Features Jun 11, 2009 at 4:00 am

Thousands of people scavenged the bones of the publishing industry in New York City two weeks ago. Here’s a report from the funeral.

Comments

1
I assumed on-line sales represented more of a threat to publishing than 'people not reading'. I read new or new-ish books often and send them (via Amazon) to friends and family. Also a fan of Newspapers, so, perhaps I am an outlier on this subject, a dying breed.

I know there are other things to do when the lights go out, but, after a session or four, during the recovery phase, a decent book or a deck of cards goes a long way to passing time until we can have sex again
(shades of Sigmund Freud).

Any ideas that can be compressed into a sound bite (byte) are probably not worth the time spent to hearing then. In-depth concepts intrigue me. Current 'pop journalism' designed to engage my interest and angst with hype while the 'network' tries to sell me something I already have, or don't need, really does not cut it.

Remember what the Doormouse said, "Feed your head."
2
Excellent post. Great points, and you captured BEA’s atmosphere perfectly.

Independent bookstores squander the opportunity to make our online faces as unique and fun as our physical stores not because we lack the imagination or will but because we lack the resources. We don’t have the staff, and we don’t have the money. Unfortunately, the longer we delay efforts to follow our customers who have moved to shopping online, we will lose the sales which would help fund our online presence.

But I will never stop bitching about Amazon.
3
. . . as one of the three authors you know (i'm assuming) who passed up bigger money from a bigger house to go with an indie publisher (algonquin) for my next book, i concur that there is a future for good independent publishers, both in paper and in the electronic format . . . the indies are just flat out working harder and smarter to sort out their demand, and they're forced by limited resources to budget in a fiscally responsible way, and publish fewer titles . . .
4
It is nearly an annual event to announce the death of print; it is glib and condescending, and seeks to set the bemoaner apart from some imaginary and illiterate fray who are too stupid to know what they are missing. Let's stop it. The future of the written word is an interesting and current question, but the hand-wringing about the death of the current model is, to say the least, unproductive.

Moreover, Mr. Constant's weird preoccupation with his former employer (Borders) is banal and schadenfreudey, and his recurrent delight at announcing its financial hardships is obnoxious. In various Stranger media on 06/04/08, 08/13/08, 11/7/08 12/19/08, 01/05/09, 03/05/09, to name only a few, Mr. Constant has enthused about the company's difficulties. No concern about the sad potential closing of a chain that employs thousands, nor the fact that if Borders tanks, many areas will be left without /any/ B&M bookstore at all.
5
@4: You're certainly a frequent reader of my work, for which I thank you. However, I don't think it's fair to say that I'm "delighted" to report on Borders' difficulty. In many of the pieces I've written, I've marveled and commented on their attempts to fix themselves (many of which, like the new concept store I reviewed last summer, were pretty stupid), but I don't think that I've ever given the impression that I'd like them to go out of business; I just think they will. (And despite what you say, I HAVE acknowledged the fact that it would be a great literary loss to certain communities if they do, in fact, go under.) And I'm not going to stop reporting on Borders because I've already done so in the past, or because I worked for them. I've reported on Amazon probably twice as often in the last year, and Barnes and Noble just as often. I write an average of eight Slog posts a day five days a week primarily about book news; if you look hard enough, it will look like I'm obsessed with virtually any topic you choose.

And as to your claims about everyone reporting on the death of the publishing industry: I know that. But I had never done that before in a feature for this paper. Last year's BEA report (published here under the title "Text Message from Los Angeles") was actually quite optimistic. But this is a eulogy for a certain part of the industry that is dying out. I don't think I'm "bemoaning" it. I think I'm looking ahead at what's coming, and offering ideas and opinions about the future.

With both your points, I think you're reading what you want to into this piece and coming to conclusions based on that. But thanks for your thoughtful comments; I really do appreciate them.

