We can continuously develop a text in realtime, erasing the preciousness imbued by printing.With digital impermanence (a new kind of ephemerality) comes two concepts key to the future of storytelling and books: The injection of readers early into the authorial process. This authorial shift is critical to the understanding of the new pre-artifact system. Everyone asks, ‘How do we change books to read them digitally?’ But the more interesting question is, ‘How does digital change books?’ And, similarly, ‘How does digital change the authorship process?’ 5 With the emergence and growing adoption of the Kindle and the iPad, publishers, writers, readers and software-makers have concerned themselves with shoehorning the old-media image of a book into new media. And our common understanding of publishing systems is irrevocably disrupted. With the connection of these systems, our classic definition of a literary artifact no longer applies. And most excitingly, a potentially public record of change, comment, discussion - digital marginalia - layered atop the artifact, adding to the artifact, and redefining ‘complete.’ The corollaries: an increase in connectivity. Removes it from the pre-, artifact, and post- systems. Most fundamentally digital removes isolation. But, generally, there is an overwhelming sense of disconnection from the other systems. Localized classes can be constructed in universities around the artifact. Friends can gather to discuss the artifact. Again, traditionally a relatively static space. This is the space in which we engage the artifact. When finished, it becomes a souvenir of a private journey. One requiring great efforts to extend beyond the binding. The artifact - the book - too, is a system. The end product of this system is what we usually define as ‘the book’ - the Idea made tangible. The key individuals within the classic manifestation of this system are the author and the editor. Traditionally, it’s been a system of isolation, involving very few people. It’s a system full of (and fueled by) whiskey, self-doubt, confusion, debauchery and a general sense of hopelessness. The pre-artifact system is where the book or story or article is made. To understand where books and publishing are moving, it is critical to understand the following three systems: And once complete, new systems develop around their content. They themselves are systems - the best of which are as complex as is necessary, and not one bit more. To bridge the raw pre- and post- artifact spaces that so define the future of publishing?Ī near non-existent post-artifact system. What tools will we embed within digital artifacts to signal this shifting relationship with literature? And in doing so, to refine the relationships between authors, publishers, readers and texts. We have an opportunity now to shape these systems. Between the writing and the publishing, publishing and consuming, consuming and sharing. These connections shaping books and publishing live in emergent systems behind the words. So intertwined are our words and images and platforms, that to consider individual parts of the publishing process in isolation is to miss transformative connections. To think about the future of the book is to think about the future of all content. To think about the future of the book is to understand the links between these changes. The post-published life of a book has changed. The book of the future reveals our collective experience uniquely.įor those of us looking to shape the future of books and publishing, where do we begin? Simply, these are our truths: The book of the past reveals its individual experience uniquely. And demanding engagement with the promise of community implicit in its form. An artifact ‘complete’ for only the briefest of moments. It's ethereal and networked, emerging publicly in fits and starts. The future book - the digital book - is no longer an immutable brick. Between readers and other readers - all as writ over time. Relationships between ideas and recipients. In reality, the book worth considering consists only of relationships. There is a compulsion to believe the magic of a book lies in its surface. Hunting surface analogs between the printed and the digital book is a dangerous honeypot. The cloth used on covers, the interface for highlighting The quality of the paper, the pixel density of the display
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