The End of Publishing?

The story is called "The End," its author is Boris Kachka, and there it sits—a mega feature in New York magazine, heralding the news (the news?) that "the book business as we know it will not be living happily ever after."

http://nymag.com/news/media/50279/

"... pretty much every aspect of the business seems to be in turmoil," Kachka writes. "There’s the floundering of the few remaining semi-independent midsize publishers; the ouster of two powerful CEOs—one who inspired editors and one who at least let them be; the desperate race to evolve into e-book producers; the dire state of Borders, the only real competitor to Barnes & Noble; the feeling that outrageous money is being wasted on mediocre books; and Amazon .com, which many publishers look upon as a power-hungry monster bent on cornering the whole business."

Across an-already vastly partitioned landscape, more fences are being thrown up, the skies are growing darker, and we writers, we readers, we lovers of ideas are—well, what? What are we supposed to be doing? What sort of future waits for us?

Does a future wait for us?

Call me crazy (others have), but I'm still going to bet on a future enriched by books. I'm going to remember that I never was one of those writers who earned a mega advance, or even a big advance, or even, well, you get the point. Indeed, one of my books earned no advance at all (the new "model" of publishing that New York magazine makes reference to); but, heck, that advance-free book went onto sell in several foreign countries, went on to get some bloggers talking, went on to sell out most of its print run. Another book netted me something like $800 after all was said and done—$800 and so many new friends, so many exquisite new opportunities, so many chances to get involved in the life of a city I love, not to mention, the chance to write a book in precisely the way I wanted to write that book, quirky point of view and all.

Writing books gives me an excuse to dwell—with ideas, with language, with research, with people who know more than I do, in places I wish to celebrate. And yes, I'm sad that Barnes & Noble has so much control over my future (literary YA not being high on its buy list at the moment, sad to say). Yes, I wish Amazon wouldn't leverage its power the way that it does, wouldn't insinuate itself so thoroughly into the making-books side of things. Yes, I wish that it were easier, at times, to spread the word about books.

But I'm not giving up on books quite yet. I'm not giving up on writing them, and I'm not giving up on talking about them, or rooting for them. I'm looking up to people like Melissa Walker, who takes three fine books into her own hands, surveys the virtual world, MySpaces and Blogs and Vlogs and FlipBooks and GoodReads and Throws Competitions and Goes ReaderGirlz and gets a lot of people talking about important things in an utterly charming fashion.

The old rules might not apply in publishing anymore. We're going to need some new hiking boots for the trek ahead. But I hope you'll take the journey with me. I hope that we won't ever stand on a hill (or in a valley) and see The End.

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