It’s no longer news that the book industry is in a frenzy over ebooks. Many have already started on their obituaries for the ‘dead tree’ book. Others are steadfast in the refusal to accept any other form and insist it will last for a long time more. Both are probably right. It depends on which book industry one is talking about -- text, reference, academic, or general. Text books will probably be the first to go digital; the weight of a students’ backpack should decide that. As for reference material, when was the last time you opened a printed dictionary? Mine happened about five years ago. Academics really don’t need to kill trees to put forward their arguments. So the discussion is really only about general books.The biggest positive news to come out of the book world in recent times is Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom, which I have pre-ordered despite learning that it is over 500 pages long. (That’s how desperate I am for some good news.) The last time anyone heard of Franzen was during the Oprah Winfrey kerfuffle in 2001. How dare this pipsqueak of a writer insult their media darling, the media screamed although he, actually, didn’t. Perhaps there is a measure of guilt involved in media circles for the way they reported the incident despite the fact that it was not Franzen who unfriended Oprah but the other way round. (For those interested, some of the stories are still online.)
Maybe the media needs something to write about (and Franzen is a name the public is familiar with), and America needs a new literary hero for its own revalidation, after Iraq and the economic crisis, and to take his place alongside Salinger, Nabokov, Morrison, Wolfe, Roth and Updike. After all, he is a proven writer and a recluse -- ah, that great American literary tradition. A recent Time magazine report about his new book caught my attention. This is his first novel in nine years. “He writes six or seven days a week, starting at 7am. He’s often hoarse by the end of the day because he performs his dialogue aloud as he writes ... Franzen works from a rented office ... stripped of all distractions. He uses a heavy, obsolete Dell laptop from which he has scoured any trace of hearts or solitaire ...”
And, because he believes one can’t write serious fiction on a computer that’s connected to the Internet, he has removed its wireless card and super glued shut its Ethernet port. It is an obsession one can only admire. I have to read that book.
Then in the other corner, we have James Patterson, currently the author who makes the most money in the world. This is interesting because, by his own admission, he does not even write his own books. His name is on the front cover of thrillers, young adult and children’s books, and he churns them out year after year, but he does not write them as much as “he relies on a team of five to help him bash out the plots”, according to a report in The Independent. Now, with the dawn of the iPad like devices, is there a limit to what Patterson can do? He could hire another five (or fifty) people and turn his into a production house ala Hollywood.When we talk about the general book industry, we always think there is only one. There are several. The one that has adapted itself best to social networks is probably sci-fi and horror. These people collect books by numbers, editions and book covers, so I can’t see how the e-book is going to affect them. There are many other segments. But, for what is commonly known as the general fiction market, Franzen and Patterson represent two different sides of it. Though these two are largely run by the same people, the two operate quite differently. Patterson represents the sugared-water side of the business and, just as, Coke will always outsell fine wines, the likes of him will clobber the Franzens financially. Seriously, in future, which publisher will bother to wait nine years for a blockbuster, even if it is a cultural phenomenon, when someone else can churn out nine books a year? (Not quite yet, but it will come to that.)
That, perhaps, is the true future of books: big production houses churning out ‘3-D’ versions of books. Will they still be called ‘books’, though? Will the ‘dead tree’ book die, then? Me thinks not. It will survive, like indie or art-house movies, or music. It will not make too much money (except occasionally -- like now) but it will have its connoisseurs. It will be largely produced by independents with the passion. It may become a cultural good once again -- like in Europe -- and be treated like fine wine.
And fewer trees will die, too.
Time
The Independent
