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if:book - the future of the book
by Chris Meade
The web has transformed the cultural landscape for writers.
While the small number who earn a living wage from royalties are concerned about
whether their incomes will fall, all the 'lesser published', including the
emerging and the doing-it-for-pleasure, have been liberated from the demeaning
hunt for any means to get heard. Where once rejection letters rained down
and vanity presses prowled, now writers can put their work for free on the
virtual shelves of the blogosphere. And now that our laptops allow individual
authors to embed links, graphics, sound and video in their texts, and provide
the potential for all kinds of collaborations and interactions, there are plenty
of new directions opening up for the written word in a multimedia environment.
Many publishers, writers and readers are unsurprisingly nervous of these
changes, clinging to the business models and reading habits they've grown used
to. Others are realising that a book isn't a stack of paper but a cultural
experience that might just be heightened and invigorated by e-readers and
digital illumination.
Last year, after 25 years working in public libraries and as director of the
Poetry Society and most recently Booktrust, I formed if:book, the new charity
exploring the future of the book and the creative potential of new media for
readers and writers. Our aim is to widen the debate about where words go
next, bringing together those on either side of what still feels like a cultural
divide.
We've already produced
read:write, research into digital possibilities for the literature
sector, commissioned by Arts Council England, and
'Digital Livings', a
booklet on how those writers creating work for the web make their way in the
world. We're making immersive fictions and digital resources to stimulate a love
of books past and future, and creating our own kinds of futurebook, including
www.insearchoflosttim.net and the Blakean
www.songsofimaginationandigitisation.net.
We have just launched an international experiment in close reading, a
collaboration with Apt Studio curated by Bob Stein of our US sister
organisation, The Institute for the Future of the Book.
Have you read The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing? Did you try it but
never quite make it through to the end? Did you love it way back when and wonder
what you'd make of it now? Did you hear some of it serialised on Radio 4
recently and think, "I must read that."? Well, now you can read it along with
the comments of an international team of readers and an online community around
them. Go to www.thegoldennotebook.org …and read/write on!
© Chris Meade 2008
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