Pressbooks reporting: In discussing contemporary publishing, there’s really only one
mystery. Why does a collection of sophisticated, intellectually curious
adults, many of them with substantial financial resources at their
disposal, perpetuate a system that has failed? To quote John Cleese
whilst attempting to return his deceased Norwegian Blue, publishing is
“stone-dead,” an ex-parrot nailed to its perch, as it were, by sporadic
bestseller and backlist sales. It hinges on guesswork and cronyism, on
antiquated, environmentally and fiscally disastrous supply and
production systems. The persistence of this system would be
understandable if there were no alternative. But there is, and it’s not
even based on proprietary technology. It’s primarily a matter of
attitude, of being willing to try a new direction.
Not too long ago, I was reading about the “Red Queen Theory of
Evolution.” A concept first put forth by the American evolutionary
biologist Leigh Van Valen in the 1970s, it was named after the
bloody-minded chess piece in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass.
In the relevant passage, the Red Queen says to Alice, “It takes all the
running you can do to keep in the same place.” Van Valen applied this
metaphor to evolution, suggesting that species are in a constant race
for survival and continually must evolve new ways of defending
themselves throughout time. It seems to me this metaphor is exactly what
we need to keep in mind when considering book publishing today. There
are a million different paths to stability, if not success—but there’s
one sure route to disaster, and that’s staying in place.
http://book.pressbooks.com/chapter/or-books-john-oakes
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