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Comments on: Pan Macmillan’s Digital Manifesto of Doom http://www.fifthestate.co.uk/2008/06/pan-macmillans-digital-manifesto-of-doom/ Fri, 29 Oct 2010 11:47:06 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: Richard Nash http://www.fifthestate.co.uk/2008/06/pan-macmillans-digital-manifesto-of-doom/comment-page-1/#comment-154188 Richard Nash Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:00:28 +0000 http://fifthestate.co.uk/2008/06/pan-macmillans-digital-manifesto-of-doom/#comment-154188 Thanks, John for that kind offer, which I promise to take you up on by the end of the summer. Peter, while I get what depresses you about Sara’s manifesto falling only on a small group of receptive ears, I rather feel that the choir has gotten substantially bigger over the last 12 months. [Y'all do some kick-ass work at Apt, btw, and thanks for the times emit.] I’ve a “The Future is Now” amongst the list of tags I use for my blog posts (like your Future of the Book, Peter) , and I feel like the number of places I have to add to my RSS feed, in order to not miss linking to interesting thinking, keeps growing. I suspect in the short run we are likelier to see only a growing echo chamber, rather than the real penetration of the mainstream trade publishing space—converts will happen one or two at a time, rather than wholesale. But I also suspect that the tipping point, when it does come, will surprise us with the velocity of change that ensues.

]]> By: v_clayssen http://www.fifthestate.co.uk/2008/06/pan-macmillans-digital-manifesto-of-doom/comment-page-1/#comment-248847 v_clayssen Thu, 12 Jun 2008 13:16:48 +0000 http://fifthestate.co.uk/2008/06/pan-macmillans-digital-manifesto-of-doom/#comment-248847 <span class="topsy_trackback_comment"><span class="topsy_twitter_username"><span class="topsy_trackback_content">intéressant débat autour du manifeste de Sarah Lloyd http://tinyurl.com/578eao</span> <div class="topsy_trackback_links">[<a href="http://twitter.com/v_clayssen/status/">Original tweet</a>, <a href="http://topsy.com/tb/fifthestate.co.uk/2008/06/pan-macmillans-digital-manifesto-of-doom/">Topsy page</a>]</div></span> intéressant débat autour du manifeste de Sarah Lloyd http://tinyurl.com/578eao

[Original tweet, Topsy page]

]]> By: booktwo.org | Stop Press for June 11th http://www.fifthestate.co.uk/2008/06/pan-macmillans-digital-manifesto-of-doom/comment-page-1/#comment-154072 booktwo.org | Stop Press for June 11th Thu, 12 Jun 2008 00:31:01 +0000 http://fifthestate.co.uk/2008/06/pan-macmillans-digital-manifesto-of-doom/#comment-154072 [...] 5th Estate · Pan Macmillan?s Digital Manifesto of Doom - An ill-thought-out piece, but if you want to see some of the more interesting people in booktech slugging it out, check the comments. Perhaps that was the idea all along. [...] [...] 5th Estate · Pan Macmillan?s Digital Manifesto of Doom – An ill-thought-out piece, but if you want to see some of the more interesting people in booktech slugging it out, check the comments. Perhaps that was the idea all along. [...]

]]> By: Peter Collingridge http://www.fifthestate.co.uk/2008/06/pan-macmillans-digital-manifesto-of-doom/comment-page-1/#comment-153972 Peter Collingridge Wed, 11 Jun 2008 14:10:28 +0000 http://fifthestate.co.uk/2008/06/pan-macmillans-digital-manifesto-of-doom/#comment-153972 Hi John Nice one. There is a "future of the book" category at our blog, here: http://aptstudio.com/timesemit/category/publishing/future-of-the-book/ (it probably works equally well as the future of publishing) However, blogging still feels like preaching to the converted... Hi John

Nice one. There is a “future of the book” category at our blog, here:
http://aptstudio.com/timesemit/category/publishing/future-of-the-book/
(it probably works equally well as the future of publishing)

