i've stumbled across two articles about the "digitial revolution" in book publishing. the two go in quite different directions and i thought that juxtaposing them might make for an interesting discussion. it was less than entirely obvious where to put this thread. i decided here.
Publishing: The Revolutionary Future - The New York Review of Books
this guy's position is pretty straightforward: digitization is the coming thing, it's already more or less here. traditional publishing is largely a thing of the past or soon will be.
the net presents options of a radically decentralized space of text production and dissemination in the context of which, seemingly, no-one will make a whole lot of money (so is this the end of the writer as a profession and a return to writer-as-hobbyist or writer-as-artist with a day job be it academic or other?) and which will present readers/consumers with real problems in terms of evaluation of the quality of information.
the entry costs to declare oneself a publisher will drop and so...basically this is a proliferation of options and a contracting of intermediaries story, which is a story of a radical decentralization of a cultural space told from a viewpoint accustomed to a high degree of centralized control.
there's more in the article--particularly about the 80s demise of the bookstore (a bit summary, but still interesting---feel free to talk about it)...
The New Math of Poetry - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Education
this article touches on many of the same points, but from a quite different angle.
taking poetry as a microcosm (the author's a poet...) the multiplication of publishing options enabled by the net is taken to be of a piece with the professionalization of writing programs, the standardizing of the mfa, and so of a professionalization of poetry. behind the veneer of increased openness, this piece argues that you find an increase on control by professional networks and a corresponding narrowing of stylistic range. alpaugh sees in this a constricting of options...his point seems to be that with all this stuff to sort through generated by all these networks most of which talk to themselves, what happens to the Outsider? and what happens to the maybe Great?
these are the barest of outlines of these pieces---they're not meant to substitute for reading them.
anyway, i think there are two quite different stories about the decentralization not just of production of texts, but also of intermediary functions...the roles of critics for example...both pieces converge on the same basic question:
with all this proliferation of publishing options and textual production, with ALL THESE WRITERS all over the place, how are "we" supposed to know what's good? who's onna tell us what's good? who's gonna sort through all this stuff and tell us what we should do, what we should read? and what's gonna happen if no-one does steps up to do this?
it's kinda interesting to think about where these two pieces are published in which regard.
what do you think of these pieces?
how do you see the transition into electronic publishing?
do you think it's a bad thing that more people see themselves as writers? that there are more publications?
how do you determine what stuff you read is and is not "good" or "important"?
do you have people who tell you?
do you figure it out for yourself?
which of these articles do you think best outlines the situation? both? neither?