Bookshelves aren't likely to lose their books anytime soon
Being that I’m in publishing, I’ve been sitting down feeling pretty nervous of the predicted ‘death of print’. Magazines, books, everything that’s printed by a publisher with names like HarperCollins, Future, IDG or Penguin will go the way of the quill pen and disappear. And given that 2009 promises to be a 365-day-long St Valentine’s Day Massacre we’re told, I’ve been considering taking up nail biting in my spare time. Indeed, it will be blogs, Twitter-tweets and Kindles that will take over as of soon, as of just around the corner. Books will follow CDs down the dumper into a sludge that bubbles beneath the pier until all physical media turns into a giant pile of rubbish suspended out in the Pacific somewhere between Chile and Australia forevermore.
I’m having a tough time not yelling, what a load of claptrap. My nemesis Boris Johnson might call it piffle and balderdash. As we all said after watching too much Repo Man, “call bullshit on that.”
The printed word will not die.
Books will not die.
Magazines will not die. Sort of. Again it’s that thing that people forget when exalting technology: people. Everything in this world is governed by the amount of cultural capital we give it within our little bubble of friends and co-riders on our cultural trains, whether they’re little streetcars or long, long, slow moving freight trains. So it becomes voguish to be into technology, any technology, which will appeal to those within your train, or to appeal to those outside your train with whom you’d like to appeal.
Once everyone’s in, it’s necessary to separate yourself yet again, to differentiate yourself from those guys across the way. There are a zillion ways to do this. If everyone’s digital, you have a different kind of digital. Or you opt out of digital altogether. Ever notice how so many record shops these days are starting to sport vinyl again? Or why there’s so much retro all over the place? As long as there’s cultural capital in books and magazines, they will not die. But that’s the rub. It’s an if. Right now the best way to show your super-intellect on a Tube is to whip out your copy of a first edition Dostoevsky and get to thumbing the pages, tongue poking out, brow all furrowed, nodding and stroking the chin. It says a completely different thing from whipping out a Kindle and reading it that way. The Kindle says I’m techy, not, I’m a reader of impenetrable yet deep Russian prose. And if it’s a first edition or a retro Penguin cover, it says something different yet again from a “I bought this at a cheapo remainders store for £1.
Culture and the cultural capital is everything. Electronic media cannot kill that it Tommy Cooper style: “just like that”. Kindles and their digital book ilk will be the scourge of academic publishers more likely however. I don’t necessarily want to lug £500 of weighty hardcover books to a flat while I’m studying if I can search a text electronically. Those folk have something to think about. And inevitably, another format will nibble at book sales. But as long as there is cultural capital in ‘publishing a book’, publishers needn’t search the horizon for horsemen.
“Read my blog” has a different ring from “read my book”. And from “Read my book, published by Penguin”. As long as there’s cultural capital, there’s less to worry about. So, how do you maintain that capital? Find the physical value of the thing you’re publishing. What are magazines good at? Great design. They’re great at looking and feeling good. Make ‘em highly sensory. Be innovative. Lots of texture, great layouts, fantastic, non-patronising articles folk can rip up and take to the loo with ‘em. Fantastic pictures of Omarion glossy, branded, shirtless that can be ripped out and pasted onto a wall.
Omarion topless in a print mag would set any teenage R&B fangirl's heart aflutter.
Underlining the fact that if someone buys this product, it is more than just a bunch of words that they can get anywhere. It is a quality, good read. It is an artefact. It can be collected and archived and displayed in your house or room to show how much you love R&B, design, Amnesty International or the Observer’s music monthly. The Web strips value away (by and large). The trick is to communicate with those who like the value and let them know that your book or magazine is all about value. One more thing I was thinking. There’s plenty of value to be added with the ‘blogosphere’ and all the ‘Web 2.0’ stuff. It helps the writers or artists add value to their personal brands. What marketing magazine wouldn’t love to have a regular column from Seth Godin, or a tech mag from Nicholas Negroponte? But it’s a mix of media. Digital enables a direct connection – Peter Jackson did a great job with that while making Lord Of The Rings – and that adds value to your ‘old media’. Douglas Coupland’s blog enhances the value of his books. It’s a virtuous circle. I’m following Chris Cornell on Twitter at the moment, and on Myspace.
We’ll see what happens when his album comes out… Anyway, those are my thoughts on the issue.