However, blogging still feels like preaching to the converted…

]]> By: John Rivers http://www.fifthestate.co.uk/2008/06/pan-macmillans-digital-manifesto-of-doom/comment-page-1/#comment-153936 John Rivers Wed, 11 Jun 2008 11:06:03 +0000 http://fifthestate.co.uk/2008/06/pan-macmillans-digital-manifesto-of-doom/#comment-153936 Hi all, thanks very much for your comments both on this post and the wider debate around the future of digital marketing. My original post was never intended as 'snarky', I simply wanted to get some perspective on what is an interesting subject. Sara's piece is inspiring and informative, especially for those of us that work in digital marketing. However I tried to imagine presenting the manifesto to editors and publishing directors and what the possible reactions would be. This is where the 'doom and gloom' aspect to my piece came in, the Manifesto provided a myriad of digital opportunities, but the tone suggested to me that it was an absolute future for the book, rather than a series of choices for publishers. On reflection I can see how I've exaggerated my point in my article, but then I also understand the tough realities of being a digital evangelist in publishing. Peter is absolutely right, it sometimes feels like your preaching is a touch futile. I would ask therefore that the 'digital evangelist' somehow evolves into a person that can assist, communicate and teach publishers about how their business practices can change with mutual benefit for everyone. It's time to get out of the pulpit and in front of the blackboard. Then away from the blackboard to the realities of the boardroom. Some give and take is needed. I tried to illustrate this with my comments on the 'wisdom of the crowds' Crowdsourcing is an excellent opportunity, it can also been as fundamentally flawed from a business method point-of-view. What I have learned both from Sara's piece and the subsequent debate is that there needs to be more discussion on the ways forward. I would therefore like to invite Sara, A Brown, Richard Charkin, Richard Nash, Chris Meade and Peter to write articles on the Future of Publishing, to not only be published on this blog, but shared across Pan Macmillan's Digital List and whichever Publishing projects and houses would like to run them. John Hi all,

thanks very much for your comments both on this post and the wider debate around the future of digital marketing.

My original post was never intended as ‘snarky’, I simply wanted to get some perspective on what is an interesting subject.

Sara’s piece is inspiring and informative, especially for those of us that work in digital marketing. However I tried to imagine presenting the manifesto to editors and publishing directors and what the possible reactions would be. This is where the ‘doom and gloom’ aspect to my piece came in, the Manifesto provided a myriad of digital opportunities, but the tone suggested to me that it was an absolute future for the book, rather than a series of choices for publishers. On reflection I can see how I’ve exaggerated my point in my article, but then I also understand the tough realities of being a digital evangelist in publishing. Peter is absolutely right, it sometimes feels like your preaching is a touch futile.

I would ask therefore that the ‘digital evangelist’ somehow evolves into a person that can assist, communicate and teach publishers about how their business practices can change with mutual benefit for everyone. It’s time to get out of the pulpit and in front of the blackboard. Then away from the blackboard to the realities of the boardroom. Some give and take is needed.

I tried to illustrate this with my comments on the ‘wisdom of the crowds’ Crowdsourcing is an excellent opportunity, it can also been as fundamentally flawed from a business method point-of-view.

What I have learned both from Sara’s piece and the subsequent debate is that there needs to be more discussion on the ways forward. I would therefore like to invite Sara, A Brown, Richard Charkin, Richard Nash, Chris Meade and Peter to write articles on the Future of Publishing, to not only be published on this blog, but shared across Pan Macmillan’s Digital List and whichever Publishing projects and houses would like to run them.

John

]]> By: Peter Collingridge http://www.fifthestate.co.uk/2008/06/pan-macmillans-digital-manifesto-of-doom/comment-page-1/#comment-153921 Peter Collingridge Wed, 11 Jun 2008 09:30:18 +0000 http://fifthestate.co.uk/2008/06/pan-macmillans-digital-manifesto-of-doom/#comment-153921 First of all, some disclosure. My company not only supplies HarperCollins with digital services (this blog being one of them), but we are also in contact with Sara and indeed many of the "trade" readers of this site. (Hi!) Hopefully the complexity of these interests out-conflict each other into something approaching neutraility. John - the author of this piece - is writing from a privileged position at one of the few UK houses that invests seriously in digital - both as a publishing platform, and as an experimentation about what it means to be a publisher. Lucky for him - I happen to think that Richard Nash's quote above on the ownership of his company by "Luddites who will never read this comment" is probably more representative of the experience digital evangelists have in publishing. John is experienced enough to know that in the digital domain, some things work, and some don't - and acknowledging this situation (like publishing books) is at the heart of a digital strategy. Whilst John's piece is thoughtful, I have to agree with Mr Charkin that it's hard to get an angle on exactly what John's argument with Sara is. If it's just that publishing is OK - then this is what Sara was railing against, and it's a bit depressing, given John's position, and could come across as snark (which charge Mr Charkin makes at John). Sara's piece was clearly meant as a provocation to the apathetic and inert forces in publishing, but, rather than provoking fierce debate, has actually (mostly) garnered cheers of support from people who - from my position - it is very hard to see effecting the sorts of change the manifesto calls for. As such, the support feels a little empty. I am a little dispirited that Sara's digital manifesto has failed to ignite any serious debate around it: the fact remains that it is still very hard to persuade publishers that digital matters as much as we - the commenters on (and authors of) this blog - believe. Whilst there may be digital strategies being formulated throughout the business, a highly visible, centralised, and successful execution of these strategies is (I think) absent. Where are the companies doing what OReilly, Harlequin and others have done in the states? Just trying - winning some and losing others - across the business? Whilst our American partners make a success of digital (or at least fold digital into each area of their business) we barely recognise that in our (trade and) popular media, reporting, retailing and reviews/recommendation - everything about books - have slowly been matched with news about digital's inexorable rise. As headlines about iPhones, Kindles, Amazon and broadband proliferate - where is publishing's response? One argument - Sara's, and mine - is that on the whole, that response is with, with one voice, with its head firmly in the sand. All of us agree here that that is not where publishing's head should be at right now. First of all, some disclosure. My company not only supplies HarperCollins with digital services (this blog being one of them), but we are also in contact with Sara and indeed many of the “trade” readers of this site. (Hi!) Hopefully the complexity of these interests out-conflict each other into something approaching neutraility.

