making books

[alocispepraluger102]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...1803548_pf.html

[paul secor]

Similar to happenings in the record biz.

[alocispepraluger102]

eerie, isnt it it.

..whole new world acomin.'

i'm not so sure that many of us want to see it.

[Jazzmoose]

This probably isn't the best place to do it, but I've got this sudden compulsion to put myself up as a target for everyone's stale fruits and vegetables by saying that I think Catcher in the Rye must be the most overrated book ever published. Not the worst book, by any means, just the most overrated.

[Jazzmoose]

Fine. I'll go hang out on the politics forum. At least there I can get yelled at...

[Stefan Wood]

sound of crickets chirping.......

[paul secor]

Part of what's happening in the publishing and record business is the change in culture/society, but part of it is what happens when people who started businesses because they loved literature and music are replaced by people whose primary - possibly only - concern is making as much money as possible.

I realize that the first group of people I mentioned were in business to make a profit, but the love of what they did was just as big a part of why the businesses existed. For the most part, that love isn't there anymore.

[AllenLowe]

I think it's all the more complicated than this, and whether or not Catcher in the Rye is over rated or not is beside the point - some of this is a great levelling out of the crap we've been inundated with in both the book and music business - even on the jazz side there is just too much stuff issued and musicians (yes, good musicians with not enough good ideas) share the blame. On the new music/improvised music/jazz scene we see everybody who can breathe considers him/her self a composer worthy of three cds a year od material, much of it sub standard. So the result is a shrinking market that has become flooded with DIY stuff - and DIY is a perfectly appropriate thing, but people don't know or underststand their limitations. So we can blame this on the industries, but truly the fault lies not necessarily in our stars. The message to writers and musicians is learn more about not just your craft but your art, get away from graphic novels and quick, easy downloads, study the music and its history - but if you want to study history, learn how to do so, not in that quaint, middle-class way of going to school and memorizing because it's good for you. Recognize that modernism and the avant gard go back more than the few years that, up until now, you have recognized - try 200 or 300 years in literature and music.

All if this is the unsurprising result of a very post-literate generation (not the first such generation - mine was probably the first). Maybe all of this is just the way it has to be in the brave new post post-modern world. In that case we should just let it be. But to me the answer is to look at some older models of the music business, like the 1920s in which niche audiences (by race, religion, class, etc) were priorities. Go to those audiences, bit give them something worth patronizing. So all this, a problem for many, is an opportunity for some. And JAZZ WORLD: STOP RECORDING -

just a suggestion -

Edited December 27, 2008 by AllenLowe

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

One of the big things that "Devlin Tune" does is point out that the main niche market was the locality. Jim identified a few days ago that the "death" of the locality as a focus for action - musical, he was thinking of, but it applies to writers, too - was an important factor in making the world what it's become.

Part of the story here is "boundless ambition" - the urge to be successful on larger and larger stages (and this applies not only to "artists" but to entrepreneurs) - coupled with the sudden emergence of the means to fulfil that ambition - the mass media. But the locality was where you - we, the audience, in fact - weeded out those who truly spoke for their community and those who couldn't cut it. Hence the symptoms you mention, Allen. Well, I think that's got something to do with it. As you say, it's complicated; as complicated as the history of the last hundred years or so. And to really look into it means this thread moving into the political forum

MG

[A Lark Ascending]

One of the big things that "Devlin Tune" does is point out that the main niche market was the locality. Jim identified a few days ago that the "death" of the locality as a focus for action - musical, he was thinking of, but it applies to writers, too - was an important factor in making the world what it's become.

Part of the story here is "boundless ambition" - the urge to be successful on larger and larger stages (and this applies not only to "artists" but to entrepreneurs) - coupled with the sudden emergence of the means to fulfil that ambition - the mass media. But the locality was where you - we, the audience, in fact - weeded out those who truly spoke for their community and those who couldn't cut it. Hence the symptoms you mention, Allen. Well, I think that's got something to do with it. As you say, it's complicated; as complicated as the history of the last hundred years or so. And to really look into it means this thread moving into the political forum

MG

I'm very attracted to this idea of local community as the driving force of real experience.

Except...

I'm a classic example of a late 20th/early 21st person quite divorced from any community. I grew up on RAF camps all over the world, have a strong draw towards the south-west (through living there quite a bit and my father's Cornish origins) yet have lived in the Midlands for 30 years and still feel no emotional bond here.

The reality of the last 100 years....maybe much longer...is that those of us in the 'developed' world have little option to live our lives from a local community. Culture will/has been reshaping accordingly.

I have a feeling that more and more we will choose our cultural contexts from a global drop-down menu.

Will this be 'real'? Well, when I listen to Aussie jazz it's much more affecting than anything I've heard of Nottinghamshire jazz.

[JSngry]

Will this be 'real'?

It's my hunch that "real" as it pertains to things like this (as opposed to that tree your car is headed for, is it "real" or not? ) is that the less you know of any other way, the more real it is, and vice-versa. That, and how willing/able you are to realize that damn near everything "we" hold dear "today" was at some point upsetting to plenty of other folk. Paradigmes evolve, which means that eventually old ones change as old ones die & new ones are created. Generations can come and go and only experience the evolution. Only a rare few get to live through the actual change. We're shaping up to be one of those rare few generations.

And so it goes.

[JSngry]

Jim identified a few days ago that the "death" of the locality as a focus for action - musical, he was thinking of, but it applies to writers, too - was an important factor in making the world what it's become,

In the context of that thread, yeah, it was musical. But rest assured that I'm very much of the mind that very little (if anything!) ever occurs in a vacuum.

[seeline]

I've spent a lot of time working in bookstores, though not in recent years... but have to say that when i was doing that, the major publishing houses were putting out *way* too much. Even those of us who read the trade papers religiously had no real hope of keeping up with the flood. The idea seemed to be that "More is more," meaning that putting more stuff out there would automatically translate into more sales and thus more money for the big publishing houses.

Most of the best stuff tends to come from mid-sized-small publishing firms, whether university presses or small independents. (Though there are some imprints - now owned by the big companies - that are pretty consistent with good material, like Penguin.)

overall, a falling-off in the amount of books printed per year would probably be beneficial to the book trade, authors, etc.

As for ebooks, well - no shortage of them (legal and otherwise) online. Your local library is probably offering some - maybe a lot - to its patrons, all free.

This has been in the wind for a long time. And Oprah Winfrey's endorsement of Amazon's Kindle is adding to the big push. (Kind of reminds me of how things were back in the late 80s, when the switchover from LPs to CDs happened.)

I bet a lot of us will be surprised - in a good way - by newer forms of publishing and distribution. (should I mention that I have a Kindle on order? It's for my mom, though, not me.)

[BruceH]

This probably isn't the best place to do it, but I've got this sudden compulsion to put myself up as a target for everyone's stale fruits and vegetables by saying that I think Catcher in the Rye must be the most overrated book ever published. Not the worst book, by any means, just the most overrated.

Not nearly as overrated as On the Road.