I was sat in a bar a while ago talking with an old friend over a cold beer. As an Engineer his viewpoint on assorted topics we talked about was rather separate to my own. Whilst discussing widely publicised environmental issues his response was all the time that 'technology would find the answer'. My standpoint was rather less definitive on the subject. Yes, I agreed, technology could play a key role, but it's down to our choices - individually and collectively - to make any turn a valuable and chronic one.
My, perhaps tenuous, point here is that we're at a real tipping point with technology in relation to how we consume literature and media in general. Technology revolutionises, it refines, it redraws former lines of consumption, disrupts our historical patterns of behaviour, it finds a way of improving the situation in anything aspect of our lives that it touches, but only if we embrace it.
Book
We can see so many recent examples of how Internet and communications technology has fundamentally altered how and when we interact with our friends (real and virtual), join together to the world, find and listen to music, and we're starting to see this rebirth happen with how we discover, purchase, and consume literature in every genre.
With the proliferation of devices capable of viewing and downloading article wherever we are - such as smart-phones, tablets and dedicated eReader platforms - the wind very much appears in the sails for a generational turn in how we buy and consume books, how we sense literature in general. This is now reaching a point of market integration when it can no longer be considered in its infancy. The habitancy are speaking and it's now time to embrace the change.
Alas, I have to admit that I will miss the touch, smell, and sense of paper and print. My personal thought is that there will all the time be a place for it, and writers may all the time want to see their hard work in a corporeal form. However, improve happens for a reason. Usually this is to furnish an improved, refined, simpler or richer sense for the habitancy accessing the content.
So, what does the future look like?
I wouldn't perhaps feel remarkable at this stage to foresee what the endgame looks like for publishing, as the shift is still only just starting to take hold. However, there is dinky doubt that it will have to adapt and revolutionise into something that we can't quite predict just yet. Whilst this turn is nothing else but underway, it is still currently ether wafting around the world wide web, a twinkle in the eye of ours and upcoming generations, with only whispers about what the future may bring.
I read an appealing narrative recently about Digital Natives - those who have grown up never knowing a world without the Internet - and their prospect about what they can do online. The way they look at the world, straight through real and virtual goggles, the way that they want to recite and consume media of all kinds is fundamentally separate as a result of technology. Whilst those of us who still remember Dial-up tones are perhaps grappling with this, the Digital Natives will expect to have flexible, interactive experiences using the Internet; and this nothing else but will not be any separate for how they will want to consume their literature.
What excites me about what could happen next is perhaps more foremost right now. Writers and readers at this point in history, this particular moment in time, have an occasion unlike any other generation of habitancy in love with the written word since humanity began the mass printing of books all those hundreds of years ago.
As writers and readers we - straight through our actions, our purchasing decisions, the places and devices we use to consume books, our words both published and unpublished (electronic and printed), straight through our blogs and myriad social media interactions with habitancy around the globe - truly have an occasion to make the whole process of what becomes a victorious story or novel more democratic, more personal, more social. habitancy Power in its most clear form. I can see a rise in niche literature - work that wouldn't be considered market by publishers - that will sell thousands rather than millions but still have something very worthwhile to say, and will inevitably, straight through technology, find an enthusiastic audience to enjoy it out there in the world.
I'm not an business insider, I'm not versed in the old ways of doing things, and I'm not predicting anything in particular here that isn't starting to happen already. What I am, however, is in my late twenties, a voracious reader, an unpublished writer and a keen technophile. I know what I want from my literature, I know how nothing else but I want to way appealing new ideas and stories, how wide and assorted a choice I also would like. I also know that I would like a more interactive way of finding new writers and stories to entertain and inspire me.
The concern at the back of my mind is that I sincerely hope that it will be a democratic, rather than autocratic, change. It's up to all of us to make this happen.
I've clearly bought front row tickets for the revolution, I guess what happens next is down to everybody who has yet to decide, and the next generation of book lovers. Whilst you're mental about it have a look at our new website, it would be great to see you there.
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Adam is a founding Director of a new website for writers to sell, and receive ratings & reviews on their unpublished work direct from readers who love to find new stories. You can register now to receive pre-launch way to upload your work before anything else, enter a competition to win an eReader, and receive a monthly newsletter.
Visit us to search for more at www.iWriteReadRate.com
What does emerging technology mean for writing and reading literature?
By Adam Charles (Director of iWriteReadRate.com)
The Ebook Revolution
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