PBI 1: Publishing Debates (The Noun Not the Verb)

As it stands, publishing has a reasonably colourful history, characterised by the development of the craft and key inventions like the printing press; however, arguably at no other time in history has the subject seen more internal debate than in the 21st century, during the age of the internet.

We saw thoughts from Michael Baskar in his book - that the crisis facing publishing is ongoing and has been for some time, citing the fact that "Costs, inevitably, keep rising", and that "educational publishers encounter increased competition across their markets." Indeed, the most relevant of his concerns relates to self-publishing - how, with the advent of blogs more than two decades ago, publishing your thoughts on the internet in long or short-form became trivial. Social media has allowed fledgling writers to interact with and generate audiences through regular activity and clever self-marketing without the requirement of a third party advertiser at all. Most importantly perhaps is the development of online markets like Amazon, where e-books are published alone or by much smaller (and cheaper!) publishing services onto vast electronic storefronts.

One of the thought experiments we debated in class was whether leaving one book on a park bench counts as publishing; whether 1,000 books on 1,000 park benches counts as publishing; and so on. I think a comparison can be seen in the vast sea of newly published literature on Amazon storefronts, where one new book with no dedicated fanfare will be just as nebulous and obscure as that one park bench novel. At least on the part of the individual, more work does have to be done; and it's in this way that publishing does and can still survive. There's something of a pedigree to many publishing houses; a seal of approval that can mean the difference between a tiny, single-digit audience and a vast cultural phenomenon. One concern discussed with my peers was the worry that so many clever writers with incredible ideas might be being lost in the electronic publishing world.

We covered, also, the idea of differing media types - like video games, music, or newspapers - and how they all have publishers, too. Indie video games - the name given to titles produced by small (or even solo) teams of people - can sometimes display feats of technical or artistic mastery that put them on par with AAA, professional releases. Often, though, they rely upon popular internet personalities on YouTube or elsewhere stumbling upon their game and bringing attention to it. Big video game publishers like Activision sometimes buy out particularly promising indie studios, though this is often negatively received by players who fear overactive marketing strategies ruining the core experience of the game. Ultimately, it's evident that publishing still has a place in being responsible for increasing the chances a piece of work will be successful, but in the 21st century, alternatives do exist, and sometimes, may even be preferable. It has never easier to be an author with autonomy.