Lead, follow or get the hell out of the way. That's one vision of our digital future in the book trade.
"What if everything you ever imagined came true?" This line from a movie trailer for Chris Van Allsburg's The Polar Express is another way to think about it, though the strategic placement of one additional word (good, for example, after everything) might make it a touch less ominous.
Like many of you, I think about the book business too much, the way some of my friends think too much about the Yankees or politics or death. Perhaps also like many of you, I came away from BookExpo America wondering about my place in a publishing world where "the book as we've known it" is becoming the book as we don't quite know it yet.
I attended panel after panel about social networking, connectivity, mobile technology; watched the Espresso Book Machine conjure trade paperbacks out of computer files, paper and glue; viewed demos of electronic devices that promised to reinvent the reading experience.
A couple of weeks ago, I compared BEA with the circus, but in the middle of the show itself, I felt less like I was being entertained by dancing bears than that I might be witnessing the birth of, well, the future.
I could easily let my imagination run wild. What if it all came true?
At BEA, I had lengthy conversations with book people who are enthusiastic devotees of texting and Twitter and FaceBook; with casual adapters; with curious bystanders; and with devout followers of the full crucifix-and-garlic-necklace "WebDracula begone!" society of unbelievers.
I listened.
Many people are saying the future is now. Not all of them are happy about it. But if the future really is now, we still have to discover what's going to happen next? Some think they know that, too, and tried to lay it out for us at BEA.
I don't know. I could write about crystal balls or digital I Ching, but I've opted for train travel instead because in the weeks since the show, I realized not where all this is headed, but how I plan to get there.
I'm on the train. It's that simple. I'm on the train.
I work for an online newsletter; I have Twitter and FaceBook accounts; I read on my iPod; I have two--count 'em--two computers on my small desk. And I'm always ready for more.
But something else that happened at BEA made me realize not everyone on the train has to ride in the engine, scanning the track ahead for what's coming round the next bend. For me, the best place to ride is the caboose, since I'm going to arrive where the engine is now within seconds, but I still have a great view of where we've come from out the back window. I want to keep that perspective.
At one point during the launch party for Book: The Sequel, PublicAffairs v-p and editor Clive Priddle explained that the goal of the 48-hour publishing project was to acknowledge the history of books as well as suggest possible answers to the question, "What comes next?"
The caboose offers past, present and future all for the same low price. And isn't everybody looking for a bargain these days?
About a week ago, I returned to New York for a meeting. Since I live in rural Vermont, this trip does require not-so-magical travel through space and time, including a 2½ hour drive to the train.
As I stood on the platform of the Metro North station just outside Wassaic, N.Y. (a hamlet I've never visited; could be as mythical as the North Pole of Van Allsburg's imagination for all I know), I scanned the relatively pastoral countryside just off Route 22. Beyond the highway, parking lot and railroad tracks, in every direction, I saw nature in full spring mode--hills, trees, meadows, marsh grass, bright sunlight. And I could hear birds singing.
Two hours later, I stepped onto another platform in Grand Central Terminal's murky, fragrant depths far beneath the streets of Manhattan. I walked upstairs to the main hall and out the door to 42nd Street, where everything was traffic, scurrying crowds and tall buildings. I heard the irresistible siren song of urban cacophony.
I love both worlds, and it occurred to me that, once upon a time, this seamless transformation had also been viewed as a miracle of unimaginable speed, a vision of the future.--Robert Gray (column archives available at Fresh Eyes Now)