The episode reflected two troubling aspects of modern book publishing. The first is that many contemporary writers, no matter how many readings or Charlie Rose appearances they undertake, are perpetually insecure about who is actually reading them. The second and more disturbing fact is that a single individual like Oprah Winfrey can control the fate of so many copies of a book. The reason for both Franzen’s confusion and Oprah’s power: the aged distribution system that the book industry uses. And while the Internet offers a powerful solution to the problem, the publishing world has yet to aggressively embrace it.
How primitive is the current system? Later this century, kids will be amazed to learn how we used to distribute books. Think about it. We grow entire forests, chop them down, flatten them out, spread ink on them, turn them into bricks of wood pulp, which we then drive around the country on trucks. Our children won’t be amazed because we were primitive-they’ll be amazed that we were so rich. Current-day book publishing is a tremendously wasteful way of moving information around: while paper is a terrific display mechanism, it’s a terrible transport device. Publishers take huge risks when they print and ship large quantities of books-and that’s why gatekeepers like Oprah so utterly control the fate of books and authors.
The Internet and electronic distribution of books could provide salvation for this beleaguered business. Even so, book publishers from AOL Time Warner to Random House have all but scuttled their e-book efforts, citing lack of market demand-even as the music industry is forging ahead with several major online distribution systems. Ironically, delivering books via the Internet is a trivial exercise compared to delivering high-quality audio or video. The longest Stephen King novel doesn’t take up much more digital space than a few minutes of Britney Spears.
The key problem is that consumers already buy “players” for music-we customers supply the stereo or Walkman, and the record company just sells us the content. But when a publisher sells us a novel, they’re also including the “player”-the display mechanism traditionally called a “book.” Indeed the history of literature is inextricably linked with the technology of printing; even today authors pressure their publishers to use the best paper, the classiest typefaces, the most durable bindings. (While musicians may demand the best technical recording quality, in the end they have no real control over how their product will sound at home. Legendary record producer Phil Spector always checked how his mixes played through a cheap AM car radio.)
The current electronic “book player” is the dedicated e-book, which manufacturers like Gemstar continue to refine and market. But so far, it has been an uphill sell. While consumers have been quick to buy MP3 players for online audio-not much different, really, than a Walkman that plays cassettes-there’s simply nothing in our retail genes that drives us to buy “book players.” So the e-book may have to sneak in disguised as something else.
That “something else” is probably going to be very much like the prototype flat-screen “tablet PCs” that Bill Gates has been waving around at the Comdex and Consumer Electronics Shows for the past few years, now soon to be introduced by manufacturers like Compaq. Ironically, while Apple is usually considered the innovator in personal computers, its most recent products have involved sophisticated redesigns rather than new technology. It has instead been Microsoft that has doggedly pushed the tablet PC, raising the bar on display technology along with handwriting and voice recognition.
While they’ll be sold as computers, the tablet PC and its successors will finally give consumers a true surrogate for the printed page and thus put high-quality “book players” into millions of hands, making low-cost electronic distribution of books a reality. Readers will have a far wider range of titles to buy and will, moreover, be able to communicate more freely with authors and other readers. Publishers can supplement the “word of mouth” marketing that has always been a key element in book-selling with online reader forums, sophisticated rating systems and collaborative filtering technologies. Books may actually live or die on their merits, rather than lucky publicity.
In short: the Internet presents all the elements needed for a true reinvention and renaissance of book publishing. While Franzen’s “The Corrections” takes a jaundiced view of corporate technology-the Internet’s primary role in the book involves an hilarious international swindle-it may actually be the counterbalance that frees authors like him from the Oprahs of the world. But both readers and writers will need to be patient, because publishing-the oldest mass medium-will almost certainly be the last to take advantage of the newest.