6
I only have one real gripe with this article:

"No one was asking editors why they didn't think twice before tossing out seven-figure deals for books based on zany blogs that anyone with half a brain could read for free on the internet. No one seemed to notice that major presses like HarperCollins weren't asking booksellers what they wanted to sell or what their readers wanted to read."

--"No one" was asking the "hard questions"?
You were there, right Paul? So why didn't you ask them?

I'd love to think that you did ask and, say, whatever answers would come in a later article...but I get the feeling that's wishful thinking.
7
The writer lost me at, "I literally was too busy yawning to pay attention". If he wasn't paying attention, than you have to question what was written after that.
8
Are more people reading and writing than ever? Or is it that readers who would have read books are now reading fewer and doing more reading online? Unread books gather dust on my shelves while I wade through my RSS queue.

I'd be optimistic if text remains the dominant means of communication on the Internet, but I think that will be challenged by increased bandwidth on the network, massive storage, and the ubiquity of cheap video-capture devices (coming to the iPhone this summer–will be a ho-hum feature in a couple years).

I, too, love the ascendency of the small press, but I wonder if it's a brief flowering for oldies like me who still prefer a well put-together book over the blandness of the e-book. I will miss bookstores when they go.
9
A "cheap" Kindle costs in the range of $300, so I really don't think that Sherman Alexie was wrong in his statement that it's elitist. Yes, the Kindle will fit one's entire home library and more, but, too, how many people buy books in $300 increments? Plus the cost of the e-book fee.

It also doesn't take into consideration the impact on public libraries, should people have to buy every book they would consider reading? Can families afford $300+ for each family member or must they all share the same Kindle and have a family usage-chart? I spent years of my youth in the Seattle Public Library and every library of every school I attended or city where I've lived since. It's the single equalizing factor for succeeding in education. One may attend a terrible school with burned out faculty and limited facilities, but the public library should afford a student access to every educational tool necessary.

Very much like looking up words in a dictionary affords one the opportunity to happen upon another word entirely, looking at books lined up in a library introduces people to books that they might never have otherwise discovered. There are libraries that have books going back a hundred years. Books by unknown authors that give glimpses into the lives and realities of the people. A dusty, ancient tome on wifely duties that is secretly subversive and feminist with instructions that include helpful hints on short-cutting housework to allow it's readers more time to focus on themselves rather than their husbands and children. Hand-printed 17th century recipe books geared toward female readers demonstrating wicked humor. All of that would be lost to the archives. It's already lost to the archives and we still have a culture that reads. Within a generation, libraries would be lost and with them the reading culture.
10
@8 and @9: Those are great points.

Personally, I think that literacy and writing have increased, if you don't allow for any differences between blogs, e-mail, and books. But this sort of thing is strictly anecdotal.

And as to the juxtaposition question of libraries, there is nothing that can duplicate that experience with e-books, and that is a major loss, and part of the reason why I think books will be around for a long time to come.
11
@6: I should have explained this further. I did ask an editor—at a bar, when things were sloppy—and he insists that they do the huge book deals because they still make money. Which, I'm pretty sure, is bullshit. But we need a whole lot of people asking these questions before big businesses will respond with anything resembling a thoughtful answer, or do anything different. I should have made that point clearer and I'm sorry.

@7: It's funny that your response to what you perceive as my inattentiveness is inattentiveness. I wish I had video of that press conference; you'd have yawned, too.
13
@Reality Check

Just another barking, inconsiderate douche who feels empowered by his/her car.
14
On a positive note, Paul, you'll be happy to learn that sales of Atlas Shrugged have tripled in the first third of 2009 compared to the first third of 2008. That's fucking huge:

http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?page=N…
15
I'd like to see a Google or a Craigslist try to actually help foster a diverse culture, rather than just their bottom line. The more they help the culture sustain, the more business they can get in the long run.... Because many of the people who fund them make their money off the industries their killing.

