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In the still buzzing world of “Seth Godin versus print publishing” much has been said in favor and against Godin’s announcement that he will no longer publish books traditionally. I’ve been fascinated with the debate. I’m an unabashed neophyte in the world of agents, editors, publishers and book retail, and I profess to know little as a still-hopeful in the world of publishing. But I’m a fan of Godin’s ideas, energy and quasi oracular vision, and I’ve been fascinated with digital storytelling in its diverse and perennially morphing potential for a decade.

Back in the shadow of Y2K I lead a workshop in Paris for teachers called Storytelling in the Digital Age that explored the merits of (and methods for) embracing new narrative media in the classroom. That workshop evolved into a semester-long elective for high school students at the American School of Paris, exploring the roots and evolution of storytelling while developing a methodology for digital narrative craft. Remember, those were heady days when Dana Atchley was at the peak of his all too short life.

It’s stunning how much has changed since then. Staggering. And not a little scary (ie: “One Dark Side of Publishing Changes“) either… But it’s also thrilling and exhilarating! And inevitable. Though not everyone agrees on this last point. In evidence, consider this poignant request from the sage, book loving Gail Hyatt:

It’s true that things are changing drastically in the world of words and ideas. Nobody knows this better than you. You’re a big reason. The possibilities are being realized faster than we can absorb them. However, in my opinion, the end of traditional publishing has not yet come. Not at all. It has a most crucial and vital part to play in feeding our souls and our minds and challenging us to change our lives. I see this fleshed out in my own home. Mike’s chair is the perfect example. Propped in the seat is his laptop, waiting to be awakened for the day. The iPad is perched on the side table next to THE DIP and the highlighter, and the is Kindle peaking up from his briefcase on the floor waiting to be compared to the newest Kindle which will arrive sometime today. I want to encourage to rethink this “quitting.” You say one has to know when to quit and when to stick. Don’t quit that which is obviously sticking. You and your works have a place in our lives that will never be unstuck and we’re very grateful for that. I think your best work is yet to come … and that’s saying A LOT! Maybe not right now. Maybe it needs to ferment for several years. Who knows? All I hope is that, when it does come, you don’t quit and you give it to us in every form possible—especially traditional publishing. Please reconsider. (The Treasure Hunt, by Gail Hyatt)

And while Gail Hyatt is begging Seth Godin not to quit, many others are excoriating and chastising him for his decision. Fortunately, there are also some level heads approaching Godin’s announcement with a more metered, more academic interest. For instance, Mitch Joel shares the feedback from his literary agent, James Levine, regarding four critical considerations for other writers considering emulating Seth Godin:

• Fan base. Must be fanatic, very large, and inclined to read the author’s works in digital format. This won’t work right out the gate for authors whose main following is in print.
• Marketing savvy and support. Aside from being very smart about marketing, the author needs to have the staff in place to execute, execute, execute, daily, daily, daily. Many authors will underestimate how expensive and time consuming this is.
• Long term money goals. The author needs to be able/willing to forego the short-term guarantee from a publisher [known as “the advance”] and bet on long term sales direct from consumers (the per unit revenue to the author is much bigger when the author acts as the publisher).
• Platforms. It’s important to realize that this approach will make the most sense for authors who make most of their money by speaking/consulting to business audiences. In this sense, books are a form of advertising for the more lucrative services provided by these authors. (“You Are Not Seth Godin“)

Joel adds two further essentials: a top flight editor and a team of performance driven sales reps. Starting to sound like going the Seth Godin way involves launching your own publishing company? To some degree, yes! Joel goes on to remind us that Godin’s ability to make this brave decision nevertheless relies on more than these parts. Godin tirelessly invested “decades of doing tons of things… that all had him in direct connection with the people who will buy his books from him, talk about it to their peers and evangelize his always-brilliant thinking.” In short,Godin has a world class platform. Do you?

What Seth, The Wall Street Journal, the book publishing industry and the literary agents aren’t telling you is that you can – in fact – be just like Seth Godin. These Digital Marketing channels are here for you (and they’re free – if you don’t count the time you need to put into them). In text, images, audio and video you too can publish how you think to the world… instantly. You too can share with others, build relationships and get your ideas to spread. You do not have to rely solely on mass media to help spread the word. And, you’ll know in short order, if your idea has traction… and you’ll be able to track how that idea spreads and connects.