John – the author of this piece – is writing from a privileged position at one of the few UK houses that invests seriously in digital – both as a publishing platform, and as an experimentation about what it means to be a publisher. Lucky for him – I happen to think that Richard Nash’s quote above on the ownership of his company by “Luddites who will never read this comment” is probably more representative of the experience digital evangelists have in publishing.

John is experienced enough to know that in the digital domain, some things work, and some don’t – and acknowledging this situation (like publishing books) is at the heart of a digital strategy. Whilst John’s piece is thoughtful, I have to agree with Mr Charkin that it’s hard to get an angle on exactly what John’s argument with Sara is. If it’s just that publishing is OK – then this is what Sara was railing against, and it’s a bit depressing, given John’s position, and could come across as snark (which charge Mr Charkin makes at John).

Sara’s piece was clearly meant as a provocation to the apathetic and inert forces in publishing, but, rather than provoking fierce debate, has actually (mostly) garnered cheers of support from people who – from my position – it is very hard to see effecting the sorts of change the manifesto calls for. As such, the support feels a little empty.

I am a little dispirited that Sara’s digital manifesto has failed to ignite any serious debate around it: the fact remains that it is still very hard to persuade publishers that digital matters as much as we – the commenters on (and authors of) this blog – believe.

Whilst there may be digital strategies being formulated throughout the business, a highly visible, centralised, and successful execution of these strategies is (I think) absent. Where are the companies doing what OReilly, Harlequin and others have done in the states? Just trying – winning some and losing others – across the business?

Whilst our American partners make a success of digital (or at least fold digital into each area of their business) we barely recognise that in our (trade and) popular media, reporting, retailing and reviews/recommendation – everything about books – have slowly been matched with news about digital’s inexorable rise. As headlines about iPhones, Kindles, Amazon and broadband proliferate – where is publishing’s response? One argument – Sara’s, and mine – is that on the whole, that response is with, with one voice, with its head firmly in the sand. All of us agree here that that is not where publishing’s head should be at right now.

]]> By: Chris Meade http://www.fifthestate.co.uk/2008/06/pan-macmillans-digital-manifesto-of-doom/comment-page-1/#comment-153779 Chris Meade Tue, 10 Jun 2008 15:24:58 +0000 http://fifthestate.co.uk/2008/06/pan-macmillans-digital-manifesto-of-doom/#comment-153779 Who are these 'Doomsayers'? What I hear Sara and others saying is that literature has lots to gain from the digital, both in terms of delivery mechanisms and more interestingly in expanding the pallet of the individual author to include - if and when they want to use them - new media means to make new kinds of books and stories, including all kinds of collaborative possibilities that we're only begining to explore. Of course there are major implications for publishers and all those involved in editing and sharing the word, but I get the feeling that the likes of Sara are relishing the challenges and opportunities ahead. Who are these ‘Doomsayers’? What I hear Sara and others saying is that literature has lots to gain from the digital, both in terms of delivery mechanisms and more interestingly in expanding the pallet of the individual author to include – if and when they want to use them – new media means to make new kinds of books and stories, including all kinds of collaborative possibilities that we’re only begining to explore. Of course there are major implications for publishers and all those involved in editing and sharing the word, but I get the feeling that the likes of Sara are relishing the challenges and opportunities ahead.

