| ||||||
|
Arts & Entertainment  BooksComics Health & Body Media Mothers Who Think News People Politics2000 Technology - Free Software Project Travel & Food  Columnists
Current Click here to read the latest stories from the wires. - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - Also Today For a full list of today's Salon Books stories, go to the
Books home page. - - - - - - - - - - - - Search Salon - - - - - - - - - - - - Recently in Salon Books Reviews Dear Mr. Blue Book Bag Reviews - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
The revolution that wasn't | page 1, 2
The Future of the Book Riding the Bullet By Stephen King
Buy this electronic book at B&N.com
The effect was to equip, psychologically if not technologically, hundreds of thousands of Americans to download a piece of fiction. In so doing, King launched a kind of digital event, confirming the power of electronic media to deliver not just commerce or information but mass entertainment -- and the kind of excitement normally reserved for a blockbuster film. Anyone who went to a site in search of the King book felt like they were part of something larger. Egged on by the media, they couldn't wait to try out this new format. (Whether they read or liked it is another question.) For those unfortunate enough to encounter crashed servers and frustrating delays, there was something familiar about this, too. The experience was not unlike the disappointment of being shut out of, say, "Star Wars" on opening weekend. (That online booksellers were giving away the title for a limited time only enhanced the sensation of being part of a rush.) Given an electronic medium that had previously offered us a series of fragmented amusements -- conspiracy theories, satiric sites, product-linked content -- what a comfort to know that King, the personification of mainstream entertainment, had rented an apartment in cyberspace. Others had tried to create unifying digital events before. The silly Web soap, the Spot, thought it accomplished this in the mid-1990s, only to watch its popularity quickly disappear. When Ford recently tried to lure surfers into shaping a narrative for one of its TV commercials, media critics ridiculed them for it. Perhaps the most successful example was the "Blair Witch Project" phenomenon, which saw crazed fans scouring the Web for supplemental material to stoke their appetites. But where the success of that movie made the case for digital media as a promotional tool, "Riding the Bullet" took the next step by showing how digital media could serve as both means and end. Its essence was its own publicity. King caught more than just the public's attention. With the media fretting over the increasing ability of authors, musicians and film auteurs to take their art straight to the Web, King showed them that the next wave could easily come from their own team. Yes, to the media King and Simon & Schuster may look like visionaries, rooted in Old Publishing yet reaching for enough of "the future" to impress skeptics. But in their hearts and in the hearts of the media they are part of the establishment. King is no upstart hypertext novelist. Simon & Schuster isn't a 'zine run out of some skateboarder's basement -- it's part of Viacom. And how did S&S itself feel about all this? Pretty good, judging by how it reveled in its handiwork. First it clamped down on start-up Silicon Valley e-publisher Fatbrain, preventing it from selling the book even as it allowed second-rate booksellers unfettered distribution rights. As one publishing exec said, "This is the first time a traditional publisher perceives a New Media company as a threat." Then S&S made a small but critical gesture: It disabled the story's print function. The company says it did this for security and copyright reasons, and at first glance, it's hard to disagree with that argument. But print publishers have long been vulnerable to photocopying, especially when it comes to shorter text works. Besides, if Simon & Schuster really wanted the "widest distribution possible," as a spokesperson claimed, then it would have encouraged anything to get the word out. That might have resulted in less revenue, but with a $2.50 story and software and retail partners who expected their cut, the project was unlikely to bring in an infusion of black ink anyway. Instead, S&S seems to be proclaiming something more insidious with the publication of "Riding the Bullet": that not only can it drag us kicking and screaming into the next era of digital entertainment but that, as a traditional content provider, it can control how and when that will happen. For the consumer, it seemed to say, cyberspace offers much that is new -- speed, efficiency, lower costs. But it also reminded us that, for the moment, Old Media and traditional entertainment still rule.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - Search Salon | |||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
|||