In the end, you are not Seth Godin, but you can be. (“You Are Not Seth Godin“)

In Seth Godin’s words, “The business race is on to have the relationship with the reader.” According to Mark Coker (CEO of Smashwords) “the distribution advantage of having new titles in bricks-and-mortar bookstores will have to be weighed against the potential financial advantage of retaining ownership of a new book and distributing it as an e-book or on a print-on-demand basis.” Makes sense, right?

But others argue that this misses the point. Joel J. Miller argues that Godin has misunderstood “what traditional publishing is about. We sell books to people who love them, to people who crave them, who love bookstores, who love reading…” True. And you sell books to lots of other people who don’t love them but need them, rely upon them, etc. And you may be missing an opportunity to sell books to lots of people who simply haven’t considered buying them because they don’t love them, don’t need them, don’t rely upon them, etc. Right? Wrong, says Miller.

Godin’s basic misapprehension is that people don’t like books. There are billions of dollars exchanged every year that say differently. If you’re a reader, your own habits probably say differently. Mine do.

The second misapprehension is that books are a clunky way to deliver and spread ideas… For people who love them, there are few things more elegant or efficient than books…

A third misapprehension is not Godin’s fault. It’s our own. Godin’s personal business model is perhaps set up for him to succeed with this independent adventure. Good for him. Most authors, however, are not set up to go it alone. Likewise, most publishers are not set up to translate many of Godin’s ideas into their models. As authors and publishers, we should spend more time trying to please our customers than trying to justify ourselves to, or square our practices with, Seth Godin. (“What Godin gets wrong“)

I think this last issue is probably true. At least until the new digital publishing industry matures and begins to offer plug and play solutions to many of the challenges an indie author would encounter. And true too that most traditional publishers aren’t equipped to learn/adopt much from Godin.

But the first two “misapprehensions” strike me as somewhat naive. Sure, some people like and will continue to buy books, and many of those book buyers do indeed consider print books to be elegant and efficient. I am one of those book buyers. I love books. I will always love books. But that’s not the point.

I also love wine, and I am particularly fond of the ritual of opening a good bottle of wine. Cutting the foil is like breaking the wax seal on a letter or document, bold and permanent and assertive yet beautiful and not a little poignant. Once the foil or leading is trimmed away tidily, there’s no greater satisfaction that removing the cork from an aged but well maintained bottled of wine, each twist of the corkscrew adding to the anticipation…

It’s easy to romance wine corks. It’s easy to romance books. And with luck and sufficient numbers of passionate book and wine consumers, we’ll be able to enjoy both for a long time into the future. But screw caps, with all of their oenological, environmental and economic logic are making rapid inroads, and the likelihood of screwcaps gradually eclipsing corks is increasing with every vendange. The point isn’t that some of us prefer corks, but that the industry is changing because there’s greater oenological, environmental and economic value in screwing than corking! Does that mean that corking is dead? Probably not. But it’s likely to become exceptional, less widely available, and more expensive. Miller seems to miss this inevitability.

Literature is like running. It’s not for everyone, but for people who love it stopping after four blocks fails to satisfy. There are miles to go. It’s immersive. It’s also time consuming, but real readers are like real runners; you settle into a good pace and time evaporates. People whose primary reading is Facebook and street signs might not get that. Fine. Selling books to them is a waste of time and effort. Thank God that’s not the task before publishers. (“What Godin gets wrong“)

Whether or not literature and running are similar is a dabble for another day, but it’s clear to me that Miller’s off target. The shifting of the publishing industry from print to digital isn’t about those who love books, love running or love corks in their wine bottles. And if his oversimplified notion that the digital alternative to elegantly bound tomes is blog posts and Facebook, then it’s no wonder he’s confused and concerned. We’re at the dawn of digital publishing. The user-friendly innovations that will propel digital content into the next century aren’t even dreamed up yet. Nook, Kindle, Vook, etc. are mere prototypes for the next generation of content conveyances. But they are already considerably more evolved and useful as digital publishing platforms than blogs and Facebook!

Clinging to an industry which has largely grown obsolete is lamentable, but failing to recognize the inevitability of the shift and failing to recognize the enormous potential represented by the shift is indeed naive. Let’s be frank and honest; the publishing industry not only resisted change, it kept its head in the sand for far too long. This change isn’t happening overnight. It isn’t an unanticipated fluke. It’s been a gradual evolution, the slowly building wave that only recently has started to crest!

