The biggest danger of the combination of internet and AI is that it seems to be contributing to a collective loss of memory, something I especially observe in younger generations who do not remember a time without the internet. I have observed some get very distorted ideas of the past based on their favourite influencers' interpretation of the time before internet, when mass communication happened by print, radio and television broadcasts. A lesser known phrase from Santana's famous quote about the consequences of failing to remember the past, is "where change is absolute, there remains no being to improve" - in essence, improvement is only possible where the memory of the past is kept.
Your stories of the changes in publishing remind me of my father who was an office repair technician - he started with typewriters and adding machines in the 1960s, and ended with industrial digital printers/scanners/copiers/fax machines in the 2010s. He remembers when the base of all digital programming, binary code, was literally physical - he used to program adding machines by hand, breaking off little tabs on the circular discs to indicate the 0's, while the remaining tabs were the 1's. He often brought home defunct equipment. The electronic and digital machines are almost impossible to repair, since the companies who made their parts and programming are gone so their parents are lost, but the older mechanical typewriters still work, people still use them in various ways, and people are still making parts to repair them. When someone, somewhere is preserving the old ways, only then can progress be made: the roof trees of Notre Dame de Paris were rebuilt after the fire because there were carpenters who still knew the medieval techniques.
Yeah - Heraclitus - love that guy. Always good for a quote.
Like what you're laying down here. I was one of those guys worried that nobody was reading anymore, but when I subscribed to Publisher's Marketplace, I was stunned by the number of children's and middle-grade deals there were. If they're starting that young, then it's likely that they'll be lifelong readers.
Amazon is a blessing and a curse. I can throw my books up on there and they'll pay me a 40% royalty and handle shipping costs - if there are any sales. Therein lies the rub, because there are literally millions of books on their platform and it's hard to separate myself from the herd. For an author going on a book promotion tour there is an economic advantage in that I can buy my author copies for less than $3 for an $11 book and walk with $8 profit. That's 73% profit.
I'm the guy that says, "Great writing transcends all obstacles," and the fact that mine have not, as of yet, done that is pretty self-incriminating. Still the secret to this whole game during any era is the same: Just write well.
As long as people like the tactile experience of holding a physical book in their hands, there will be books- thank God.
"Gulf+Western—the conglomerate that also owned Paramount Pictures—bought Simon & Schuster the same year I made my delivery-room debut."
In 1976's "Silent Movie", director Mel Brooks used G&W's purchase of Paramount as the basis for "Engulf And Devour", the company that effectively served as the film's antagonist. (At one point, the sound of a mad dog is dubbed on to the soundtrack to simulate speech by the company's boss.)
The action represented something that the film industry already knew but the publishing business was slower to understand- those with the gold are not always fit to carry the tune, but they end up doing so if the business has no gold in reserve itself.
I worked in magazines during the last days of blue lines and paste-up. I miss newsstands, something about that display of information felt so lush. Now everyone is in their devices and all their reading preferences are interiorized. I like to see what people are reading.
Thanks for this fun and optimistic walk through the last few decades of literary history, seen through a publishing , sales, and compositional lens. I was lucky enough to attend Berkeley in the late 80s, where every other address on the streets by campus was either a used bookstore or a coffee shop. Once you get a taste for those bookstores, you can't untaste it. Then, in the early 90s, I was in graduate school in Ann Arbor, where the first Borders ever was thriving. It was a daily ritual to pop in there and browse on my walk home from class. I miss those times and I miss those stores, but it's also true that Amazon's algorithm, not to mention its aggregation of zillions of used booksellers around the world, has enabled me to discover and explore and come to love so many more writers and kinds of writing than I could before. Creative destruction it is, as you note. Always in motion, always changing, always giving us something new in return for moving us past the old.
Joel, thanks for explaining why I wasn’t able to find spinner racks of paperbacks in the local drug store-soda fountain in the small mountain town where my family was camping. I am a voracious and omnivorous reader who absolutely MUST have a book with me at all times and I had read the books I had brought. This was in the time before e-readers, not that they work well in the forest! (No electrical outlets.)
I enjoy books in all available formats: digital, audio, and paper. Thanks to the internet, I have been introduced to authors and books I would not have heard about, as my ever-expanding “Want to Read” list shows. One change I have noticed is I now read articles, such as yours, online rather than in magazines. In the pre-Internet age, many working-class &middle-class families watched the same TV programs (or listened to the same radio programs) and read the same magazines. There are now more options for niche markets, which has the unfortunate effect of preventing the development of common cultural touchpoints.
This is a great summary of how much the publishing world has changed. I remember getting into a somewhat heated conversation with a colleague who had published his first novel. Amazon was just getting going, and I told him I loved it, because it recommended so many great titles based on my previous purchases, as well as providing a forum for readers to review books. He hated it, because he said it was reducing the influence of traditional "cultural gatekeepers". Later, I took a look, and sure enough, his novel was getting rave reviews from NYT, etc, but mostly 2 and 3-star reviews from readers on Amazon.
I also love how the Internet has freed up books in the public domain. I can read thousands of books for free or pennies. That said, I sure miss Borders and Davis Kidd.
