Text and Hubris

I haven’t talked about Apple for a while and, honestly, I am not going spend too much time on them now. It’s their platform and they can make up whatever rules they want for it. Frankly, it’s not the only game in town. My media purchasing is not limited at all by not having any Apple products or their iTunes software installed on any of my systems. I know they have a large share of the marketplace right now (The University has a huge Apple following), but I do love a world where those things still can and do change. Apple is not the end-all-be-all; it is merely another company trying to lock-in as much money as it can before the cards start to tumble.

I believe in content. I don’t believe in platforms. Apple can do what it wants. Some content creators will cave and pay their 30%; the rest won’t. In either case, content continues and what Apple has proven is that their iPad or iPhone – or any of their hardware, for that matter – has a very limited value. It’s the all about the apps. It’s the content that really matters. The iPad user doesn’t care about the iPad, they care about what cool things they can get for their iPad. That is what Apple is trying to control because that is where the money is. Console developers knew this a long time ago. They could sell a console for a low profit and then feed off the game licensing. This is all that Apple is trying to do. The difference between Apple and console developers is that games used to be sold through retail stores. Apple wants complete control of that as well. Then again, look at Sony, Microsoft, even Google. They all want to do that, to some extent.

As creators, we need to ask ourselves where our content is best placed. Since I am still a small – well non-existent at this point – content creator, Apple’s 30% cut is too high for me. Of course, this ignores all of Apple’s other onerous policies regarding content (which makes me wonder – will Apple also seek to control the type of content that is sold?). Even if I ignore all of those issues – which I wouldn’t -  I don’t want to pass a 30% charge to people interested in buying my work. Of course, I also like to eat. Apple has taken a very adversarial role with content creators and I don’t think that is a positive for anyone. Obviously, Apple doesn’t want my content and luckily I have a whole wide online space in which to sell without Apple. Yeah, it can be rougher out here. Apple’s carefully tended garden, with its manicured lawns, has its benefits. Those benefits just don’t outweigh the costs of lock-in. I have, yet, to see any valid reason that does.

Publishing vs. Distribution –
We tend to view publishing and distribution as a unified action and this is not accurate¹. Publishing requires the careful and attentive curation of works by experts who know both the audience and the works in question. Distribution is the method by which those works are provided to the public. You can, to paraphrase Doctorow, place your work in the garage and someone may see it but that’s not publishing. Just posting your work online is the modern equivalent to tossing it in your garage, the chance someone will actually see it is rather low. The Internet, then, is a means of distribution not a means of publishing. This is key to understanding the importance of publishers and it’s also, in my opinion, why there will be a rise in small publishing houses that curate specific types of titles for niche audiences, at least for a while.

The Slush Pile -
Doctorow’s commentary was incredibly apt and again I am paraphrasing, “If you sat me in front of a computer with a web browser and told me to stop clicking when I ran out of interesting things to look at, I’d starve first.” There is a plenty of quality work available online and that work can be customized for audiences. If I post a small video on YouTube for myself and a few friends it may get the play I want even if I don’t reach a million clicks. In addition, as Doctorow noted, the actual cost of clicking on a poor quality work is so low that it is relatively nonexistent. I can easily and immediately go somewhere else and lose little to nothing in the transition. This is entirely different from other forms of media.

The ‘net as an Echo Chamber -
While there are certainly wide assortments of groups that can reinforce any type of opinion a person has on the Internet, it is also very rare that an individual belongs to a single isolated silo. For example, someone may be a conservative or a liberal but they are also mothers and fathers, teachers, professionals, fans, car nuts, and who knows what else. What the Internet does is provide easy transitions between such silos.

It should also be noted that the echo chamber complaint is far less a problem than the echo chamber that can result growing up in a small rather isolated community. Online, leaving the echo chamber is only a click away. The same cannot be said of a small town. My personal opinion is that the real source of concern about the online echo chamber is actually rooted in the idea that the local area is losing its grasp on shaping opinion. Frankly, I don’t always think that is such a bad thing.