The music industry offered possibly the best case study and the most abundant lessons. If the Big Six had studied the music industry over the last decade and adapted the most successful lessons, they’d be surfing the wave now instead of paddling like mad! But the music industry is only one example. Reflect back on the transition from traditional film photography to digital photography. Remember the detractors, the naysayers, the purists, the film lovers, the darkroom junkies, the overconfident executives who scoffed at the need to reinvent cameras, developing and photography. And note too that evolution from film to digital photography is responsible for the virtual ubiquity of cameras today. Every gadget imaginable includes a camera, and the proliferation of photo sharing, archiving and publishing gadgets demonstrate that this evolution had the effect of democratizing photography. It also opened up massive markets that had been overlooked or unfathomable prior to inexpensive digital cameras.

I suspect this example is particularly relevant to the transition in the publishing industry today. Some people love books and bookstores. Agreed. But look at how many do not. Look at how many never even consider books. And recognize that like digital photography which has proliferated beyond anyone’s wildest expectations, the transition to digital publishing will similarly transform the production and spread of information. And though we’re not all Seth Godins, not by a long shot, this brave new world of digital publishing will make it possible for you, me, anyone with ambition, intelligence and hard work to develop a platform and build an audience who appreciate, justify and contribute to our literary creations.

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another. (Anatole France)

I’m sometimes criticized as overly zealous about today’s shift in the publishing industry — away from print, paper, ink, trees, bricks and mortar production, retail, etc and toward digital, portable, shareable, multimodal storytelling alternatives — and it’s a fair criticism. But despite my enthusiasm for electronic publishing, I am also quite nostalgic/sympathetic when it comes to traditional publishing. For starts, I’m a big fan of print books. I appreciate the aesthetics of books, the psychology of books, the history of books. I love the smell of old books, the sense of color and abundance offered by shelf upon shelf of neatly stacked books. I love the visual narcotic of colorful coffee table books and the tactile joys of childrens’ books. I love scribbling notes in margins and dipping into the artifacts left by readers before me like a voyeur wandering through another’s diary. I love reading books in bed, in the bath, in the hammock, on a boat, and despite my enthusiam for the concept of electronic publishing I still haven’t made the leap to an e-reader. Audio books? I love them. eBooks? I’m still old school, aside from a few dabbles with vooks and quick gobbles via Project Gutenberg.

And then there’s the whole other concern of the people connected to the production and retail of print books… As Neil Postman points out, technological leaps forward always veil a darker, less positive side. One of those darker sides of the publishing evolution from print to electronic formats is the people whose educations, experience, livelihoods and fortunes are tied to the print publishing world. Jobs will be lost. Careers will become obsolete. People and communities will struggle.

The plant will cut down on the amount of paper it produces for the publishing sector.

“This is a strategic move,” Mr. Travers said. “We’ll still have a portion of that. That area of the market is oversupplied.”

The production of advertisements, a crucial market for Newton Falls paper, has declined as the recession has worn on. At the same time, technology including Amazon’s Kindle and Apple’s iPad — handheld devices that can display books, blogs and newspapers — is cutting into the traditional publishing market, Mr. Travers said.(Watertown Daily Times)

The ongoing impact to the music industry pales in comparison to what we can expect in the publishing industry. I get it. I lament it. I’m genuinely torn. But I also understand that time marches mercilessly, inevitably forward, and despite the ugly and painful evolution, the transition from print to electronic publishing offers a bounty of good. I’ve chosen to focus on the promise. Perhaps I need to slow down and reflect on the hurt… Thanks for the reminder, Doug Yu (aka @tourpro)!

Do you ever flash forward to 2050 or 2100 and wonder what students will be studying in the Publishing Industry chapter of their Economics books? Will encyclopedias (or Wikipedia) parade Amazon and Jeff Bezos as Gutenberg II or the Gutenberg Killer?

Amazon is busy making the entire book business a “direct-to-consumer” model. This isn’t new; they have been doing it for 15 years. By most accounts, the company is now the largest retailer of physical books and the dominant player in the digital space. What are Amazon’s priorities?  It doesn’t hide them.  In 2007, Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos described a company that is “congenitally customer-focused” whose enduring priorities are selection, low prices and fast delivery.

