Print is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age

Robert Fogarty had an opinion piece recently in the New York Sun entitled “The Antioch Review Lives, For Now,” which was about how, even though Antioch College will be closing next year, many in the literary community are concerned about the fate of its literary magazine, the Antioch Review. In fact, Fogarty writes, the news of Antioch’s eventual collapse “had our phones ringing off the hook and our e-mail box overflowing with the same question: Would the Antioch Review, an independent literary magazine founded in 1941, be shut down too?” To this I would ask, That’s what people were worried about? No one cared about the college itself, just its magazine? That’s doesn’t speak very highly of the interest in American higher education. After all, it seems slightly ridiculous that people care more about the Antioch Review than they do about Antioch College itself.

As Fogarty writes, “Independent literary magazines are an important element in our literary culture because they are the testing ground for future writers, for material that is shunned by the commercial presses, and for astute cultural criticism. Support them before they disappear.” While I agree with this on a certain level, I would never choose a magazine over a college, nor would I think the tragedy in a school’s closing was because its magazine might go out of business. Because I think that what society needs most is bright, educated young men and women, not casual reading material for already-educated older men and women. So for Fogarty and others to prize printed paper over a leafy quad filled with studying students seems myopic to the point of blindness, not to mention it has the potential of sacrificing the writers of tomorrow for the readers of today.

As an editor of the Antioch Review wrote more than four decades ago, “Television has already taken over vast areas of human communication which were once the province of print and it may be expected to take more: still it is doubtful if it can or should replace reading as a significant exercise. Publication itself appears more and more often as the result of large combinations of men and resources … in this new world can a small magazine of mature outlook but minimal resources sustain itself?” Maybe the answer is that small magazines can’t sustain themselves. And while that’s a shame, it’s nothing next to the idea that colleges can’t sustain themselves. In fact, Antioch’s motto is “Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.” While supporters of the Antioch Review would think that worrying so much about a magazine is indeed a “victory for humanity,” their efforts would be better served by trying to help, you know, actual humans (who I hear have humanity in spades).

Anyway, in the spirit of all this talk of being anti and Antioch, here’s a link to the video for Snowden’s brilliant song “Anti-Anti.”

In this week’s New Yorker, D.T. Max has an article entitled “Final Destination,” about the massive literary archives located at the University of Texas at Austin. The collection includes “thirty-six million manuscript pages, five million photographs, a million books, and ten thousand objects.” Writers included in the archive range from DeLillo to Byron, Milton to Mailer (and hundreds of others). All of this is kept under the watchful eye of Tom Staley, housed at the aptly named Ransom center. Because even though the university has treasures which scholars and writers the world over would be incredibly eager to see and gain access to, Staley refuses to digitize or put online any of the collection. Why? Because apparently not being able to sniff the manuscripts would ruin the whole experience. Writes Max: “[Staley] does not want to place the Ransom’s archives online. He believes, quoting Matthew Arnold, that ‘the object as in itself it really is’ can never be replaced by a digital reproduction. ‘Smell this,’ he told me one time when I was in his office, as he picked up a manuscript box from the Edwardian British publisher Cecil Palmer. We inhaled the scent: tobacco, mold, dust. ‘See, there’s information in the smell, too,’ he said.”

Yes, I get it; some of the manuscripts have an extra sensory dimension of either smell or touch that would be lost if viewed online. Fine. But in terms of literary archives, what’s surely more important are the words: which ones were crossed out and which were kept, how they were formed and what did it take to hammer them into shape. So while feeling Graham Greene’s letters in my hands would be great, reading them on a screen would be just fine. And to refuse to make the material more widely available, just because the occasional batch has an element that wouldn’t translate digitally, is madness. Books are themselves facsimiles of what the writers originally wrote. The End of the Affair doesn’t lose anything because it’s a Penguin Paperback and not Greene’s original manuscript. For Staley to refuse to digitize the collection, or even electronically archive it, shows that he’d rather play literary keep-away than celebrate the works of the great authors whose papers he has acquired.

