A Sidelong Glance at the Content Business
I’ve been reading on average around two books a week since childhood. I started at age 3 with Enid Blyton novels, rose to Dostoievsky at 13, and have continued ever since. If I live out the average lifetime, though, I will have read only 7,500 books when I enter the pearly gates.
But will St Peter be impressed? If I were the old gatekeeper I’d point out that more that 100,000 new titles are published each year in Britain alone. Add on the rest of the world, and each year’s totals to date, plus the sum of all ancient manuscripts and codices, and you’ll probably arrive at an eight or nine-figure number.
A mere 7,500 is so piffling as to be almost worthless. Strip out the Enid Blyton’s and the Richmal Crompton’s of childhood reading, plus all the other useless tomes and trashy novels read since, and really, old boy, you have virtually no education at all!
I was set to musing on these depressing thoughts after a visit to Waterstones, the biggest bookshop in town yesterday. I was determined to buy a really great book to read over the weekend. After a quick survey of the latest pulp fiction, the newest sensational stuff from the Dan Brown brigade, the huge pile of “Jesus was a Married Martian” nonsense, I passed on with some relief to the non-fiction shelves.
First, history … well, what could possibly be new or fresh in that? Even Andrew Roberts has been reduced to rewriting Churchill’s History of the English-Speaking Peoples. Philosophy, the same — I’d read the latest Roger Scruton, so not much there. Science? Nah … same ole, same ole. Black ole, to be precise.
But technology, surely, must have something new to say? You are joking? All the computer books are way out of date. There was even a large, floppy volume on Microsoft Office 1997 — a bestseller still, apparently.
In the entire bookshop there wasn’t a single title that I hadn’t already flipped through or actually wanted passionately to read. I was bookless in Waterstones.
So despite the woe-begone state of my lifetime’s reading score and my determination to improve it, the world of print publishing couldn’t provide a single instance of something I wanted to read. How crazy is that?
The truth is, there are only so many subject areas you can write a saleable book about. In my years of avid consumption I had apparently exhausted all of them. So, my pifflingly small reading total compared to the billions of titles available is actually much better than old Peter might think. Some shrewd background selectivity has been driving it for years.
I’d obviously extracted the core of human knowledge and speculation and I’m now destined to go round in circles over the same ground for the rest of my days. There must be some Greek god who matches that description.
Where does that leave the content business? It reveals that content, both online and offline, is constantly repeating itself with massive overduplication of material and ideas. Sure, things get shifted round a lot, as in a kaleidoscope, but the central core of all types of content is just a dance of elements trying to present old material as new and original.
Of course, old principles need to be interpreted anew for succeeding generations, but the tidal waves of content we’re now faced with on a daily basis is largely fraudulent.
How often do you get that sinking feeling when viewing your feed reader? Deja vu always overwhelms me when I look at techmeme. Despite being the best snapshot of tech news on the internet, anything but short-term memory reveals the cyclical nature of so-called news.
The fact is, it doesn’t matter if you don’t read everything. It doesn’t matter if you don’t read 0.01% of everything. Education is choosing what to retain and making sense of it. The other 99.99% recurring is largely superfluous.
From an author’s point of view, the situation is not encouraging. Given the enormous duplication of effort, how much more can content expand, especially on the internet, while retaining value that can be collected by the creator?
We’re already seeing content come close to zero price in many areas. And with copyright laws getting ever looser, newer ways of digging gold from them tha’ mountains of content are urgently needed.
As I write, Valleywag is reporting that “AOL is closing down a slew of smaller blogs it bought from … Jason Calacanis”. Only three WeblogsInc titles are really profitable : Engadget, Autoblog and Joystiq. The rest are not profitable enough. Nick Denton, the writer of the piece remarks : “I also have an aesthetic aversion to those blog networks which measure success in the quantity of titles rather than the quality of the writing.”
I think we can all agree on that.
“I’m now destined to going round in circles over the same old stuff for the rest of my days. There must be some Greek god who matches that description.”
Sisyphus’s twin brother Machophus?
Obviously it’s a lot harder to create something new than to just rearrange (or repeat) the old, but here’s the thing: my stats certainly show that my most popular posts are my original content. Hmmmm…
Darren Rowse just had a pretty good post on this as it relates to blogging.
By Cyndi L on January 20th, 2007 at 2:44 pm
True, but my point is that what we think of as original — e.g. the post above — is just a rehash of ideas many people have had and written about before. There’s nothing that’s truly original or new. Once you’ve grasped the basic fixtures and fittings of existence all else is just decoration.
Sisyphus’s rock is certainly a good example, but I won’t change my name.
By John Evans on January 20th, 2007 at 2:53 pm
I agree that what’s called “new” is usually a rehash of the old, but there is value in someone putting something in a new light by rephrasing in their own unique way. A lot of self-help books are purely common sense but hearing someone else say it sometimes help make it click and stick just a little better this time and again even more the next time. Few of us really learn anything the first go around.