Compare those priorities to the ones in place at most publishing houses.  It’s easy to see where interests start to diverge.  And if you apply Porter’s framework to Amazon, you quickly see why the company has become publishing’s best-known and most significant frenemy… The recent controversy involving an agent selling exclusive e-book rights to Amazon… has focused largely on royalty rates, the role of agents and the exclusive nature of the deal. I think that debate misses the point.

The publishing supply chain has shifted. The interests of the company best positioned to benefit from those changes are not aligned with those of most publishers today. Publishers can defend, change or co-opt, but they can’t stand still.  Issue all the press releases you want, but realize this isn’t about e-book royalty rates.  It’s about Amazon. (Magellan Media Partners)

Spot on, of course, the “publishng suppy chain has shifted” and ranting, soapboxing, naysaying “old school publishers” are liable to miss the train if they don’t start running down the platform and getting on board.

Look at the last decade in the music industry. There wil always be audiophiles who insist that the “new school” music supply chain is killing the music industry. Or has already killed the music industry. They’ll insist on higher definition audio, better acoustics, etc. And they’ll pay through the nose for their tastes and recalcitrance. That’s fine. It’s good. They’ll continue for a long time to support an increasingly niche but valuable pocket of culture and business. But they’re already a tiny minority. The music train left the station, and the landscape of the music industry shifted dramatically, rapidly and irrevocably.

Unfortunately, the book publishing industry isn’t sure it wants to run and catch the “new school” train out of the station. In fact, its not sure which direction it’s going, an aggravating predicament when trying to decide which train to chase… So instead of leaping on the Amazon Express to the future or the Gutenberg Paradigm to niche-bibliophile-land, the publishing industry is planted on the platform throwing a temper tantrum. “I don’twant to go anywhere! I like it right heeeeeeeere… And I get motion sickness. And I have waaayyy too many traveling companions to fit on that dinky little train. And there’s no first class. I ONLY travel first class!”

Nathan Bransford’s June 10 HuffPo post, “The Rejection Letter of the Future Will Be Silence (And Why This is a Good Thing)” expresses the optimism that I share about the democratization of the publishing industry. His Neil Postman-esque reflection doesn’t flinch from the downside of the Post-Gutenberg Paradigm, but the tenor is undeniably positive: “the very nature of commercial viability in the publishing world is changing quickly with the transition to e-books, and I think it’s ultimately a change for the better.” The agents and publishers who recognize that this publishing funnel inversion will thrive, profit and help redefine the future. Those who hesitate, resist or cling to the Gutenberg Paradigm will struggle to survive.

Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody, notes that we’re moving from an era where we filtered and then published to one where we’ll publish and then filter. And no one would be happier than me to hand the filtering reins over to the reading public, who will surely be better at judging which books should rise to the top than the best guesses of a handful of publishing professionals.

I don’t see this transition as the demise of traditional publishing or agenting. Roles will change, but there are still some fundamental elements that will remain. There’s more that goes into a book than just writing it, and publishers will be the best-equipped to maintain the editorial quality, production value, and marketing heft that will still be necessary for the biggest books. Authors will still need experienced advocates to navigate this landscape, place subsidiary rights (i.e. translation, film, audio, etc.), and negotiate on their behalf.

What’s changing is that the funnel is in the process of inverting – from a top down publishing process to one that’s bottom up.

Yes, many (if not most) of the books that will see publication in the new era will only be read by a handful of people. Rather than a rejection letter from an agent, authors will be met with the silence of a trickle of sales. And that’s okay!! Even if a book is only purchased by a few friends and family members — what’s the harm?

Meanwhile, the public will have the ultimate, unlimited ability to find the books they want to read, will be unconstrained by the tastes of the publishing industry and past standards of commercial viability, and whether you want to read experimental literary fiction or a potboiler mystery: you’ll be able to find it. Out of the vastness of books published the best books will emerge, driven to popularity by passionate readers. (Bransford, Nathan.”The Rejection Letter of the Future Will Be Silence(And Why This is a Good Thing).” The Huffington Post. 6/10/2010)

