The future present

Sarah's comment about ebooks being introduced as a concept before the technology was really ready reminded me of something from my info tech degree, Lo! these many years ago (right around 2000, actually).

Disintermediation.

Okay, that's a mouthful, and one of the uglier words ever coined. But what it means is providing a service that eliminates as many layers of middleman as possible between the provider and the customer. eBay is probably the original example, with CraigsList following not far behind. These are places where people who want to sell stuff can list it for a relatively small price, with contact info and payment details, and people who want to buy stuff can find it and buy direct from the provider - who is, in the case of eBay, also providing the payment handling.

It was going to be the Next Big Thing, but ultimately it was, like ebooks, an idea that was ahead of its time.

I think that time is now, at least for ebooks and disintermediation.

The publisher started life as the only middleman. They'd arrange the assorted complexities (which are a whole lot less complex now than they used to be), and ship the finished product to bookstores or they had their own direct mail order. Then distributors moved in, because it was easier to box up large quantities and let someone else sort them out. The chain bookstores put another layer in, with buyers who knew nothing and cared less about the readers in any given area. The whole edifice is so clunky it's falling on its face.

Amazon was the first crack in the wall. Suddenly instead of having to rely on whatever your local bookstores held, if you had Internet access, you could buy anything in print, and get it shipped damn near anywhere in the world. Chain bookstores haven't adjusted to that one - and may never adjust.

DRM and all, the ebook readers are the next big break. Now, there's a device that can carry thousands of books, and doesn't cause eye strain. Sure, you want to have it inside a ziplock baggie if you're reading in the bath (this is something I don't do, because the water goes cold while I finish the book. It's the same reason I do not keep reading material in the bathroom. It's kind of disconcerting to stand up and have the seat stick to your butt), but on the whole it's nearly as convenient as a paper book.

What's actually happening here is that the pace of change is such that an age difference as small as five years becomes a massive cultural gulf - but the people who think they're in charge are trying to hold back the flood and failing miserably.

Just as an example: I predate color TV. My brother - ten years younger than me - has never seen a house without a microwave, or at least, not one he can remember. Someone born ten years after him would have grown up with CDs and personal computers. Five years after that, and Internet access is the norm, and CD burners are common. Another five years, it's broadband everywhere, DVDs and DVD burners. Five years on, smart phones are the norm. (I, Luddite that I am, have a relatively dumb cell phone. When my ancient, much loved PDA eventually dies, I'll get a smart phone and combine the functions.)

eBook readers will probably be normal for babies born sometime in the next 5 years - you buy them a reader, and all their school books live on it. It should - assuming that someone manages to step into the yawning chasm that is the disconnect between authors and readers (the entire publishing system is somewhere at the bottom of the gaping hole, at least physically. Mentally, I think most of them are somewhere near De Nial.) - be the norm to have electronic books which are not DRM and are provided by publishers whose websites include goodies like "fillable" texts - this tech is already partly out there in Adobe's fillable forms - where students can answer worksheets in the book, have them marked by their teacher via a networked system, and the entire history of the the lesson and the student's attempts to answer are there.

All it takes is someone to step up and provide a reliable source of non-DRM eBooks. And someone else with marketing skills I haven't got to promote the living shit out of it - if the service does what people want and they can find it, they'll use it.

A State of Chaos

At any given time, my life is in a state of chaos. This is not how life is supposed to be. And yet, looking around, I don’t see where it’s all that different for the rest of you.

What do I mean by this? Well, for the last 2 months – at least – I’ve been trying to finish a book I’m writing on spec. However, I really needed to write these proposals. Then this thing called Christmas intruded. Then there were various illnesses – not mine – and the great grades crisis. Events and emergencies swirl around me, sometimes sucking me out of my – I say it is, and you can’t doubt me! – zen like state, to make me do something about them.

Why do I say this is not how it’s supposed to be? Because it’s not how books are. This, of course, is because we lie for a living. And we have to. Anyone writing life as it really is would end up in the remaindered bin, if he got sold at all. In fiction, people want to see a story that has clear lines. (Not that I don’t try to reproduce this real life effect, by creating two or three secondary plots, so that there are other things going on. In past decades, they didn’t do that, hence the much shorter more linear – and better selling – novels.)

In turn, of course, these plots teach us that life is supposed to be orderly and make us really frustrated with our messing lives. Well, make me really frustrated.

A side effect of this is that I’ve found if I don’t take art classes, my writing dries up. Why? Are the brain areas linked? Quite possibly. But, more than that, I think – explaining why just doing art at home is not the same – it makes me shut down the words and follow verbal-visual directions to what I’m doing. This, by itself, rests the mind and brings me back, refreshed to my work. Mind you, I still have to fight the cats and the kids for writing space afterwards, but at least my mind works.

This having to fight life to write is so pronounced that all sorts of people have developed superstitions surround it. The idea that the moment you try to write reality attacks or you cause a hurricane of events around yourself, or whatever, seems to infect most writers at one time or another.

So, the writers out there how do you tell the winds and the waters "be still?" Sometimes it’s amazing to me that anyone manages to create anything at all. Do you as readers ever marvel at it? For everyone – do you think working outside the house would help? Do writers and other artists feel this effect more strongly because our production is not essential except in the monetary sense?

Sound off while I go into my office and try to finish three proposals! I’ll be back intermitently.