The Artwork of the Future
So far we have focused on what might be done with this new medium, and on the people with the vision to do it. We have not considered any of the technical practicalities. And quite right too: as the writer, broadcaster and technophile, Stephen Fry, observed in a recent speech at the iTunes Live Festival, "Technology is always subservient to talent".
But mastering technology is important too. As I have discovered in haphazardly patching together the content for this mobile, multimedia essay (which I am tempted to call a 'messay'), combining text and images with sound, video and interactivity is a lot more work than producing something with written words alone. But this difficulty represents an opportunity, especially for publishers.
Precisely because it is beyond the ability of most individual authors to write code as well as text, or to record audio and video as well as thoughts and feelings, someone needs to make it easier. This can be done in two main ways.
First, by providing software frameworks (or, if you like, publishing platforms) that provide certain functionality and avoid the need for people to create these from scratch for each new piece of work. This is analagous to what browser software has already done for the web, and in fact web browsers (and related software frameworks like WebKitΦ) deliver a lot of what's needed to publish phiction of the kind I have described.
But they do not provide everything, so there is still work to do. The software you are using is one very early example of the kind of thing I'm talking about: although it was created to display this essay, it can in principle be used to display other content as well.
Tools such as SophieΦ and iStori.esΦ do exist for multimedia authoring, but these are not yet fully mature. And importantly from the point of view of this essay, they do not cater for the creators of content for mobile devices. Providing the right tools is an essential step, not only because it will allow existing ideas to be more effectively realised, but also because putting a new tool in someone's hand encourages them to start thinking differently too.
Second, the work can be shared between between people who are experts in the various established crafts that need to come together to create these new works (notably authoring, broadcasting and coding – which I see as the new ABC of publishing).
It is hard to think of another form of entertainment – from music to films to computer games – that does not take a team to pull it off. Indeed, book publishers – whose hand-wringing assertions of the value they add grow ever more white-knuckled as their industry slides into choppier, less predictable waters – already argue that the creation of a novel is a team sport that includes the editor, the designer and the publicist in addition to the author. Up to a point this is true, but phiction makes it more so, which is one important reason why it provides a potential escape route to strength and distinctiveness for book publishers who find themselves in weak and commoditised roles.
Rare is the book consumer who buys his or her next read because of who published it. The rise of phiction isn't only an opportunity to entertain, educate and engage people more effectively, or even one to enter a new growth market (though it is both of those things). Just as importantly, it also provides opportunities to create new services that can provide clear distinctions between publishers in the eyes of authors, and brands that support customer loyalty and premium prices in the shops.
But doesn't all this mean spending a lot of money and placing big bets on putative hit products? Yes, the costs of multimedia stories are generally greater than those of plain-text stories. But they are lower than many people realise, and they are falling (recall the Metalosis Maligna example described earlier, or see the award-winning movie Katalin VargaΦ, which was made for about €30,000). Moreover, book publishers already invest huge sums in the form of advances to proven bestselling authors (to their ultimate detriment because this system only reinforces the authors' brands, putting the publishers themselves in an even weaker position).
Fair enough, but doesn't this also mean going head-to-head with Hollywood and the compter-games industry? Yes, but now that films and games are digital, and available on the same mobile entertainment devices as books, publishers have been pitched into this battle already; failing to acknowledge this fact only ensures defeat by default.
Books, films and video games have long provided mutual support through various combinations of cross-marketing. Originally books begat films, which begat games. Then these trends began to reverse (Tomb RaiderΦ and Resident EvilΦ are games that became films) and the borders became blurred (300Φ and AvatarΦ are films that look a lot like video games, while games such as Grand Theft Auto IVΦ and Uncharted: Drake's FortuneΦ are becoming almost as photorealistic as films). But now these three media are truly merging.