The biggest danger of the combination of internet and AI is that it seems to be contributing to a collective loss of memory, something I especially observe in younger generations who do not remember a time without the internet. I have observed some get very distorted ideas of the past based on their favourite influencers' interpretation of the time before internet, when mass communication happened by print, radio and television broadcasts. A lesser known phrase from Santana's famous quote about the consequences of failing to remember the past, is "where change is absolute, there remains no being to improve" - in essence, improvement is only possible where the memory of the past is kept.
Your stories of the changes in publishing remind me of my father who was an office repair technician - he started with typewriters and adding machines in the 1960s, and ended with industrial digital printers/scanners/copiers/fax machines in the 2010s. He remembers when the base of all digital programming, binary code, was literally physical - he used to program adding machines by hand, breaking off little tabs on the circular discs to indicate the 0's, while the remaining tabs were the 1's. He often brought home defunct equipment. The electronic and digital machines are almost impossible to repair, since the companies who made their parts and programming are gone so their parents are lost, but the older mechanical typewriters still work, people still use them in various ways, and people are still making parts to repair them. When someone, somewhere is preserving the old ways, only then can progress be made: the roof trees of Notre Dame de Paris were rebuilt after the fire because there were carpenters who still knew the medieval techniques.
"Nothing endures but change."
Heraclitus
Yeah - Heraclitus - love that guy. Always good for a quote.
Like what you're laying down here. I was one of those guys worried that nobody was reading anymore, but when I subscribed to Publisher's Marketplace, I was stunned by the number of children's and middle-grade deals there were. If they're starting that young, then it's likely that they'll be lifelong readers.
Amazon is a blessing and a curse. I can throw my books up on there and they'll pay me a 40% royalty and handle shipping costs - if there are any sales. Therein lies the rub, because there are literally millions of books on their platform and it's hard to separate myself from the herd. For an author going on a book promotion tour there is an economic advantage in that I can buy my author copies for less than $3 for an $11 book and walk with $8 profit. That's 73% profit.
I'm the guy that says, "Great writing transcends all obstacles," and the fact that mine have not, as of yet, done that is pretty self-incriminating. Still the secret to this whole game during any era is the same: Just write well.
As long as people like the tactile experience of holding a physical book in their hands, there will be books- thank God.
"Gulf+Western—the conglomerate that also owned Paramount Pictures—bought Simon & Schuster the same year I made my delivery-room debut."
In 1976's "Silent Movie", director Mel Brooks used G&W's purchase of Paramount as the basis for "Engulf And Devour", the company that effectively served as the film's antagonist. (At one point, the sound of a mad dog is dubbed on to the soundtrack to simulate speech by the company's boss.)
The action represented something that the film industry already knew but the publishing business was slower to understand- those with the gold are not always fit to carry the tune, but they end up doing so if the business has no gold in reserve itself.
I worked in magazines during the last days of blue lines and paste-up. I miss newsstands, something about that display of information felt so lush. Now everyone is in their devices and all their reading preferences are interiorized. I like to see what people are reading.
Thanks for this fun and optimistic walk through the last few decades of literary history, seen through a publishing , sales, and compositional lens. I was lucky enough to attend Berkeley in the late 80s, where every other address on the streets by campus was either a used bookstore or a coffee shop. Once you get a taste for those bookstores, you can't untaste it. Then, in the early 90s, I was in graduate school in Ann Arbor, where the first Borders ever was thriving. It was a daily ritual to pop in there and browse on my walk home from class. I miss those times and I miss those stores, but it's also true that Amazon's algorithm, not to mention its aggregation of zillions of used booksellers around the world, has enabled me to discover and explore and come to love so many more writers and kinds of writing than I could before. Creative destruction it is, as you note. Always in motion, always changing, always giving us something new in return for moving us past the old.
Joel, thanks for explaining why I wasn’t able to find spinner racks of paperbacks in the local drug store-soda fountain in the small mountain town where my family was camping. I am a voracious and omnivorous reader who absolutely MUST have a book with me at all times and I had read the books I had brought. This was in the time before e-readers, not that they work well in the forest! (No electrical outlets.)
I enjoy books in all available formats: digital, audio, and paper. Thanks to the internet, I have been introduced to authors and books I would not have heard about, as my ever-expanding “Want to Read” list shows. One change I have noticed is I now read articles, such as yours, online rather than in magazines. In the pre-Internet age, many working-class &middle-class families watched the same TV programs (or listened to the same radio programs) and read the same magazines. There are now more options for niche markets, which has the unfortunate effect of preventing the development of common cultural touchpoints.
Excellent post Joel.
This is a great summary of how much the publishing world has changed. I remember getting into a somewhat heated conversation with a colleague who had published his first novel. Amazon was just getting going, and I told him I loved it, because it recommended so many great titles based on my previous purchases, as well as providing a forum for readers to review books. He hated it, because he said it was reducing the influence of traditional "cultural gatekeepers". Later, I took a look, and sure enough, his novel was getting rave reviews from NYT, etc, but mostly 2 and 3-star reviews from readers on Amazon.
I also love how the Internet has freed up books in the public domain. I can read thousands of books for free or pennies. That said, I sure miss Borders and Davis Kidd.