]]> By: A Brown http://www.fifthestate.co.uk/2008/06/pan-macmillans-digital-manifesto-of-doom/comment-page-1/#comment-153109 A Brown Sun, 08 Jun 2008 21:29:52 +0000 http://fifthestate.co.uk/2008/06/pan-macmillans-digital-manifesto-of-doom/#comment-153109 Having read Sara Lloyd’s Manifesto it doesn’t seem as if she is anticipating the annihilation of the book or the author, rather she is speculating on how publishing can engage with new ways of creating and accessing written material.

The survival of the book and single author and the new phenomenon Lloyd discusses are not mutually exclusive but nor are they independent. The publishing industry seems slow to come to grips with new opportunities and challenges of the ‘digital era’ whereas others have already begun to grasp and capitalise on them.

Much more debate, like that sparked by this manifesto, is needed to ensure that the publishing industry remains relevant and central to the creation and distribution of written material. Admittedly it was a provocative piece but in managing to spark some debate this seems justified.

]]> By: Richard Nash http://www.fifthestate.co.uk/2008/06/pan-macmillans-digital-manifesto-of-doom/comment-page-1/#comment-152630 Richard Nash Fri, 06 Jun 2008 15:42:20 +0000 http://fifthestate.co.uk/2008/06/pan-macmillans-digital-manifesto-of-doom/#comment-152630 I write as one of the few publishers to have already established a brand so am exceptionally optimistic about the role of the publisher in a flatter networked universe—even if the recent acquisition of my company by Luddites who will never read this comment means I’m temporarily all talk and no action. The brand, Soft Skull, is also one that does well amongst 14-30 year old, the ones who are platform agnostic—the nicest thing said about the brand was in the UK when a commenter on The Guardian’s Comment is Free suggested “Anything by Soft Skull” in response to a question as to what books are likely to get you laid. Sara, to my mind, is identifying two distinct and perhaps complementary phenomena—one the digital object, the textual equivalent of a music phrase subject to endless mash-ups as both now and in the pre-copyright era, such objects currently unnecessarily fixed in place, and the other the immersive stream, what we can the novel, the work of narrative non-fiction. In the first, the producer/consumer role will be highly blended; in the second the creativity of the reader will likely be around the text, rather than in it, be it fan fiction in relation to “genre” texts, or literary criticism in relation to “literary” texts. Because the very value to the consumer lies in a certain degree of temporary submission to the flow, I strongly doubt we’re going to witness an abandonment of the single author (although I hope we witness a greater recognition of the public domain as the source of all the material shaped by that single author); but in every other area of cultural and scientific enterprise, the network effect will increase of the role of talent in the creation of knowledge, and decrease the role of power. Remember we’re talking about lowering barriers to entry, and over the past century the quality of publishing output has dramatically improved and the barrier to entry have fallen—the complainers are largely the tweedy white men who were the ones publishing one another in the 1940′s and 1950′s…Almost none of the people I now publish, could have written books much less had them published, in the pre-digital era, we were too cult, too punk, too black, too angry, too sexy for the analog market and its brutal economies of scale…

]]> By: Richard Charkin http://www.fifthestate.co.uk/2008/06/pan-macmillans-digital-manifesto-of-doom/comment-page-1/#comment-152612 Richard Charkin Fri, 06 Jun 2008 15:02:01 +0000 http://fifthestate.co.uk/2008/06/pan-macmillans-digital-manifesto-of-doom/#comment-152612 I can't say I agree with everything in Sara Lloyd's 'Manifesto' but at least I could understand it and understand the debate she has managed to engender. I'm sure your (John's) riposte is clear, insightful and constructive but I simply couldn't follow its logic. In one sentence, what are you trying to say? Your last sentence appears to have meaning but it is eluding me. Please help. P.S. Is the remark about 'driving people to your blog' meant to be clever or simply rude? P.P.S. I should declare an interest. I have worked with Sara and think she's doing a great job for Macmillan. I can’t say I agree with everything in Sara Lloyd’s ‘Manifesto’ but at least I could understand it and understand the debate she has managed to engender. I’m sure your (John’s) riposte is clear, insightful and constructive but I simply couldn’t follow its logic. In one sentence, what are you trying to say? Your last sentence appears to have meaning but it is eluding me. Please help.

P.S. Is the remark about ‘driving people to your blog’ meant to be clever or simply rude?

P.P.S. I should declare an interest. I have worked with Sara and think she’s doing a great job for Macmillan.

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