The New Yorker: “Final Destination”

The online magazine Slate recently had an article in which they “revealed” the favorite font of a number of writers. This was tied into a Slate article about a new documentary about Helvetica (which I think I’ll skip, waiting for the epic mini-series about Times New Roman). To kick off their survey, Slate “asked a number of prominent writers to tell us what font they compose in and why.” Well, I have to say that, after reading the article, learning about writers and their favorite fonts is probably just about as interesting as hearing film directors on their favorite kind of film stock (Kodak or Fuji? Tell me more!). It makes me think of the Joseph Heller quote, “Never mind the trick, what the hell’s the point?” Because a font is just a vehicle for the transmission of ideas, the same way a printed book is only a vessel to carry words. Of course, whatever it takes to get a writer going is fine by me, but I couldn’t really care less that Richard Posner “composes” in Century Schoolbook.

This reminds me of Raygun magazine, a painfully hip music magazine from the ‘90s. Raygun had some amazing design and layout, mashing up fonts and typography into a stew of print that was a visual feast for the eyes. The only problem was, you could barely read the damn thing. More than once I’d bought it, looking forward to an article on a band I liked, only to not be able to make out half the words because the designer had done some weird thing in the design (like using backwards R’s or substituting 3’s for E’s). At a certain point, if the aim is to clearly transmit ideas, the look of something has to take the backseat to its content. After all, isn’t the old saying, “You can’t judge a book by its cover”? So I don’t really think you can judge a sentence by its font.

Now, I realize that these writers aren’t insisting that their books be published in these fonts, but the fetishism they show for them I find disturbing; I would hope they cared more about the words they were typing, rather than the font those words appeared in.

Slate: My Favorite Font

Clive Thompson, writing in The New York Times over the weekend, had a great article entitled “Sex, Drugs and Updating Your Blog.” The article talked about a new breed of music performers who have built huge fan bases (as well as modestly successful careers) by releasing their work on the Internet, in addition to keeping up with fans through blogs and encouraging them to become part of the experience by interacting with the music this new breed of musician creates. Thompson labels this new kind of entertainer “Artist 2.0.” Gone is the recluse, the moody dilettante who has no interaction with his or her fans; in a digital world musicians, and to a lesser degree filmmakers and writers, rely on their fans to not only buy their work, but also to offer advice, cover their songs, make their videos, and help them even book their tours and be a part of their live shows.

“In the past — way back in the mid-’90s, say — artists had only occasional contact with their fans,” writes Thompson. “If a musician was feeling friendly, he might greet a few audience members at the bar after a show. Then the Internet swept in. Now fans think nothing of sending an e-mail message to their favorite singer — and they actually expect a personal reply.”

In the seventies, as a young kid living in the California suburbs, I was a huge fan of the rock band Kiss. Kiss was one of the first bands to actively cultivate a rabid following of fans who flocked to their shows and bought their records. Labeled the “Kiss Army,” these legions of fans would apply make-up to their face before the shows, and knew all the words to Kiss songs by heart. And every Kiss record came with an insert which sold paraphernalia to the Kiss Army acolytes: t-shirts, headbands, patches, buttons, jackets, etc. The army had a uniform, but that was about it. The Kiss Army was all about consumerism and buying products; being, well, a member in an army and just another soldier blending into the crowd. (I myself was a proud member of Kiss Army, and despite this I never got closer to Kiss than an album cover.) Whereas today, the Internet is actually allowing interaction with musicians; fans aren’t just part of the act, they’re crucial to the act being there in the first place.

“This is not merely an illusion of intimacy,” writes Thompson. “Performing artists these days, particularly new or struggling musicians, are increasingly eager, even desperate, to master the new social rules of Internet fame. They know many young fans aren’t hearing about bands from MTV or magazines anymore; fame can come instead through viral word-of-mouth, when a friend forwards a Web-site address, swaps an MP3, e-mails a link to a fan blog or posts a cellphone concert video on YouTube.”

