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Doctorow on books as ‘practices,’ not ‘objects’
December 7, 2005 | 4:53 am
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By David Rothman
Here in openbusiness. Related: Lisa Lynch’s reaction in if:book. Cory Doctorow’s comments:
Unless you own the ebook, you don’t 0wn the book. I take the view that the book is a “practice” — a collection of social and economic and artistic activities — and not an “object.” Viewing the book as a “practice” instead of an object is a pretty radical notion, and it begs the question: just what the hell is a book? Good question. I write all of my books in a text-editor. From there, I can convert them into a formatted two-column PDF. I can turn them into an HTML file. I can turn them over to my publisher, who can turn them into galleys, advanced review copies, hardcovers and paperbacks. I can turn them over to my
readers, who can convert them to a bewildering array of formats
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Comments:
My only quibble here is with Doctorow’s word “practice.” He really means “usage.” The question raised here is whether constraints on user behavior are always bad. I can think of situations where you want to filter/funnel user behavior (mainly in the videogame world).
Cory’s done a fine job producing and marketing novels, but I have to wonder whether his message (that CC licenses help your print sales) is really as hopeful as it sounds. I find it hard to believe that writers need traditional print publishing in order to make money. Surely, cash-for-digital content is not that quixotic an idea!
Cory Doctorow is distributing free ebook versions of his works to obtain a positive reputation and to promote the sales of his paper books I believe. His novel “Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom” envisions a future society with a “reputation” based economy. His invented “reputation” currency is called “whuffie” and it becomes more important than traditional money.
In the here and now Doctorow did say the following in an essay:
But ebooks *shouldn’t* be just about marketing: ebooks are a goal unto themselves. In the final analysis, more people will read more words off more screens and fewer words off fewer pages and when those two lines cross, ebooks are gonna have to be the way that writers earn their keep, not the way that they promote the dead-tree editions.