Teaching in New Media -
Our kids can’t pay attention! Sound the alarms! This type of argument sounds very similar to every other type of argument that has been made about media in the past. Yes, media can impact how we learn and how we think. Books did, radio did, television did, and so will the Internet. The key is not wholesale disavowal but a reasoned and rational approach to how the new tool can impact and possibly improve teaching. This is especially true with technology – again I point to Rushkoff’s Program or be Programmed. Cory shared an assignment that he taught once and I think it is a great example of how to educate students about new media in general. He had his students contribute to the discussion and make edits, where appropriate, to Wikipedia entries. Then he would track their user names to see the work they were doing and have them comment on it during class time. Quite honestly, this was a fantastic idea and one I may steal in the future.

—

King’s comment on the difference between ebooks and mp3 albums is an interesting counterpoint to some of Patel’s objections.

[h/t mediabistro]

If you get the chance, I strongly suggest reading J.R. Patel’s letter to Cursor which Richard Nash posted to his blog. In it Patel outlines his own experiences with running an indie label (in this case for music) and the possible pitfalls that may still lie in store for these shifts in paradigms within the publishing industry.

I want to again note that my interest in the industry is as someone who plans on writing on a professional level, who has been a developer and creative technical professional and, in my current role, as a student of literature and publishing. To this end, I tend to defer to the likes of Patel and Nash who have actually been in the trenches of this business and certainly can speak to the potential dangers in more detail than I can. There are a few details I can speak to, however, and I would like to do that with the above caveats firmly in mind.

To start, a close look at the business concerns that Mr. Patel lists may be in order. The issues he lists, especially with regard to marketing and managing the unstable nature of the new media outlets, appear to me to me issues of tracking, management, and experience. Primarily, these are technical issues that can be dealt with and managed with a relatively small team of dedicated people who understand how to adapt and manage social media software and who are willing to stay abreast of the issues. In short, what Patel’s company needed were people who were willing to be lifelong students willing to learn and adapt as the technology and culture changed. This skill is going to be key for anyone in the future and I strongly suggest everyone find a way to get excited about it because you will be left behind, otherwise. This is a post in and of itself but I will endeavor to avoid such a digression and focus, instead, on Mr. Patel and his letter.

Next, Mr. Patel notes that his relationship to books tends to be a private one between himself and the book and not the book’s author per se. In this instance, I see no room for concern. If he solely wants to interact with the text, he is welcome to do so. I sincerely hope (and believe) that Nash and others don’t wish to remove access to text as much as they wish to expand and grow that access into something greater and different. For those who simply want to read a book and move on, that possibility is not and should not be in danger.

His third concern (most certainly a valid one) is that writers may become a cult of personality in and of themselves and that, in the process, some truly great authors will be missed. This has always been an issue and new publishing paradigms will do little to change it. Some authors are experts at self-promotion and they crave the attention. Others tend to be reclusive, and there is always a chance they may be overlooked. This is as true in previous years and in previous incarnations of the industry as it is today. If anything, that danger is mitigated by the growing democratization of publishing and the slow but steady growth of independent presses. Just think of Melville. The model came decades late for him and I am sure it will for others as well.

Finally, and most interestingly considering my earlier discussion on Open Bookmarks, is the fear that the paratexts (those cultural artifacts surrounding the book) will assume a supremacy over the text itself. Quite honestly, I think Mr. Patel has a point here. Indeed, this type of issue is already at hand in some forms if we consider the number of synopsis and book studies that are freely available online for students and the number of students who feel that such a reading gives them an equivalent level of knowledge to reading the book itself. What happens to the actual text in such a situation? Will the conversations that I look forward to exploring on Open bookmarks take the place of the actual text? Is there a way to protect the text from such dilution and should that be done? These questions are ones that I do not have as ready an answer for as the ones above. I think the text survives as the source work and that truly scholarly approaches will always tend to hold to that. From a popular perspective, which is the perspective that concerns Mr. Patel, this is not so clear. The book can become diminished into such remixes and strange concoctions that devalue the original meaning to such an extent that nothing remains but paratext. While this is true, and a risk, I don’t think it is as likely as it was with music simply because of the differences in the mediums. I do think it bears a real examination, however, and it speaks to the reasons why voices like Mr. Patel need to be heard. It’s easy for those of us who are gung ho to miss things and the cautious voices of experience act as guides. I’m glad to see Richard Nash posted the letter and I am certainly curious to read the more reasoned and experienced responses of others.