Update: Several colleagues and friends get their feathers ruffled each time I pronounce this vision, and I expect this post will be no exception. But it’s worth noting that I do believe books have a long and exciting future. They are valuable, enjoyable and luxurious. They will continue to be. Perhaps moreso as the publishing world evolves in and increasingly digital, decreasingly paper-based direction. Specialty book publishing is likely to endure for these reasons, and because certain content lends itself to print far better than digital formats. But, bibliophile leanings notwithstanding, I’m quite comfortable with the transition from print to digital for most content distribution including fiction, non-fiction, literature, education, etc. In fact, the transition excites me enormously. I believe that digital storytelling will reignite innovation among writers, artists, designers and publishers. New genres will emerge as a result, and debates will rage over what is/isn’t literature. It will be exciting! And there will be less silo-ing, less manipulation of markets and information, less “clubbiness” in the publishing world. This may not last forever, but even for a while these will be positive changes.

Read Nathan Bransford’s full post at The Huffington Post.

Related:

• Self-publish with Borders and Barnes & Noble
• Ryu Murakami Bypasses Publishers, Opts for iPad
• Self-publish with Apple’s iBookstore
• Publish and Distribute with CreateSpace
• Economics of Self-Publishing
• Save Yourself, Save The Industry
• Gutenberg, Meet Amazon (virtualdavis.wordpress.com)

Digg founder, Kevin Rose, brainstorms digital book improvements in a YouTube video published yesterday. In a meandering rumination titled “Some random ideas for ebooks” he shares his personal wish list for ebook publishers based on his experience with the Kindle and iPad. I’ve voiced this same frustration that you still  really can’t do anything social with digital books, and yet this seems like one of the most obvious and promising value-adds to reading a book digitally instead of in print. It should be quick, easy and fun to share my marginalia with others! I understand that these early forays into digital publishing are still primitive, exploratory and cautious. With one notable exception (What is a vook?) digital publishing so far has amounted to little more than digital format print books. But it’s time to leap forward. It’s time for innovation, for a  a new digital storytelling paradigm unfettered by the conventions and limitations of 500 years of print publishing. Here’s what Kevin Rose hopes to see.

Top 5 eBook Wish List:

1. Character Zoom: Why can I click on a character’s name to access background information, etc.
2. Audio/text annotation: Find something interesting while reading an ebook? Highlight and annotate the section to share with friends.
3. Lend a book: Why can’t I click a button and loan my ebook to a friend? And access there progress while they’re reading so I know what sections to discuss? And then click again to take my ebook back?
4. Dashboard: Why isn’t there a stats page which tells how many pages I’m reading/minutes, when I can expect to finish reading the book, etc?
5. Share: Why are net connected devices not better at sharing? Why isn’t there more rich media (dictionary, videos, additional information, wikipedia articles, etc.) embedded in (or accessible from) ebooks? Why is it so hard to connect/share ebook experiences with others over the web?

Kevin Rose ponders virtual book groups with tracking to show reading progress of other members to facilitate talking, etc. Pipe dreams? Probably not. In fact, I expect that we’ll see many of these changes soon. It’s inevitable. My ebook wish list includes integrated text, audio and video; digital marginalia annotation (text, audio, video, etc.); and quick, easy sharing. What’s your ebook wish list?

Image by Ian Hayhurst via Flickr

I’m still mulling over Monica Hesse’s article, “As books go beyond printed page to multisensory experience, what about reading?” It’s packed with so many of the ideas swirling around Vooks and other new digital storytelling formats. Although I scoffed at her rumination (“Is a hybrid book our future? Maybe…“), I actually think that there’s a boatload of substance worth recapping, including an open-ended question about whether digital storytelling formats like vooks will diminish readers’ capacities for imagination.

It’s amusing that digital storytelling has been something of a sleeper topic for a decade or more, idling at the margins of publishing and academia. I might be exaggerating slightly, but generally speaking the mainstream publishing chatter has been focused on best sellers, the shift from fiction to non-fiction, online sales, etc. and suddenly — propelled by the rapidly shifting sands of book/media retail and recent innovations in book/media integration, packaging and distribution — everyone’s chattering wildly about the death of the book, the pros and cons of new media, etc. My enthusiasm for the changing publishing landscape is no secret. In fact, ever since I discovered Dana Atchley a decade ago, I’ve been trumpeting the clarion call for multimodal, interactive storytelling. And, despite newer and sexier storytelling possibilities emerging every day due to advances in the multimedia toolbox, increasingly ubiquitous (and ever faster) connectivity, and the digitally fueled appetites and habits of today’s consumers, I’m keenly drawn to the most primitive and basic roots of storytelling.

