Are You Ready For The Future?
It may be trite to say that information technology has changed the way writers write, but it’s also a truth that I don’t think any of us have completely grasped yet.
As an “independent author” (read: self-published author), computers and the Internet have helped to level the playing field just a bit as I compete against authors published by big, ruthless corporations.
But distribution is just one way that information technology has changed writing and publishing, and it may not be, ultimately, the most important way. For a long time now, I’ve anticipated novels moving towards a non-linear, multimedia future. The hypertext fiction trend in the 1990s is one example of this kind of writing. Hypertext fiction seems to have petered out, but as more and more people get used to reading online, and sharing their reading space with images, music, and video, I think it is inevitable that all of these different kinds of media will converge. The days of novels being published in a boring, text-based, black-and-white format — static words on a static page — may be coming to and end. Won’t the novels of the future be more interactive, more lively?
The current crop of e-reader devices like the Kindle, and most ebook publishers, all seem to assume that novels will remain static objects. But once books go digital, they can become something else entirely. The video below offers an example of what I’m talking about. The e-reader in the video is designed for magazines, and that is what is featured in the video, but imagine how novels might be redefined once this sort of technology becomes widely available. If we can replace newspapers and magazines with interactive e-readers, what’s to stop novels from taking on this same sort of interactivity, too? Watch:
Video source: Mag+ from Bonnier on Vimeo.
This brave new world of reading requires a different skill set for writers, though — a skill set that most writers don’t have. Writing a simple hypertext novel is pretty easy; it just requires linking text to other text. But if I want to add images and music and video to the text, that becomes much harder to do and much more expensive. For an independent writer like me, who doesn’t have a corporate publisher supporting my work, acquiring the licenses that would turn my book into a truly multimedia experience is way beyond what I can afford. That leveled playing field suddenly is a lot less level, and once again, I, the independent writer/publisher, am at a distinct disadvantage in a world whose reading audiences may expect more from a novel-reading experience than just black words on a white page.
Am I wrong? Do you think the future of novels will remain similar to the past? Is there any hope for indie writers?
