- I think there are a lot of advantages to the print-on-demand publishing model, but it’s still weird to see it applied to other products like DVDs. Still, I think this is the way to go. Studios like Warner Brothers can avoid the high cost of mass producing a disc with limited sales appeal, while at the same time making DVD-quality copies available to the collectors and film buffs who really want them.
- Then again, if you listen to Clay Shirky, maybe there’s no publishing model that really makes sense in our new Internet age:
- Until that point, however, the publishing industry still exists. And personally, I’m with Jay Lake in thinking the terms of the new Google Books/Authors’ Guild settlement are pretty dire for the writers who create that industry’s content. Whatever you think of Google Books — Lake himself is a stockholder and supporter — it sets a dangerous precedent for copyright. [via]
- Abigail Nussbaum on tired fantasy criticisms:
- And finally, to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, to survive one atomic blast may be regarded as a misfortune; to survive both looks like carelessness.
It makes increasingly less sense even to talk about a publishing industry, because the core problem publishing solves — the incredible difficulty, complexity, and expense of making something available to the public — has stopped being a problem.
What I think what a lot of Shirky’s critics (like Charlie Gibson) are missing, however, is that his analysis is very well considered — seriously, read his whole article — and ultimately quite hopeful. Shirky is pro-journalism, even while he acknowledges that newspapers (and by extension publishing) is in a state of transition and flux, and some old ways of doing business are likely to fall by the wayside. [via]
Most fantasy readers go through a phase where they realize that The Lord of the Rings is conservative, reactionary and, by certain very real yardsticks such as, to take Morgan’s example, realistic characterization, not very good. It’s like figuring out that Narnia is a Christian allegory. You take a deep breath, pick your jaw up from the floor, and decide if you can go on liking the book in spite of these flaws–because it has other qualities that you value, and because a genuinely good work of fiction is one that you can enjoy even if you disagree with the attitudes it expresses.
She makes a lot of good points. Still, as some of the commenters there note, it’s sometimes worth repeating things for those who have not heard them before.
It makes you wonder why we hated that man so much to drop an A-bomb on him twice…