercy Law School for the past 13. He blogs daily at Ruling Imagination: Law and Creativity (http://blogs.geniocity.com/friedman/) on the ways law affects creative endeavors and the way creativity informs the practice of law.
      

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It will be fascinating to see what this new decade will bring in book culture.  An avid reader, I’m excited about the new options (e-books, etc.) modern technology brings us.
Happy New Year to All, David in Phoenix
Aloe Vera Juice Information

    – David (01/04  at  4-Jan 16:40 -05:00)



The future of book culture is to be found in the concluding passages of Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, though we might not have to go so far as committing a book to memory—yet. Reading web sites is hard on the eyes, and the so-called e-book leaves me wondering when the two-handled shovel will hit the market. And, really, how many electronic gewgaws are we going to have to haul around with us? I recently attended a conference on innovative fiction in which one well regarded author presented a new work delivered on DVD. Yes, there was text, but it was mostly sound and image, including full-motion image. He insisted it was a “book,” and likened it to an “illuminated manuscript” (hah!) and there obligatory noises made about “interativity.” But, at one point in his presentation, he (inadvertently?) referred to the thing as a “movie.” Indeed. As Freud said, there are no slips!

http://maximumfiction.wordpress.com/

    – Ed Desautels (01/04  at  4-Jan 17:14 -05:00)



As to multiple gewgags, I suspect that they’ll converge and sooner or later we’ll have our laptops and e-readers on one device. That device will be easier to read than present e-books (which, for those who haven’t seen them, are remarkably easy to read). And they’ll provide graphics every bit as good as those in books.

Books in codex form will exist, but they’ll be rarer and finer. Better paper, better bindings—you’ll save your book purchases for special things.

We’ll lose things and gain things. That’s what change brings. But the sheer cost of paper, printing, shipping, and storage space for books will be outweighed by the losses experienced in the e-book experience. We’re not there yet. E-books are expensive, they’re not graphic friendly, and books aren’t designed for them yet. But those things are changing quickly.

And calling a DVD dominated by video a “book” is silly, but it’s no sillier than suggesting literature will die along with the mass market in books.

    – Peter Friedman (01/04  at  4-Jan 19:09 -05:00)



One last thing—as to multiple gewgags, one of the most wonderful things about my e-book is that I carry around nearly 300 books and articles in this little device. It has considerably reduced the amount I carry because wherever I go I have all the things I’m reading with me without a problem.

    – Peter Friedman (01/04  at  4-Jan 19:15 -05:00)



How amusing to be called a “Cassandra”—have you forgotten that even though she was not heeded, she was right?

    – Katharine Weber (01/07  at  7-Jan 13:12 -05:00)



Katherine—of course not. I would hardly be honest if I stated my predictions with anything resembling certainty. Are you saying you’re a prophet? smile

    – Peter (01/08  at  8-Jan 09:50 -05:00)



Hardly! I wasn’t the one who used the term ‘Cassandra”!

    – Katharine Weber (01/08  at  8-Jan 09:59 -05:00)



Katherine—for some reason, the comment left out the smiley at the end. I know you no more think of yourself as a prophet than I think of myself as one. I do think, however, that you’re view is unduly dark. The day of the big publishing house is over. New days are upon us. I think the new days promise as much or more creative and insightful writing as the old days. That’s all. Most of all, I say: good luck to all of us who love literature.

    – peter (01/08  at  8-Jan 10:13 -05:00)



Peter, this is fabulous! I couldn’t agree more! We are in a time of transition. Change always causes anxiety, regardless of whether it’s moving toward something better. I once agonized about moving my sofa for months because I was afraid I wouldn’t like the result. Then a close friend offered the simple truth: “If you don’t like it, you can always move it back to where it was.” It was like a whole new vista had opened up.

I think we as a society are in a panic because something’s shifting under our feet and we’re not sure we’ll be able to go back. But no one is ever going to be able to stop us from pulling a book off a shelf or reading a poem aloud to friends.

Bravo!

-Rolando Teco (of Extra Criticum)

    – Rolando Teco (01/11  at  11-Jan 18:13 -05:00)


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"Guest Post: Peter Friedman on the Next Decade in Book Culture" was posted January 04, 2010 and written by Jane Ciabattari.There have been 9 comments so far. We welcome yours.

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