As the developed and developing worlds hurtle into the age of digital storytelling, it’s more important than ever to remember that the fundamental storytelling ingredients persist. I see a trend toward producing increasingly impressive digital stories that showcase multimedia razzle-dazzle at the expense of good storytelling. Well constructed narrative will always be more important than even the most sophisticated digital storytelling. I hope! And, I also suspect that there will always remain a place for the most basic oral storytelling, even as attentions spans shorten and the magic of digital storytelling enraptures us.

But, let’s cut back to where I left off in a recent digital storytelling post about Monica Hesse’s question: “Is a hybrid book our future? Maybe…” No, not maybe. Of course hybrid books are our future. The unknown is whether or not conventional print publishing will endure. Is a printed book our future? Maybe. That is an important and intriguing question that only time will answer. I’m gambling that the answer is yes, we will continue to print books for a long time. But print books will become the exception, not the norm. Printing books will become a niche market in the publishing industry, catering to very specific needs such as collector’s editions, beautiful coffee table editions of art, design and other expensive format publications.

Monica Hesse continues: “Perhaps the folly isn’t in speculating that the book might change, but in assuming that it won’t.” Bingo! It’s inevitable, so let’s shift the focus of the debate and brainstorming to what I find most exciting about the advent of digital storytelling: its extraordinary potential. Certainly it dilates the potential for producing books, narratives, learning experiences, etc. that span a far broader diversity of learning styles/capabilities while better serving some handicapped audiences. Digital storytelling opens as yet unimaginable non-linear storytelling formats that were simply too challenging (or maybe even too subtle or cumbersome) for print media. It democratizes the publishing world in an exciting, possibly scary or dangerous, and ultimately positive way. It will demand and catalyze long overdue shifts in the way that we teach children to think (both analytically and synthetically), to decipher fact from fiction, to communicate in non-digital contexts, to focus over extended periods of time and a host of ways we haven’t yet conceptualized.

The Boyhood of Raleigh, 1871 (Photo: Wikipedia)

Perhaps the most intriguing aspects of digital storytelling are new avenues for communicating still invisible beyond the horizon. Will we be able to engage more of the senses than just sight and sound? Will we be able to untether digital stories? Will we be able to package multi-format stories that are compatible with multiple devices and accessible in multiple formats (text, audio book, video, multimedia)? Will be able to open up digital books for broader sharing, one of the most practical advantages of print books? What sort of copyright innovations will evolve to track increasingly complicated intellectual ownership stories and story ingredients?

I would encourage authors and producers of digital stories to break free of the rules, conventions and expectations of the last five centuries of book publishing. Don’t just translate books into digital books. Look at the terminology — ebooks, digital books, video books, vooks — for proof that we’re still frozen in the Gutenberg paradigm. Amplify the idea of storytelling. Leverage today’s multimodal communication vehicles by integrating text, audio, video with the vast array of social networking tools so that the texture of storytelling is profound, diverse and malleable. Open storytelling up so that “readers'” experiences can be varied (maybe even unique?) which will compel greater interest, sharing, debate, buzz, marketing, content development.

Digital storytelling must develop the potential for annotation and marginalia that print books permit. And it will be important to devise innovative ways for readers/consumers to share this marginalia. I know this sounds scary, and it poses real challenges (intellectual property rights, etc.), but it is inevitable and good. And it will unleash a viral potential heretofore unfathomable, not to mention the pedagogical implications. I touched on these ideas briefly in a recent post about James Governor’s “Reading is Writing: Illuminating The Digital Manuscript“.

In sum, I agree with Scholastic editor David Levithan: “It’s expanding the notion of what storytelling can be.” Rather than fear and desperation, publishers should be reinvigorated, revitalized and optimistic. The publishing industry should embrace the new digital storytelling paradigm and begin dreaming up creative new storytelling opportunities. Frankly traditional print books represent a single, extremely restricted vehicle for telling stories. Five centuries of increasing ubiquity make it challenging to think beyond the limitations of a stack of paper sandwiched between two covers, but storytelling existed long before the printing press, and it will continue to exist (and flourish) long after books become relics.

