forgetgutenberg

Incoherent, probably. A little weird, for sure.

I didn’t quite make my word goal for November, but I got what I wanted – an absolutely terrible zero draft I can tear apart and put back together with some connective tissue and narrative structure and make into a first draft. (Thank you, Justine Larbalestier, for the zero draft thing.)

Which means I’m back to thinking about books and bookselling and copyright and all that fun stuff. In fact, my internet gave me some thoughts on bookselling that I’m going to have to consider: Cory Doctorow made this post, some of which I vehemently disagree with, but I still find it fascinating.

The major point, of course, is one that he almost makes: I don’t think that the Espresso print on demand machine is a great leap forward in the practice of bookselling. I think it’s a great leap backwards. It’s a pretty good idea, for all that it’s a fairly nineteenth century one, but it’s not interesting because it’s new. Actually, one of my biggest problems with the machine stems from its unreliability: what one needs, right, in order to have this model be really stable and interesting, is a machine that is reliable, user-repairable, and doesn’t have downtime while you wait for a part. I mean, it’s probably not unreliable in the context of big fancy machines. I don’t really know. Thing is, one of the strengths of letterpress (particularly the iron handpress, but I understand that there just aren’t a lot of people out there with the kind of patience necessary to print on those) is that a letterpress printer also needs to be able to fix the machine. You’ve got to be able to pull it apart and put it back together. I think that’s a major plus. I might be wrong about how the print on demand machine works, though. Maybe it is user-reparable in a way that’s constructive.

Also, I continue to find the books ugly and poorly made, which brings me back to my rant on books as disposable objects. There’s no reason to have a physical object if it’s just trash, right? (Which is probably an argument for a new model of lending library.) But there’s also no excuse for crappy design. Let me rephrase: (because I am opinionated, and trying to be reasonable) I pick up these books, and you know what I notice? The margins. The type. Stuff I never notice in a book that’s well-designed unless I’m actually looking.

I’m pretty sure that’s related to the lack of … a dedicated design team? People who are there to edit? (So … here’s where we need to think very carefully about vanity presses.)

On the other hand, the public domain stuff from Google (aside from some awful aesthetics) is pretty cool.

All right. So we’ve got this new old idea, which is pretty cool, if poorly executed. It’s probably related to the fact that it’s a pretty new piece of equipment.

The other thing bookstores are still good for: the social hub aspects. Which is another intensely nineteenth century thing, I think, although I could not tell you why I think that. But really, the reason to go to your local indie bookstore is more that there’s a whole network of stuff going on there. And it’s, in theory, locally relevant and everything.

Which I like.

And I’m trying to convince myself that I want to actually do a couple more re-writes on my novels, and see if maybe the possibility exists that I can fit myself into a different niche in the book world.

I’m still conflicted about the specific, internal problems of my particular place of bookselling. I’m pretty sure I’m not overreacting, but I can’t tell. It’s a problem. I’m going to maintain my belief that the behavior that I’ve been objecting to is actually abusive, and see what I can do about it.

… but there’s a bunch of loose ends to think about, and some things to make sense of. If I can manage it.