This doesn't mean an end to lone authors or small creative teams. For a start, the art of entertaining others with written words alone will continue (though in its traditional form, the 300-page, 100,000-word book, will consume a smaller proportion of our collective time, attention and money than it has in the past). In addition, areas in which creative teams are often large and well-resourced – i.e., music, films and games – are hardly devoid of grassroots hits in which obvious talent overcomes lack of money and other resources. But for the already big machine that is the book-publishing industry, it represents a profoundly different way of fultilling its mission – one that will require new skills and mindsets.
And if existing publishing companies don't take up this challenge then others will. Then they, like Amazon and Google, will shape the future of the industry and collect its spoils. As the journalist Josh Quintner has pointed outΦ:
"It's true that as long as we in the media ask you to read our stuff on your computer screens, you won't pay for it. But if we deliver that content for a small fee on devices that can surpass the pleasures of reading on paper, you will. So the really pressing question is, Can the technology for such e‑reading devices be developed and made more widely available in time to save my profession?"
My contention is twofold. First, that fiction is heading for a crisis similar to that now being experienced by journalism. And second, that the technology to respond to this threat and exploit new opportunities is already here – 'only' its creative application is lacking.
As I described earlier, some people are already trying hard to elucidate the artistic rules of this new medium, and a few are even trying to solve the problem of indequate tools. But precious few of them are book publishers. I'm heartened by the existence of organisations like the Institute for the Future of the BookΦ, The Workbook ProjectΦ and the MIT Center for Future StorytellingΦ, but dismayed by the fact that people from the business that for the last few hundred years has run this vital part of our culture are not more engaged, both intellectually and practically.
By 2010 there will be a billion web-enabled mobile phones in the world, driven not only by double-digit growth in the total number of handsets (forecast to reach 4 billion before the end of 2009), but also by replacement of older 2G phones with 3G modelsΦ. Within about five years almost all new handsets will be smartphones (as a result of which they will once again become known simply as "phones")Φ. The day when large-screen, multimedia devices outnumber people, at least in the developed world, is therefore well within the timeframe of all but the most short-sighted strategic business plan. So why isn't the book-publishing industry being more imaginative about grabbing a piece of this action?
It's all too easy to become consumed by the immediate symptoms of the ongoing seismic changes – the power of Amazon, the decline of high-street retailers, the unpredictability of Google, the uncertainty of digital rights, the inadequacy of copyright law, the narrow-mindedness of certain authors and agents – and in doing so to lose sight of the bigger picture.
We are at the end of the Gutenberg Era. This is not a once-in-a-generation or even once-in-a-century shift. Historically this kind of change has happened only on the timescale of millenia. To deal with it adequately will require not merely competence, intelligence and foresight, but the kind of genius bordering on madness that people like Richard Wagner, James Joyce, Steve Jobs and Douglas Adams have brought into the world – people with insanely great ideas and the courage to turn them into reality.
Here is Chris TolworthyΦ, a new kind of game-maker – and to my mind one of those rare individuals with the right attitude to succeed at this rupture in the techno-cultural continuum in which we now find oursevles:
"I have a dream...
I dream of games that deal with every kind of story, not just the shallow or superficial (there's a place for that of course) but also stories that deal with the real world and with the greatest and most important ideas. One day game shops will be as diverse as book shops.
I dream of games as the first place people go for a story... I want to show that it's possible to tell any story in a game, and it's possible for one person to make such a game in just a few months.
I dream of games that are based on stories. Not action, not violence, not amassing points, but darn good stories. Games that actually follow and respect the story, they don't just twist it into yet another platform game or shoot'em up.
I dream of games that link together to make a huge and ever expanding world bursting with stories... I dream of games that form a relationship with their players... I dream of games where the whole world can get involved... I want to show that "pile 'em high and sell 'em cheap" can be just as profitable as games that restrict access.
...
Nobody makes games like this. I think they should. I'm not claiming to be the world's greatest game developer – I have a lot to learn! But nobody else is doing this, so I'm just showing that it's possible."
The world that we know is ending. Do you have a dream about what our new world should be? And what are you doing to show that it's possble?
Or, like the Great Prophet Zarquon, are you going to allow yourself to be distracted by the small things until it's too late?