Print is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age

The Telegraph in the UK is reporting on a new plan by Brooklyn writer Tao Lin to sell shares of his upcoming book. He’s doing this — charging $2000 per share to potential investors — in order to raise enough cash so that he can support himself while he completes his second novel. Lin, the author of a previous novel entitled Eeeee Eee Eeee (forget funds to finish his second book; I think he needs to take up a collection in order to get a good editor), thinks doing this will somehow “motivate” him. From the Telegraph story:

Tao admits that he hopes publicity generated by his innovative money-raising strategy will itself boost sales of the book, but he also says that being publicly owned — at least in a professional sense — would boost his motivation.

Um, I don’t think being “publicly owned” is good for anything, let alone motivation (true, a whip may make you move, but probably not in the direction you want to go).

In the end, as the Telegraph asks in its headline, is this “shameless self-promotion or the future of the publishing industry?,” I’d have to say it’s probably more the former and not quite the latter. But still, it’s interesting that the Web is making it all possible.