BTW, at my peak, I was proud to be reading 1 book a week. Two a week is really extraordinary unless you’re reading chick lit.
By Hsien Lei on January 20th, 2007 at 3:44 pm
Agreed. A different point of view, or voice, on old stuff is the main point of most content.
I think you can assume that I don’t read chick-lit, Hsien, unless Jane Austen counts as such. Mostly non-fiction in areas of philosophy and spirituality, old novels by great writers and anything on technology that catches my fancy.
Incidentally, one book a week is very good going compared to the norm.
By John Evans on January 20th, 2007 at 5:04 pm
As I write this I’m surrounded by about 2,000 books, most of ‘em carted here to Humdrumming Mansions in boxes over the last six months. I must have sold at least twice as many over the last ten years. The result is that about half of the books I still own are old favourites that are read again and again, and, once worn out, replaced by a new copy, or more usually a second-hand copy. And as John was hinting at the important books are the iconic variety: the ones that changed how books are written - changed literature, and biography, memoir, poetry, whatever - no matter the genre. Looking at the titles on my new, old, bookcases, writers who made a difference are the ones that stand out - Hemingway(and I constantly re-read him of course), D.H.Lawrence, James Joyce, F.Scott Fitzgerald, Ian Fleming (yes, he made a huge difference), Walt Whitman, Nikos Kazantzakis, Emily Dickinson, Jane Austen (although you need two lifetimes to absorb her again and again), Charles Dickens, John Steinbeck, George Orwell, GBS, Lawrence Durrell, JB Priestley, Somerset Maugham, Harold Pinter, and a certain William Shakespeare, and, Jean Paul Satre, and Charles Whiting, Peter Ackroyd, Martha Gellhorn, Robert Graves, TE Lawrence, Mark Twain, Lytton Strachey, Van Wyck Brooks…
The list could be, is, endless. The trouble is I’ve met readers - and writers - who happily read or write within their favourite genre, yet, have never read a single page of Dickens, or Joyce, or Austen, or Whitman, which, if you’re a writer, doesn’t make your stuff bad, but it does make it less well formed, less healthy, less important, less required. When Hemingway began to change the world of literature there were very few writers he hadn’t read. Likewise, as a reader you need to know the origins of ideas, thoughts, style, and so on. You won’t get that by just reading Dan Brown.
I was recently offered a manuscript of a thriller. I asked the writer if he’d read any Ian Fleming, or Charles Whiting. His reply was that he didn’t read much at all!
I tend to read around six books at a time, swapping and changing as the moods take me - three of those new, three old favourites.
By Steve Newman on January 20th, 2007 at 7:00 pm
Point taken, Steve. I wasn’t, though, addressing the scholars among us, but the worlds of print and online publishing. It’s hard to find a decent book to read in WH Smith now, even Waterstones has its limitations, unless you want to buy a Wordsworth Edition of a classic novel. Online, the same. Regurgitation.
My own library contains books unknown to the major booksellers, but, in my view, essential to the well-stocked mind. Certainly the origin of ideas is important, but where to look? As I’ve said elsewhere even academic publishing has gone to the dogs these days … just reams of citations.
The pearls in the world’s oyster are rare and often thrown to swines. When I returned from Waterstones I discovered a book on my shelves that I hadn’t read : Karen Armstrong’s “The Great Transformation” — which is about the Axial Age. Brilliant! All is not lost.
By John Evans on January 21st, 2007 at 11:11 am
In terms of fiction, sadly, I think you’re right. But there are great writers still at work, most of them biographers and historians, most notably, as I’ve said elsewhere, Peter Ackroyd, Michael Holroyd, John Keegan, Max Hastings, Arthur Marwick, Robert K.Massie, Charles Whiting, Ian Kershaw, Alison Weir, Gitta Sereney, Hilary Spurling and Jan Morris.
And in the world of literature - popular or otherwise, love ‘em or hate ‘em - we still have Martin Amis and Gore Vidal, David Storey, Len Deighton, John le Carre,with Mark Morris and Garry Kilworth exceptional voices, too. And let’s not forget Stephen King, a master story-teller.
In poetry and drama, Seamus Heaney and Harold Pinter still walk the corridors.
All is not lost.
All is not lost
By Steve Newman on January 21st, 2007 at 1:03 pm
In fiction, mostly thin stuff, Steve. Not surprising when I was told by a senior editor of a major publisher that what they were looking for is “young, female and sexy”. Since I fall into none of those categories I felt a bit like an alien.
Where is today’s meaty stuff, the equivalent of George Eliot’s Middlemarch, for example? Error 404: Not Found.
