Digitization makes possible a world in which anyone can claim to be a publisher and anyone can call him- or herself an author. In this world the traditional filters will have melted into air and only the ultimate filter—the human inability to read what is unreadable—will remain to winnow what is worth keeping in a virtual marketplace where Keats's nightingale shares electronic space with Aunt Mary's haikus. That the contents of the world's libraries will eventually be accessed practically anywhere at the click of a mouse is not an unmixed blessing. Another click might obliterate these same contents and bring civilization to an end: an overwhelming argument, if one is needed, for physical books in the digital age. — Jason Epstein, New York Review of Books
Epstein makes a number of other provocative predictions about the consequences of the digital revolution in publishing in his piece, but he neglects to mention one thing: the more content there is out there, the less value it will ultimately have.
The less value texts will have, the less quality texts will ultimately be produced. We might be entering an era of literary inflation so far unknown in human history, an era where there will simply be too many words looking for a fixed number of eyeballs. Who will have the courage to winnow all those texts? Who will be able to afford it?
As in any inflation, the costs of finding that one good book in the sea of bad ones will eventually discourage all but the most determined readers. With shrinking audiences will come fewer quality texts — why spend years writing a book that virtually no one will read because no one will be able to find it?
Enter Google. In the not too distant future, Google might become the Great Editor, sifting through the millions of texts for the one that you, the precious reader, are willing to read. Who needs editors indeed. Who needs agents or publishers for that matter? Just upload your book into Google Editor and wait while Google Editing algorithms determine the value of your submission by estimating the potential readership.
Article comments
1 - Alan Kurtz
I look forward to Google the Great Editor, sifting through millions of texts, algorithmically matching and mixing to customize exactly what I want to read. However, you proffer some dubious premises that don't necessarily impact our forthcoming readers' utopia but must be challenged.
1) The more content there is out there, the less value it will ultimately have.
2) The less value texts have, the less quality texts will ultimately be produced.
3) There will simply be too many words looking for a fixed number of eyeballs.
4) With shrinking audiences will come fewer quality texts.
Let's take these in reverse order, because points 3) and 4) are easiest to rebut. On what planet do you find "a fixed number of eyeballs"? Certainly not Earth, where world population continues to grow and literacy expands globally out of practical necessity. If the audience for traditional books is shrinking, that's a consequence of evolving technology not declining population.
Points 1) and 2) are likewise problematical. You really need to define "value" here. Cultural value must be distinguished from economic value. Maybe the more food is grown, the lower its price on the commodity exchange. But food for thought obeys no such laws.
As a fallible human editor, I respectfully suggest that your piece would be better with fewer unsupported pronouncements and more attention to fact.
2 - roger nowosielski
Typical Kurtz.
I hasten to add though that "typical," in this usage, has become a trademark.
3 - Jon Sobel
Agree with Kurtz, the "value" claim is dubious, but when it comes to art, culture, and knowledge, "value" must necessarily be in some sense subjective, and one way to define it would be simply by the likelihood and/or actuality of finding readers. In which case, the assumption holds true in a strict mathematical sense. If I write the Great American Novel and it's never published, so that only my mother reads it, what is its value to the world? If a million people read it, what is its value then? Certainly, higher, in some sense.
4 - roger nowosielski
Would Paradise Lost or La Commedia be of lesser value for having been only sparsely read?
And what of the value of a bestseller that sells in thousands?
5 - tdaonp
Also: as with any upsurge, there will be a regression as well. Many people who jump on the bandwagon of writing and self publishing will find out that it is bloody hard work (50+ hours a week in my case) and even then the rewards can be minimal or non-existing. It takes a very determined attitude to remain a writer.
So Google may never need to find an editor algorithm because the amount of written text may very well slump after a few years.
6 - mrdockellis
Interesting idea of thought as a commodity, but I guess you speaking of this as one off expression and nothing Socratic (can you quantify intellectual exchange? A market place of ideas seems aimed more at quality, though with the lowest common denominator as a guiding light perhaps quantity wins out over quality)
This expression might have a purely individual benefit say in the case of John Kennedy Toole. Perhaps he might not have killed himself if Confederacy of Dunces had been published by him. Or maybe fame would have made him more depressed and the end is the same. Can't tell.
I have to say access to collateral sources via the Internet has made finding "good" books easier, but it still doesn't beat a trip to the bookstore, though perhaps I'm biased in a tactile sense. I love the feel of a good book in my hands, sensualist that I am. It becomes a mind/body thing I suppose.
7 - A. Jurek
It doesn't matter how many people there are on earth, only so many will ever read books on a regular basis. Consequently, there will always be only so many readers, a fixed number of eyeballs if you will.
8 - Jay
Google's ambition is quite frightening sometimes. Wonder if they can pull this one through while other Tech giants look on.
9 - Alan Kurtz
A. Jurek (#7), thanks for clearing this up. I forgot that, no matter how many people are on earth, only so many will ever read books. It's the old "fixed number of eyeballs" principle, known since Biblical times as the Rule of the Golden Iris. It explains why, when Moses went to the trouble of schlepping The Ten Commandments down from Mount Sinai after twice spending 40 days and nights alone up there, a mere 0.17% of the people bothered to read them. (One wag, anticipating Cecil B. DeMille by 3,200 years, quipped: "I'll wait for the movie.")
Not understanding the immutability of this absolute limit, Johannes Gutenberg hoped to improve on that number by inventing movable type printing, of course to no avail. Finally, during the 1950s, British and American molecular biologists determined that the Rule of the Golden Iris is hardwired in humans, haplessly transmitted from one generation to the next. Today's geneticists theorize that it might someday be possible to modify our DNA so that fewer than 0.17% of people will read books. But, sadly, there is no way to overcome the upper limit.
10 - Jennifer Bogart
Alan, thanks for the laugh today.
11 - Maqbool Ahmad
It’s like expecting your programmer to be able to design a typographically well-constructed piece and know the essentials to guiding a reader through an ad. It’s possible, but you’re not putting an expert on the job. Why expect your designer to be an excellent programmer if you wouldn’t expect your programmer to be a top-level designer?