Of course, change always introduces new concerns and risks as well. Hesse asks whether reading and imagination will suffer as a result of innovations in digital storytelling. She acknowledges that digital books empower the reader to skip around, perhaps even skip sections altogether. “It’s also possible for the user to never read more than a few chapters in sequence, before excitedly scampering over to the next activity…” This is certainly true, and not only because integration of audio and video invite this sort of jumpy navigation. Searchability alone is revolutionary. The ability to quickly, easily filter a digital text for relevant terms, references, etc. shifts significant control from the author/publisher to the reader. This basic change invites us to leap from relevant topic to relevant topic rather than trudging from beginning to middle to end. But is this a problem? It could be if authors think and write according to the conventional Gutenberg paradigm. But authors can evolve and grow. In fact, many may welcome the change, may recognize its vast potential. Inevitably some will not.

“Hybrid books might be the perfect accessory for modern life. They allow immediate shortcuts to information. They feel like instant gratification and guided, packaged experiences. What they don’t feel like, at least in certain examples, is reading.“

World Storytelling Day logo by Mats Rehnman. (Credit: Wikipedia)

Although there’s reason aplenty to fret the diminishing attention spans of people increasingly plugged into a digital world, I’m not convinced that the “feeling of reading” is in and of itself critical. Some of us love to grab a book and tuck into a hammock on a summer afternoon. It’s pretty hard to beat this “feeling of reading”, but I’m not terribly concerned that fewer and fewer people seem to desire it. It does concern me that a reduction in reading might indicate a reduction in the type of thinking and protracted focus that reading fosters. But I’m not convinced that a shift from print to digital storytelling is the culprit, especially of a potential loss of imaginative thinking which is encouraged by reading a print book. Television and video/movie consumption seem more likely culprits. (Or an ever more pervasive culture of instant gratification?) But the sort of digital storytelling I’m aspiring toward is a far cry from a video or a television program.

Vook’s founder, Brad Inman discourages us from equating print books and Vooks, emphasizing that the two storytelling formats are unique. “‘We don’t pretend that it’s a book because it’s not.’ With the Vook, ‘there’s an expectation that you’re not gulping the text,’ as you would in a traditional novel. Instead, Inman says, ‘you’re tasting the text,’ dipping in and out of it at will.”

I think that this in-and-out experience is potentially one of the great values of digital storytelling. Although Hesse cites Clifford Nass, a Stanford professor who studies multitasking, to distinguish between active and passive entertainment when reading or watching a video, we need to remember that digital books are not videos. Even vooks are not videos. Watching a video or a movie or a television program is considerably more passive than reading the same content, and I agree that the reader is more engaged, more thoughtful and more imaginative than the passive viewer of video. But in digital storytelling, video is only one of the modalities employed to advance the narrative. Although type and depth of imagination employed when reading a print book certainly is different from reading, a well composed digital book is not a passive experience. Indeed it should be considerably more interactive than a print book precisely because of the in-and-out experience which empowers the reader to elect, decision after decision, a personal experience within the narrative, ideally participating on some level and sharing at will. Think more seminar, less lecture. Perhaps Hesse’s reaction tells us more about the shortcomings of a specific vook rather than digital books in general.

“In reading “Embassy,” what concerned me wasn’t that my brain was getting overworked but that my imagination wasn’t… when the “true” representation… is immediately provided to the reader, imaginary worlds could be squelched before they have a chance to be born. Reading Vooks made me feel a little like a creative slacker…”

Like Clifford Nass, David Sousa (an educational neuroscience consultant who wrote “How the Brain Learns to Read”) is likely correct in his concerns about the effects of video on the imagination of children, it is less helpful when evaluating digital storytelling: “we find that kids are not able to do imagining and imaging as exercises… because video’s doing the work for them… They still have the mental apparatus for that, the problem is they’re not getting the exercise.”

However, digital storytelling is not video. It profits from the integration of video into a considerably more interactive tapestry of narrative that engages the reader at every turn, offering multiple levels of interaction and a great deal of independence for how to navigate the content. Digital storytelling at its best should challenge the imagination more consistently and more rigorously than video and likely than conventional print books. Perhaps we’re not there yet. Certainly we’re not there yet. We’re at the proverbial dawn of a new storytelling paradigm, and it’s only logical that the prototypes will be awkward prototypes. But they offer an exciting glimpse into the future, a future that will be driven by raconteurs creating for the new paradigm, not just trying to adapt or salvage the Gutenberg paradigm.