All of this goes a long way toward answering the recent question that has come up increasingly in the debate over the loss of book reviews: where will readers hear about new books if they can’t read a review? Well, they’ll hear about them the way a whole new generation is hearing about music: online. And not only that, but this new era will allow for more interaction between readers and authors. Because of this, the Internet will foster more literacy, not less. And while print may indeed be dead — with laptops and a wireless connection, who needs books? — writers and readers will be very much alive.

The New York Times: Sex, Drugs and Updating Your Blog

The website for the PBS program Mediashift last week had an interesting interview with “Mr. Magazine,” Samir Husni. Husni is a journalist and journalism professor who is frequently quoted in media stories about magazines and newspapers. He also has a blog. Husni is a very intelligent guy, but I didn’t agree with a lot of what he said, for example: “As long as we have human beings, we are going to continue to have ink on paper.” Well, of course. Again, no one’s saying that print’s going to become extinct. Instead, it’s going to turn more into an artform than it is now. In the past it was used as utility (a means of conveying information from one place to another, since usurped by the Internet), but in the future it will be seen as an afterthought or an indulgence (people buying and reading physical magazines or newspapers because they want to, not necessarily because they have to in order to get the information). And where we find ourselves today is going through the transformation from one to the other. But no one is saying we’re heading towards Fahrenheit 451 where firemen start fires instead of putting them out, and paper is an endangered species.

For Husni, as it does for many others, it seems to finally come down to a technology joust: “But there are also ways that the new technology cannot compete with print.” Of course, what’s implicit in this statement is that there are indeed ways that technology can compete with print, and in fact, there are many things that technology can do that print cannot. In fact, when you take the emotional element out of the judgment of a book or newspaper or a magazine, technology has so much more to offer, especially these days. For instance, compare reading the website Pitchfork today to reading Spin magazine a decade ago. As the old quote goes, writing about music is like dancing about architecture. Well, reading about music wasn’t too fun, either. So reading Spin was a fairly listless experience: you could see the bands, but you couldn’t hear them. However, on Pitchfork — right now — you can not only read criticism of indie rock, but you can actually listen to it, and see videos as well as photos from last night’s shows (not to mention that, if you like what you hear, you can click on the album cover and buy the CD or even access the digital files to the entire record, instantly). But for Husni, he’s just hooked on a feeling: “There’s still a reason for that tactile feeling of holding something in your hand and having something you’re proud of.” But is he proud of the physical item or its content? Would Husni feel just as proud holding Us Weekly or People? Or would he rather read The Economist online?

Mediashift: ‘Mr. Magazine’ Believes We’ll Always Crave Ink on Paper

Technology wrtier Mike Elgan has an article on the Computerworld website unambiguously entitled “Why e-books are bound to fail” (which, if the main headline left you wondering about Elgan’s thoughts on the issue, the sub-headline should remove all doubt: “Electronic books pack bleeding-edge technology, too bad they’ll never catch on”). Elgan, in going through his reasons for why he thinks eBooks are dead in the water, touches upon all of the usual reasons, some real and some simply imaginary. But in the end, Elgan’s big show-stopping pronouncement is that “people love paper books.” And because of this, “e-books are not, and cannot be, superior to what they are designed to replace.” Sure, some people love paper books. But some people have never thought about a book in their life, and simply want the stories and ideas that books contain. And to talk about one format being superior to another is silly; this isn’t a joust, it’s about utility, and the fact is that electronic books can do plenty of things that paper books cannot do.

