Plumbers of the human condition by Richard Lewis
Why not just let the publishing industry die? Richard Lewis argues that these people are fighting for a lost cause, not our interests. For us creators, he notes, the current crisis opens a window of worldwide opportunity, there for anyone with the courage and the imagination to grasp it.
We should strike. It's as simple as that. But not any old how: strike smarter. Pickets are so last century. Show up for work as usual, just bypass the industry. Writers have historically allowed themselves to be swindled by the notion that giving away their rights and margins to a morass of middle-men confers status and prestige; that in effect you are not really a writer until someone else publishes your work. How did that happen? Partly because capitalists owned the means of production and distribution, but also because writers fancied themselves as being a cut above lowly trade. It's very powerful still and if it continues it will be entirely facilitated by our own vanity. Blogging has democratised publishing to some extent (I have written about this before) but is still considered to be "amateur" writing. We still judge the merit of a writer by his publishing house and not by his writing. This is not going to change overnight. But it will change. And possibly sooner than we think.
CASE STUDY
Look at what has happened in the music industry. Technological advances have made it successively easier for musicians of all varieties to firstly record and produce their music themselves and, more recently, to market and sell their music themselves. Home recording is now accessible to anyone with a computer (ie everyone) and indeed Apple's Garageband recording software comes bundled free on any Mac. The internet — and specifically the "Web 2.0" social networking phenomenon that includes myspace and facebook — has made it possible to market worldwide for free. Lastly, the MP3 file format has hit the tipping point in terms of consumer acceptance, thanks to the iPod, meaning that a musician can feasibly offer this 100%-profit format and expect to get sales, instead of shipping costly CDs.
The music industry behemoths fought this tooth and nail. They are fighting a losing battle. However, musicians embraced it. Of course they did. Because finally the workers were able to control the means of production and distribution. Of the last ten music purchases I made, half were from "unsigned" artists that I admired, from whom I bought directly. I knew what I was buying, I was able to listen to it online via myspace and I was perfectly satisfied with the "quality" of what I was buying. It was cheaper than buying it in the shops and I even got a feel-good buzz, knowing that the musician was taking all the profits from the sale. Now, just how well are the retail purveyors of CDs doing? Very badly is the answer.
Web 2.0 allows artists of all kinds to build an audience, which they may then choose to sell to. And it works. I have been surprised and delighted at just how easily it has worked for me. I sell my music online and people actually buy it. People I don't know. Orders come in from the US, Europe, Latin America ... This means — in music at least — that the barrier has come down in consumer perception and "unsigned" artists are now no longer automatically rejected as being somehow below-par. This is such an important step.
The oldest of Generation Y are now just approaching 30. This means pretty much anyone under 30 now has a hard time remembering the days before the internet, the days before blogs, the days, even, before facebook. They are connected, they spend 20% and upwards of their time on the net (according to Martin Sorrel at WPP), they want stuff now, 24 hours a day, at a price that's fair, they are resistant to marketing hype and big corporations and they trust online sources as more authentic.
Right, now back to the writing industry (which for some reason is known as the publishing industry):
Publishers sell books. It's a 20th centurty model that is now past its sell-by date. Writers, on the other hand, sell writing. Amazon's "Kindle" electronic reader has been a big success, prompting a slew of imitations from rival companies, which will bring the price down and encourage adoption, which will beget further innovation and so-on ... until we get to the iBook.
This is for us, I think. Anyone who thinks this isn't going to happen has their head in the sand. Instead of moaning about the increasingly punitive (read desperate) deals we get through the trade, we need to let it die and instead be proactive and instrumental in wresting our business back. And, as I said right at the inception of SOAF, this means writers need to come down off their high falutin horses and manage their business. Like plumbers. We are plumbers, in fact — of the human condition. People are moaning about recession as though it will kill us all. Get a grip. We are at the very beginning of a fantastic opportunity. If we don't occupy our territory this time, someone else will take it. Again.
We should strike. It's as simple as that. But not any old how: strike smarter. Pickets are so last century. Show up for work as usual, just bypass the industry. Writers have historically allowed themselves to be swindled by the notion that giving away their rights and margins to a morass of middle-men confers status and prestige; that in effect you are not really a writer until someone else publishes your work. How did that happen? Partly because capitalists owned the means of production and distribution, but also because writers fancied themselves as being a cut above lowly trade. It's very powerful still and if it continues it will be entirely facilitated by our own vanity. Blogging has democratised publishing to some extent (I have written about this before) but is still considered to be "amateur" writing. We still judge the merit of a writer by his publishing house and not by his writing. This is not going to change overnight. But it will change. And possibly sooner than we think.
CASE STUDY
Look at what has happened in the music industry. Technological advances have made it successively easier for musicians of all varieties to firstly record and produce their music themselves and, more recently, to market and sell their music themselves. Home recording is now accessible to anyone with a computer (ie everyone) and indeed Apple's Garageband recording software comes bundled free on any Mac. The internet — and specifically the "Web 2.0" social networking phenomenon that includes myspace and facebook — has made it possible to market worldwide for free. Lastly, the MP3 file format has hit the tipping point in terms of consumer acceptance, thanks to the iPod, meaning that a musician can feasibly offer this 100%-profit format and expect to get sales, instead of shipping costly CDs.
The music industry behemoths fought this tooth and nail. They are fighting a losing battle. However, musicians embraced it. Of course they did. Because finally the workers were able to control the means of production and distribution. Of the last ten music purchases I made, half were from "unsigned" artists that I admired, from whom I bought directly. I knew what I was buying, I was able to listen to it online via myspace and I was perfectly satisfied with the "quality" of what I was buying. It was cheaper than buying it in the shops and I even got a feel-good buzz, knowing that the musician was taking all the profits from the sale. Now, just how well are the retail purveyors of CDs doing? Very badly is the answer.
Web 2.0 allows artists of all kinds to build an audience, which they may then choose to sell to. And it works. I have been surprised and delighted at just how easily it has worked for me. I sell my music online and people actually buy it. People I don't know. Orders come in from the US, Europe, Latin America ... This means — in music at least — that the barrier has come down in consumer perception and "unsigned" artists are now no longer automatically rejected as being somehow below-par. This is such an important step.
The oldest of Generation Y are now just approaching 30. This means pretty much anyone under 30 now has a hard time remembering the days before the internet, the days before blogs, the days, even, before facebook. They are connected, they spend 20% and upwards of their time on the net (according to Martin Sorrel at WPP), they want stuff now, 24 hours a day, at a price that's fair, they are resistant to marketing hype and big corporations and they trust online sources as more authentic.
Right, now back to the writing industry (which for some reason is known as the publishing industry):
Publishers sell books. It's a 20th centurty model that is now past its sell-by date. Writers, on the other hand, sell writing. Amazon's "Kindle" electronic reader has been a big success, prompting a slew of imitations from rival companies, which will bring the price down and encourage adoption, which will beget further innovation and so-on ... until we get to the iBook.
This is for us, I think. Anyone who thinks this isn't going to happen has their head in the sand. Instead of moaning about the increasingly punitive (read desperate) deals we get through the trade, we need to let it die and instead be proactive and instrumental in wresting our business back. And, as I said right at the inception of SOAF, this means writers need to come down off their high falutin horses and manage their business. Like plumbers. We are plumbers, in fact — of the human condition. People are moaning about recession as though it will kill us all. Get a grip. We are at the very beginning of a fantastic opportunity. If we don't occupy our territory this time, someone else will take it. Again.
posted by SOAF Chairman at 2:46 PM
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