Hesse shares this open-minded optimism, concluding with Bog Stein’s inspiring outlook. “‘Things like the Vook are trivial. We’re going to see an explosion of experimentation before we see a dominant new format. We’re at the very beginning stages’ of figuring out what narrative might look like in the future. ‘The very, very beginning.'”

James Governor tackles the concept of digital media consumption in a familiar and appealing way in his March 10 blog post, Reading is Writing: Illuminating The Digital Manuscript. He opens with a reminder that reading, albeit a solitary practice on the simplest level, usually tends to be[come] considerably more interactive than the initial visual/mental textual interface:

“there is an other side to the book, the canon, the stories we tell each other. We like to discuss books. We like to write things in the margin – we even have a name for this activity – marginalia, a practice as old as the Illuminated Manuscript. Most of all though, books help us learn – particularly when we share them.”

This echoes the reflection I recently offered to the smart folks over at Vook.com. They had solicited feedback from customers to see what we think they should be improving in order to help design a more appealing digital storytelling experience. I offered quite a bit of feedback, but the crux of my advice was to better leverage the full potential of interaction and marginalia allowed by the connected, digital publishing format.

The first generation vooks are basically digitzed books, e-books, with periodic video clips peppering the text that readers can opt to view as they read the text. Of course, hyperlinked text is present and the symbolic opportunity to connect to Twitter and Facebook and post your reactions to the vook, ideally offering a little free advertising to the company. This is a necessary first foray into digital storytelling, but it’s scarcely superior to reading the print version. And in many ways, it’s an inferior experience because there’s no handy way to add marginalia or share the reading  experience with others.

After reading Gary Vaynerchuk’s print edition of Crush It! then re-reading and watching embedded videos in the Vook edition of Crush It! my review (video above) was intended to offer timely feedback to the team producing these digital stories, but also to jump start their thinking. By capturing screencasts, I tried to hint at a more engaging way to open up and amplify the text. At present, the format is very solitary. Very locked up in a text-based silo with some video audio visual candy to make the reader feel like the experience is sexier than reading the print version.

James Governor grumbles that the “big problem with most current efforts in digital publishing [is that] they don’t learn from the web. We can bookmark a link on the web but why can’t we bookmark a digital book? It’s not enough to view source, you need to be able to share it and mark it up. What the hell good is XML if it’s just for layout?” While reading Crush It! or my current vook, Seth Godin’s Unleashing the Super Ideavirus, it should be quick, easy and fun to share my marginalia with others. This requires two important additions to the current vook experience:

1. a seamless scrapbook component should be integrated into the vook so that I can underline/highlight, jot notes, link to related content (including Twitter, Facebook, Delicious, blog posts) and generally capture/contribute my interactive reading, viewing and listening experience;

2. a seamless, quick and easy sharing tool.

I know that both of these suggestions are easier requested than developed. And I know that copyright issues need to be resolved with both. But these challenges should inspire innovation, not inhibit it. Whether I want to tweet, email, quote in an article, embed into a YouTube video, include in a presentation or share an audio excerpt via mobile phone, I would like to be able to open up my reading experience to share with others.

Obviously sharing in this way needs to be limited to excerpts so that copyright is respected and readers can’t skip buying the vook by accessing the full vook when shared. However, if/when I share an excerpt, the person I share with becomes a likely purchaser. The viral sales potential is huge! Especially if the shared excerpt makes it easy to buy the vook. And it would be amazing if vook buyers could then be granted access to the marginalia annotated versions of others. In other words, I decide to buy a book based upon a screencast/audio clip from a friend. I buy the vook, but rather than being limited to the original version, I can also toggle on/off the marginalia of my friend if my friend gives me permission. Likewise, I could get permission from other readers as well to access their marginalia. The practical application of this in a learning environment would be extremely valuable. A professor could enable students in his/her class to access their marginalia and follow their links, effectively supplementing the original text in an interactive footnoting environment.

I’ve become verbose, and since I’ll inevitably return to this topic before long, I’ll wrap up. But a few last quick thoughts. Vooks (and other digital book publishers) should at the very least plan to:

1. produce an integrated text, audio and video edition,
2. enable digital marginalia and
   
3. enable sharing.