But beyond all that, I really do think it’s insane for a technology writer, who’s writing for a publication entitled Computerworld, to write a sentence such as ”Unfortunately, these [eBook] products — as well as the whole product category — are destined for failure.” Mainly because Elgan has little to back up his claim beyond the usual facile arguments, including the fact that people will never want to “’curl up’ with a battery-operated plastic screen.” I don’t know what kind of computers populate Elgan’s world, but people “curl up” with “battery-operated plastic screens” all the time. What does he think an iPod or a laptop is? Or a Blackberry? In fact, these items are now an entire generation’s prized possessions. Most kids today “curl up” with nothing but battery-operated plastic screens (when they’re not curling up with other teens, that is). To these kids these aren’t even gadgets, but instead these are everday objects that form an essential part of their lives. The same goes presumably for Computerworld’s subscribers and readers. So no matter how much people “love paper books,” we indeed live in a computer-filled world, leading increasingly digital lives, and the world of literature will eventually yield to “battery-operated screens” the same way that music did.

Computerworld: Why e-books are bound to fail

Right on the heels of the debut of Conde Nast’s new business publication Portfolio, Mediaweek has an article by Lucia Moses entitled “Web-Only Titles: Real Business or Face Saver?,” which takes a look at the increasing trend of print magazines going out of business while retaining their brand with a website. “When Time Inc. killed off Teen People last July but decided to continue publishing it online,” writes Moses, “the move made sense to some observers, given teen media usage habits. Nearly a year later, though, the site’s audience size has dwindled to 218,000 uniques, according to comScore Media Metrics, and by the end of this month, TeenPeople.com will be absorbed by People.com.”

All of this sort of begs the question: when is success determined the brand and when is it determined by the format? Because some brands based on former magazines are doing well. Writes Moses: “Other magazines, however, continue to forge ahead with Web-only brands. Hachette Filipacchi Media’s Elle Girl and Premiere, Emap’s FHM, Time Inc.’s Life and Meredith Corp.’s Child have all maintained an online presence despite having folded the title.” In fact, scenarios like this prove that formats, even virtual ones, are not the answer; a magazine may be a bust online the same way it was in print (or vice versa). But formats, in-and-of themselves, are not the answer. Instead, brands will live and die by consumer interest, wherever that consumer interest happens to manifest itself.

Mediaweek: Web-Only Titles: Real Business or Face Saver?

There’s lots of talk this week about Condé Nast’s new business-oriented magazine Portfolio, which was announced back in 2005 but finally debuts this week with a whopping 332 page issue. The magazine, which will be sold for $4.99, is trying to be more like Vanity Fair than Fortune (or rather, I think Portfolio fancies itself as the Vanity Fair version of Fortune). Of course the big news in all of this is the fact that, well, a magazine is getting off the ground instead of going out of business. After all, magazines and newspapers have lately been in serious trouble from online competition, dwindling readers and disappearing ad-pages. Which is why there’s so much interest around Portfolio. Fifteen years ago — when magazine launches, as well as crashes, were fairly routine — this would not have made such a splash. But in today’s Internet-dominated world, starting a magazine is seen as both retro and foolhardy. (People privately wondered about the wisdom of the launching of Tina Brown’s Talk in 1999, when the Internet was just starting to explode; Talk lasted two years, and since then the Web has only grown bigger.)

What’s more interesting to me is the fact that Portfolio has launched a website in addition to the magazine (proving that Condé Nast’s trying to create not just a publication, but a brand). The site features content from the magazine as well as ads, video, RSS feeds, slideshows, half a dozen blogs, and an interactive City Guide section that utilizes content from Traveler Magazine (which is, surprise surprise, a Condé Nast brand). The site is moderately impressive, now is just in Beta, but if the content from Traveler is any indication Portfolio won’t be shy about incorporating content from other Condé Nast brands (which, in the end, could be a powerful form of stickiness for the site; tapping into the parent company’s vast online library would potentially make the site a content powerhouse instead of just an adjunct to the printed object). This strategy shows that, while Condé Nast’s decision to start a magazine may have people shaking their heads, the fact that there’s a robust online experience to go along with the magazine means they just might be aware of what they’re getting themselves into. Because there’s no denying a huge interest in the business world; that’s not the question. The question is more about whether there’s still an interest in magazines.