Small bookstores and publishers can't each try and invent a unique online system... the resources, the development, all prohibitive, and just not efficient. But if a system were invented that served the goals for independent stores of any kind to have websites that link to eachother, and to be able to compete with Amazon, then they could license it, or franchise it, or some such.

Or someone needs to start a master site that's like a consignment site for other businesses, who can each have their own "storefront" on the site.... then everyone could win... communities, small businesses, and whomever puts the system together in the first place.

There's so much potential to enrich our country, and our communities, through technology...
16
This CLOG [Constant Blog...get it?] is boring.
17
"People are reading and writing more than ever, including people who never used to write at all, like the vast majority of commenters on blogs"

do i detect a subtle dig at idiot blog commenters? brilliant!

and as far as the rest of this mess goes, it's not just "oldies" (@8) who have a love for a well put-together book. the potential in small press publishing is incredibly exciting to me, and i'm just 26. i spend my time in a print studio letterpressing broadsides and covers to books that i design myself on indesign. the possibilities that we book artists/writers have available to us through a combination of time worn techniques and new technologies are really endless.

as a writer/book artist i have very little interest in six or seven figure book deals, and a whole lot of interest in producing something beautiful with my own two hands. houses like mcsweeney's (which, by the way, has gotten a lot of uninterested people interested in the form of the book by taking design into account in a huge way AND by making literacy and writing skills their other project with 826) inspire people like me. paul's description of the potential rise of the small press with writers making a solid blue collar wage sounded like a wet dream to me. i'm game to do my part to make that happen.

LADY PRESS!
18
All of my books were published by relatively small independent presses: New Directions, Coffee House, FC2. And now I enter the slipstream as a new publisher of innovative, exceptional literature (jadedibisproductions.com -- Jaded Ibis Press) in three forms: (1) Kindle, (2) Print-on-Demand, and (3) fine art limited editions, at relatively little cost to me and with the ability to offer my authors a 40% royalty vs. the typical 8%.

And, by the way, the New York Times came out with its annual women's fiction section since they cover women less than 20% the rest of the year. It was authored by ever-pedestrian Janet Maslin, and not one of the titles was from a small, independent press. There is some extraordinary writing being published by women -- and men -- these days, but you'd never know it from the press.
19
You can let a friend borrow a book or a cd. Digital media distributors do not want to allow this. Think hard on whether we want institutions mediating how we share experiences and ideas on a peer level, and whether we should have to pay to do so. The digitizing of information and ideas is great, but the itunes / kindle model has some real social and economic problems that are not being acknowledged.
20
So what is going to be done about the everyday people who care enough about literary merit (i'm purposely avoiding the media discussion) to avoid airport-newsstand crap but are just reading fewer books in general? Is the local book club selection the final stand of literature? This goes way beyond the troubles of the publishing industry. Is it such a stretch to say that reading itself -- not blogs or news sites, but real, honest literature, the kind that the middle school librarians wouldn't leave us kids alone about -- is in crisis?

I'm a college senior majoring in nothing that could remotely be called literary. Once I left high school and took my required freshman fine arts course (a fantastic and memorable American film course), that was that. I'm in computer science - I wouldn't touch an english class with a ten foot pole. But yet I enjoyed some of the required readings in high school. Why does it seem like I am required to study and analyze literature in order to appreciate it?

