Paper has been around for at least 2000 years. We all grew up with paper - reading books, newspapers, bedtime stories, flyers at gigs. Some people love the touch and smell of paper, some love finding old hardbacks in bookstores and fleamarkets. But if the experts are right, reading on paper is doomed. In 50 years, we will all be reading on ebooks like the kindle or the ipad.
Some applaud this as a smart move to save trees , reduce our carbon footprint and save the backs of removal men. So why do some self-publishers still print a variety of literature on paper? Who are these hold-outs determined to stick with a 2000 year old media in the face of the pixel tsunami?
Self-publishing in the 21st century is a fascinating mix.
It is no longer the lonely outpost for writers who can’t
get published in the mainstream for talent, cultural or political reasons. And it is no longer dominated by cheaply printed and stapled A5 booklets. From the Philippines to Moscow you can find pop culture magazines printed by independent entrepreneurs with the same level of quality as Elle or Vogue; over-grown punks and skaters producing their professional versions of the weird and gross-out comic books and fanzines they read instead of their homework; more serious art lovers producing often purely aesthetic booklets; or political pamphleteers spreading their independent opinions to readers just like them.
The quality and innovation of self-published zines and books can often exceed that of the mainstream, since they are produced in smaller numbers. And the stories they cover, or the photos and graphics they print can often be more directly geared to their target audience - readers who might have more eclectic tastes than the public at large. One can argue that a mainstream publisher or a chain store has mainly the interest of the mass in mind. Their primary interest is to stay in business by any means necessary, using whatever tools they need to survive and beat the competition. The self-publisher and independent bookstore, on the other hand, have the interest of the individual at heart. They still want to survive, but having a smaller focus, and limited readership, allows them to maintain their integrity over obeisance to the market. A mainstream publisher will balk at content deemed to be legally problematic, not commercial enough, or too risque for mass distribution.
Self-publishers like Barney Rosset of Evergreen Press pushed every envelope to ensure independent voices and and minority opinions have an outlet - even if it meant being sued by the US government at the time for being the first publisher who dared to print "Lady Chatterley's Lover" in the US. The Russian publishing house Ad Marginem faced similar legal battles, and even imprisonment on a charge of distributing pornography, when they published “Blue Lard” by Sorokin. And you can bet in every conflict zone on the planet there is someone printing out pamphlets to counteract the powerful organs of the powers-that-be.
The good thing is that internet and the growing availability of "e-readers" has provided new opportunities for self-publishers to spread their printed publications far wider and more cheaply than ever before. Restrictions still exist in some countries, but the universality of the web, widespread hacking, and services like VPN, makes policing its borders extremely hard. Self-publishers interested in global distribution can use the web both as an advertising tool and to provide pdf links to readers worldwide to download the latest issues of their favourite A5 magazine or even entire books.
But this explosion of electronic media consumption has also created a new type of consumer. With the growth of mobile devices, and digital media that exists only in electronic form online, we reduce our reliance on physical possessions. Like nomads, who have carried few possessions and exchanged their stories orally since the beginning of civilisation, we are also shedding our reliance on physical property in favour of virtual. Books weigh us down, whether we travel by camel or volkswagen. We are now just as happy to license a song, rather than buying a physical CD or LP. We accept the limitations of ownership that come with computer programmes, which mean an inability to pass on one's purchase to a friend or inheritor. We accept that we may get punished if we share the information we purchase too freely.
What does this mean in terms of our humanity? How does this relate to our ongoing evolution to some better form of our current selves? We exchange and take in information as differently now from ten years ago, as the change from the nomadic oral tradition to the written word. We scan ebooks, and emails, and twitter and FB far more than we read actual print anymore. Some experts question how much our minds and brains will also rewire to fit this paradigm shift from the physical to the ethereal. From the ability to focus on one book or article at a time, to having to feed our mind with an overstimulating soup of bytes and soundbites. Our ability to multitask is already being stretched by the number of active windows we can have open at any one time on our computer screens. It’s quite mind-boggling to imagine what multi-tasking may look like in the not so far off future.
The Digital Nomad of the future may very well look different to us now. They will certainly ingest and transmit information very differently.
Regardless, will there still be bibliophiles, art lovers, and grungy punks somewhere still passionately printing out a self-published magazine on paper?
(a.c. standen-raz, october 2011)