NY Times: In a Troubled Time, a New Business Magazine

The New York Times last Thursday reported that the magazine The Week is getting ready to launch an online experiment which will consist of them posting, to the Internet, a special Web-only issue of their magazine. This issue will not replace a physical edition of any issue, but is instead intended to be an extra, supplemental publication consisting of exclusive online material. “The project represents the first time The Week has produced a themed issue as well as its first online-only issue,” writes The Times. “The bonus issue will also serve as a kind of Web-based sampling program for The Week, because nonsubscribers will be able to read it on the Web site.”

Why is The Week doing this? Well, probably because they know that while they produce a physical magazine for people to read offline, a large number of their readers and subscribers (not to metion future or potential readers and subscribers) are consuming reading material online. So they’re simply going to where the readers (increasingly) are. And The Week is not alone in this. According to The New York Times, “the project offers another example of efforts by the print media to expand their digital presence in response to changing habits of both readers and advertisers. … For example, morning newspapers like The Chicago Sun-Times and The Toronto Star have started publishing online-only afternoon editions, which can also be downloaded.”

The Times also touches upon the recent trend of magazines that have stopped printing physical editions so that their brands can continue to live online. All of this is part of an increasing trend of digital delivery and consumption of reading material, starting in journalism and which will eventually extend to both fiction and non-fiction. Not to mention that this shows that, in the “print is dead” debate, there is room for various experiments in terms of marketing, using special or supplemental materials the same way the film studios now pack DVDs with documentaries, deleted scenes, commentaries and other extra features. Traditional publishers, as newspapers and magazines are now realizing, will one day follow suit.

The New York Times: Online Experiment for Print Magazine

In the latest issue of The New Yorker, Joan Acocella has an article entitled “The Typing Life,” which is a review of Darren Wershler-Henry’s new book The Iron Whim, a history of the typewriter. The review is interesting in terms of the fact that typewriters (and keyboards themselves) — now nearly ubiquitous — were once seen as an alien and unwelcome intrusion in the history of literature. Or, as Acocella puts it, “Why would ordinary writers need a writing machine? They had pens.” The same is now being heard in the “print is dead” debate, except here is goes more like, “Why would ordinary readers need reading machines? They have books.” And while the truth of that statement seems self-evident (to booklovers, anyway) — the same way it did with typerwriters versus a pencil and a pad of paper a hundred years ago — what finally proved the tipping point in favor of the typewriter was the fact that it offered a better and more efficient way of working for writers. Because of this, it was finally adopted. True, many people at the time felt it was too difficult to break with tradition and their old habits, and shunned the typewriter (not to mention a small number of writers today feel the same way; both John Updike and J.K. Rowling still compose their books in longhand on notepads), but for the most part the introduction of the keyboard, along with the typewriter, revolutionized the way people write, think and communicate.

In the review, corrolaries to eBooks abound. For instance, Acocella writes that “there was no single moment of discovery, no lone inventor crying ‘Eureka!’ in a darkened laboratory. On the contrary, historians estimate that the typewriter was invented at least fifty-two times, as one tinkerer after another groped toward a usable design.” The same goes for eBooks, which have — even in their less-than-a-decade of existence — seen multiple formats, devices and business models. Acocella also touches upon the nature of technology, and how it can seem to import virtue in inanimate objects: “There was a mythology that what was typewritten was true, that the machine somehow caused writers to bare their souls.” There is the same notion today of printed books; that they’re sacred and divine, both untouchable and unimpeachable. (Which of course implies that the same text delivered any other way, i.e. on a computer screen, is somehow not true). And while the review is long-winded in the typical New Yorker kind of way (“The screen, a kind of indeterminate space, does not seem violable in the same way as the page”), Acocella gets at something at the heart of the “print is dead” debate through her look at the typerwriter’s past, and how it became our future.

The New Yorker: “The Typing Life”