Shock and Yawn: Publisher’s Weekly Soapbox column
This week I have the honor of being the author of the Soapbox column in this week’s edition of Publisher’s Weekly, which is a regular feature that appears on the last page of each issue. My column is entitled “Shock and Yawn,” and is about the reaction I often receive when I tell people I’ve written a book entitled Print is Dead.
Here’s a snippet:
Of all the ways to win a popularity contest, working in publishing and writing a book called Print Is Dead has to be at the bottom of the list. While the subtitle—Books in Our Digital Age—hopefully puts the argument in a bit more perspective, the title by itself always seems to set people off. In fact, it has earned me many a chilly reception (think Benedict Arnold, not Paul Revere).
You can read the rest of the column here.
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Congratulations on the Soapbox piece. My read is that you have a great title, that’s why people paid attention to it in elevators and also why Soapbox picked it up.
I’ve been listening to your podcasts and await my pre-ordered copy and from what I know so far I think you are attempting to raise the level of discussion rather than present solutions on moving publishing into the online age. Perhaps if you had had solutions industry insiders would be less print-protective. But I think an important point is that solutions will only come when the level of discussion is raised. The solutions need to be collective solutions. Proprietary solutions have stumbled so far because they haven’t addressed enough of the needs, whether those needs are of publishers and readers or authors or retailers/etailers.