Print is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age

As 2007 comes to a close, and newspapers and magazines are filled with year-end reflections and best-ofs (for the record, my favorite film of 2007 was Control and my favorite CD was Boxer by The National), I’m also pausing to think about this past year. Mostly what I’m thinking about is my new book, Print is Dead. Because even though it came out just a month ago, I’ve actually been working on it for the entire year (both in terms of writing and editing it, as well as working on this blog and the book excerpt site). And all of this, and especially the opportunities that have come out of the online exposure I created for Print is Dead, is making me think of a different book and a different time.

Ten years ago my second novel came out. It was called Geniuses of Crack, and it was a sequel to my first novel, Our Noise (which came out in 1995, and which had been a modest success). Geniuses was published by Scribner Paperback Fiction, a division of Simon & Schuster. While I was honored to have the backing of Simon & Schuster — a large and well-respected publishing house — the truth is that if you’re a small author at a big publishing company, it’s hard to get any attention. In fact, a friend of mine was published at Knopf the same month that a John Irving book came out, and he was disappointed to find that his book received only a fraction of the promotional dollars spent on Irving.

At the time I thought I’d written a decent book in Geniuses, and of course I wanted it to do well. I was living in New York, and even though there was a lot I could have done locally (staging readings and signings), I’d lived in the city for less than a year at that point and didn’t really know my way around. Plus, I’m just generally kind of shy (as most writers are; people who aren’t shy and wish to express themselves become actors), so introducing myself to the manager of St. Mark’s Books really wasn’t my style. And so as publication day approached, I found myself feeling both very excited and very helpless. I mean, I wanted the book to do well, but I felt that all I could really do was cross my fingers and hope for the best.

The book finally came out, got a smattering of reviews, and a couple of magazines called for interviews. But that was about it. My publisher did their part and got the book into stores, and while it was certainly nice to see it on the shelf of my local bookstore, I had hoped a little more would happen.

A few weeks after the book came out, I went to the Barnes & Noble on the Upper West Side, just a handful of blocks away from my studio apartment, and just stood there as I watched people walk back and forth in front of my book. It was nestled at the bottom of the New Paperbacks display (coop dollars at work), and as people stopped to peruse other books on the shelf, I tried to mentally will them to pick up mine. (It didn’t work.)

To this day I distinctly remember just standing there, completely helpless, wanting the book to get some sort of attention and yet not knowing how to go about getting it. And while the Internet existed in 1997, it was hardly the ubiquitous presence it is today. Back then, the Web was more about tech-savvy geeks and early adopters. Whereas, today, almost everyone has an e-mail address and surfs the web at least a few times a week (not to mention that more people than ever have their own website or blog).

Anyway, that was then; this is now. It’s now a different decade and, for me, a new book. And it’s just amazing to me how different a feeling it is to be published in 2007 versus 1997. Back then being an author felt very much like being an awkward teenager hoping to get a date: all an author could do was stay near the phone waiting for the publicist to call. But now, with the Internet, I feel completely empowered. I don’t need to wait for my publisher to do something on my behalf; instead, I just need to sit down at my laptop, do a bit of online research, and from there I can do any number of promotional things for my book.

For instance, this blog. I started this blog long before I even completed the book. And in the past sixteen months, since starting and working at this blog, I’ve slowly built an audience and generated traffic, using this site to get to know the players in this space and letting them get to know me (and for a person who doesn’t like to knock on doors, it’s been an incredibly easy thing to do). Yes, it’s taken a lot of my personal time, but it’s also led to countless opportunities: interviews, conferences, writing assignments, not to mention it has put me in direct contact with my readers. Plus, just some of the comments the blog itself has received have been immensely helpful in shaping my thinking about the topic (not to mention that things that I originally wrote for this blog, I later turned into material that made its way into the final draft of the book).

Back in 1997, none of this was possible. And the only promotional activities open to me then, that I could have drummed up myself, would have been local. But now, I’m always amazed to check my Google Analytics account and see that I have visitors to this blog from pretty much every corner of the globe. And even if they never buy my book, it’s still feedback and a connection; it’s an audience.

So while we can debate the future of the book, there can be no doubt that the Internet has changed the face of publishing forever, opening up promotional opportunities that before were closed to everyone except the biggest and most popular of authors.

As James Joyce said of his characters, “Here comes everybody.” That’s how I feel about the Internet. And as R.E.M. said about the end of the world, “I feel fine.” That’s how I feel being an author today.

PS have a happy holiday; normal blogging will return early in 2008.