It’s a lot better in non-fiction, but a few years of scouring the lists and you soon see the same stuff coming round again disguised as retrospectives or timed for anniversaries.
If I sound like I’m jaded, I am! I’ve got ‘flu.
By John Evans on January 21st, 2007 at 1:14 pm
So you need to be in bed with a good book?
I’ll send you one.
By Steve Newman on January 21st, 2007 at 1:25 pm
I’ve got Karen, Steve. An old reliable favourite.
By John Evans on January 21st, 2007 at 1:27 pm
Pleased to hear it.
Today’s equivalent of Middlemarch?
If you haven’t already have a stab at Lawrence Durrell’s The Avignon Quintet - big and beautifully written. 1974-1992.
By Steve Newman on January 21st, 2007 at 1:34 pm
I read his Alexandrian Quartet some years ago, but I tired of his style towards the end. A bit too attitudinizing for my taste, although I recognize him as a fine writer.
What I like particularly about Eliot are the amazing insights on almost every page. Those Ahh! Yes! moments.
By John Evans on January 21st, 2007 at 1:38 pm
Hmmm? Those Ahh! Yes! moments.
Maybe you do have to go back. Ever read Jon Dos Passos’ USA (1930-37), a huge splendid novel (1184 pages) that I found quite breathtaking. Loads of Ahh! Yes!, simply loads!!!
You’re going to tell me you’ve read it, and hated it?
By Steve Newman on January 21st, 2007 at 1:50 pm
Ahh! No! I can’t tell you I hated it because I’ve not read it.
And now I’m being given a mugful of medicine and must retire to my sickbed.
The Axial Age beckons.
By John Evans on January 21st, 2007 at 1:55 pm
Enough of books. Sleep well.
By Steve Newman on January 21st, 2007 at 2:02 pm
I’ve just remembered The Axial Age is a book. Read well.
By Steve Newman on January 21st, 2007 at 2:04 pm
JD Salinger and Gunter Grass.
By Clive on January 22nd, 2007 at 1:11 pm
Gunter Grass recently admitted he was a member of the Waffen SS, Clive. His reputation is in tatters.
By John Evans on January 22nd, 2007 at 1:28 pm
I agree, Clive, and both still writing -although it would be hard to know if that’s actually the case with regard Salinger.
Grass got a bit of a slamming last year when he admitted he’d been a young soldier in the SS; but a great writer. Have you read his 1999 collection of stories, ‘My Century’?
By Steve Newman on January 22nd, 2007 at 1:29 pm
John: I couldn’t care if Grass was Hitler’s Alsatian - he still writes like an angel.
Steve: I haven’t read Grass’ “My Century” as yet - been out of the loop for a while. But I’ll get to it…
As for Salinger, he obviously takes being a recluse seriously. Actually, I’m not that far from him now - perhaps I should pay him a visit.
By Clive on January 22nd, 2007 at 3:37 pm
I do like authors I read to have some sense of moral values, Clive. Torturers and vicious killers don’t generally write anything life-enhancing. Most of history’s monsters wrote nothing of value, including Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Saddam and the rest. Those who opposed them, however, like Solzhenitsyn and Dostoievsky, are the real angels.
By John Evans on January 22nd, 2007 at 3:48 pm
Actually, many authors have extremely debatable moral values. Whereas torturers and muderers rarely have literary pretensions. And to judge Grass’ membership of the Waffen SS as having any bearing on his morals is somewhat naif - he was 15 and too young to get into the army; the SS took them younger. Grass’ political record since the war is overwhelmingly leftist - to the point that I have to disown his political views. But that doesn’t stop me from recognising him as the best writer of the 20th Century. Some people can write and the vast majority can’t; but political opinion has nothing to do with it.
By Clive on January 22nd, 2007 at 5:50 pm
Disagree, Clive.
By John Evans on January 22nd, 2007 at 8:03 pm
I think many writers - either before or after they became writers - make mistakes, mistakes often born out of the very best of intentions, out of a misplaced innocence. One only has to think of HG Wells, who was a great supporter of Hitler in the early days: but not too early to have not been aware of Hitler’s plans for the Jews. The same is true of DH Lawrence, who held pretty strong fascist views in his latter years. They both remained great writers.
Leo Kessler (Charles Whiting) makes the point again and again in his novels that young men in war invariably fight for each other, and not always for their politcal leaders. That was certainly true of the German Army (and the SS in the latter stages of WWII, which was an organization made up of all sorts of odd balls by then), who fought for their homeland (as we all would), and in the end themselves and the future of their families - it’s what you do - and not for the Nazi regime, even though they had supported it, and were wholly culpable in its barbarous actions. And that’s the theme that runs through all of Grass’ work.
If only he’d had the courage to say he’d been in the SS. But that’s easy, too easy, for me to say.
By Steve Newman on January 22nd, 2007 at 8:28 pm