I just want to read a decent story every so often, dammit. (Alexie and his romanticized laments can take a hike.) I don't really care how I read, but it is of far greater concern that fewer and fewer regular people (i.e., knows a good book upon reading, but only knows where the local B&N/borders is) are seeking out good literature anymore.
21
It is inevitable that someday the majority of the printed word will be in digital form. That's not necessarily bad; I know I'm a better speller for it. What people need to realize is that even though the word is in digital form, people still need to pay to read the serious work of real journalist. If news papers required people to pay to view their articles on line, rather than just giving unregulated access to the material on their web sites, maybe they wouldn't be going out of business. And anyone who has tried to copy and paste certain Google content knows that the copy and paste function can be disabled, so there wouldn't be any "borrowing" article.
22
It is inevitable that someday the majority of the printed word will be in digital form. That's not necessarily bad; I know I'm a better speller for it. What people need to realize is that even though the word is in digital form, people still need to pay to read the serious work of real journalist. If news papers required people to pay to view their articles on line, rather than just giving unregulated access to the material on their web sites, maybe they wouldn't be going out of business. And anyone who has tried to copy and paste certain Google content knows that the copy and paste function can be disabled, so there wouldn't be any "borrowing" article.
23
It is inevitable that someday the majority of the printed word will be in digital form. That's not necessarily bad; I know I'm a better speller for it. What people need to realize is that even though the word is in digital form, people still need to pay to read the serious work of real journalist. If news papers required people to pay to view their articles on line, rather than just giving unregulated access to the material on their web sites, maybe they wouldn't be going out of business. And anyone who has tried to copy and paste certain Google content knows that the copy and paste function can be disabled, so there wouldn't be any "borrowing" article.
24
Books are solid objects to hold and ponder,they contain myriad seeds of knowledge, one may 'slow cook' the ingredients of a complex concept, the brain's neurons having time to sort, store, analyze and judge.Throughout the history of recorded analyses, books have been burned.From broken stone tablets through papyrus through the serial destruction at Alexandria to the Nazis, Soviets, Catholics, then erasures of tapes.Authoritarian regimes seek to create drones, we're well on our way to mind-control with the sizzling candied swill of FOX 'news'.
Rozmarija Grauds
25
Is "serious literary experience" really a trickle-down phenomenon?
26
Thanks for the great article. A quick note, though, before you get too excited about the potential impact Google will have on the e-book market: Google actually does tons of stuff halfheartedly. Google Video? Google Mashup Editor? Jaiku? They're kind of famous for throwing shit up against the wall to see what sticks.

That being said, I think e-books are eventually working toward the mass market, with both e-books and e-book readers getting much cheaper to reflect the enormous potential profit margins.
27
Great call-outs on Two Dollar Radio and Chin Music Press, both of whom should serve as banner-bearers in the publishing era to come. Just saw that Chin Music's latest book, Oh!, was listed as one NPR's Summer Reads. Power to the Seattle presses!
28
@9, you wrote:

> A "cheap" Kindle costs in the range of $300, so I really don't think that Sherman Alexie was wrong in his statement that it's elitist. Yes, the Kindle will fit one's entire home library and more, but, too, how many people buy books in $300 increments? Plus the cost of the e-book fee.

> It also doesn't take into consideration the impact on public libraries, should people have to buy every book they would consider reading? Can families afford $300+ for each family member or must they all share the same Kindle and have a family usage-chart? I spent years of my youth in the Seattle Public Library and every library of every school I attended or city where I've lived since. It's the single equalizing factor for succeeding in education. One may attend a terrible school with burned out faculty and limited facilities, but the public library should afford a student access to every educational tool necessary.

Electronic books are still in their infancy. The cost is going to come down, as with any other technology. Libraries don't seem to have gotten the memo with respect to e-books (check out the SPL's pathetic offering), but they will. The kindle is important because many of these issues are chicken-and-egg problems: why should the SPL carry e-books when no one has readers? And why should I buy an e-book reader when there's nothing to read on it?

Give it time. I think you'll find (absent some new draconian copyright laws) things will get better.
29
Something in me very, very strongly doubts that a seriously damaging cultural shift is taking place. A cultural shift, undoubtedly, but hell, those are a dime a dozen. I'm sure that when the printing press gained popularity, the monks who used to write books were pretty bummed.

Cheer up. Kindles (probably) aren't going to replace books (or, something better will replace Kindles, so no worries), nor is the internet. Just because those darn kids are reading more online these days doesn't mean they don't still read. Granted, Twilight sucked donkey balls, but they sure couldn't get enough of it.

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