{"id":64,"date":"2013-01-09T16:51:00","date_gmt":"2013-01-09T16:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnpicacio.com\/onthefront\/2013\/01\/09\/the-shiny-new-future-of-publishing\/"},"modified":"2014-12-14T18:43:20","modified_gmt":"2014-12-14T18:43:20","slug":"the-shiny-new-future-of-publishing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/johnpicacio.com\/onthefront\/2013\/01\/09\/the-shiny-new-future-of-publishing\/","title":{"rendered":"The Shiny New Future of Publishing"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Just read\u00a0a must-read post by Dennis Johnson of Melville House<\/a>, outlining the very-possible closing-down of Barnes & Noble\u2019s physical bookstores. For many of my more radical\u00a0ebook-loving friends, this is cause for cheering and applause. I do not agree with them. For me and several of my long-time publishing friends, it\u2019s the realization of something we\u2019ve\u00a0been watching and noting since around 2008\/2009, like watching a massive train derail in slow-motion.<\/span><\/p>\n

While I do not forget big-box stores\u2019 ruthless and myopic elimination of independent bookstore competition over the years (good ol\u2019 American capitalism, right?), I don\u2019t applaud the\u00a0demise of any bookstore, even the big-box versions. And if you\u2019re a fan of anything that\u2019s written or drawn in published form, then you should pay attention to what\u2019s happening right\u00a0now, because it\u2019s going to affect you, even if you\u2019re really happy right now with your Shiny New Future. And in fact, it already is affecting you, even if you don\u2019t realize it.<\/p>\n


New York Times\u2019 David Streitfeld,\u00a0in a recent report on ebooks<\/a>: \u201cThe triumph of e-books over their physical brethren is not happening quite as fast as forecast.\u201d Streitfeld floated the\u00a0idea that this may be due to the \u201ccounterintuitive possibility \u2026 that the 2011 demise of Borders, the second-biggest chain, dealt a surprising blow to the e-book industry. Readers could\u00a0no longer see what they wanted to go home and order.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n

Result, according to Melville House\u2019s Johnson? \u201cThe closing of bookstores selling PRINT books may also be hurting the sale of EBOOKS.\u201d<\/span>

Ding-ding-ding. Hi, folks \u2014 that\u2019s Reality ringing your cultural doorbell.<\/span>

My take: Culture is an ecosystem. Think balance. Think beyond the length of your own arm. Our current Shiny New Future of Publishing is built for short-term gratification, and long-term \u2018scorched earth\u2019 (borrowing Johnson\u2019s phrase). I think we can do better than that. We NEED to do better than that.<\/span>

I offer this to anyone reading this \u2014 you\u2019re not in charge of \u2018saving Barnes and Noble\u2019 or \u2018saving publishing\u2019 or \u2018saving culture\u2019. That\u2019s missing the point. It\u2019s the wrong way to frame\u00a0these events. You ARE in charge of deciding what kind of culture you want, and leaving a world of better choices than the one you were given. In publishing and in reading culture, we\u2019re\u00a0not doing such a hot job lately. Stop choosing convenience over culture, people. You can have both, but when you choose the former exclusively over the latter, you lose. Ebooks are\u00a0NOT the devil, but ignorance sure is.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n<\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just read\u00a0a must-read post by Dennis Johnson of Melville House, outlining the very-possible closing-down of Barnes & Noble\u2019s physical bookstores. For many of my more radical\u00a0ebook-loving friends, this is cause for cheering and applause. I do not agree with them. For me and several of my long-time publishing friends, it\u2019s the realization of something we\u2019ve\u00a0been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":586,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-conventions"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/johnpicacio.com\/onthefront\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/SHELFLIFEdetail.jpg?fit=591%2C738","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5te7x-12","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/johnpicacio.com\/onthefront\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/johnpicacio.com\/onthefront\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/johnpicacio.com\/onthefront\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johnpicacio.com\/onthefront\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johnpicacio.com\/onthefront\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/johnpicacio.com\/onthefront\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johnpicacio.com\/onthefront\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/johnpicacio.com\/onthefront\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johnpicacio.com\/onthefront\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johnpicacio.com\/onthefront\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}