I love technology. It means a publisher may be more likely to take a chance on me now. It’s CHEAPER now. Less of a risk! Yay technology! Bring it on, baby!

http://www.ondemandbooks.com/home.htm

Technology is always a factor in change. However, I don’t think even the combined power of the Internet (which I am loath to capitalize), television, e-readers, smart phones, and whatever earth-shattering new gadgetry will be choking our superstores and landfills in the next several decades, have the power of the novel.

It’s refreshing to see writers and the rest of the publishing industry embracing the convergence of fiction and technology, and I applaud the efforts of those who manage to get people to read books through innovation. However, we must always remember that technology serves us–we do not serve it.

As long as there are people to read them, there will be books.

The novel will never die, and I for one refuse to stop writing them.

I will say, about attention span comment, that I was most productive yesterday because I didn’t have internet access. I wrote for like 4 hours straight. Usually I’ll interrupt with some facebook checking or email checking. So we all still have the capacity for uninterrupted interest in books, we just need to force ourselves to minimize the distractions.

I really want to believe you, but your logic is hella faulty.

Novels require deep levels of concentration, without distractions. All facebook is is distractions.

I have never read more than a few lines of a fiction story on the internet anywhere. Because some messages me, or I get an email, or whatever. A crowdsourced twitter novel isn’t even close to being art, it’s more like playing Madlibs with a bunch of strangers.

TRY AGAIN.

Well, a point I think the author of this article might have missed, and a fallacy in the argument of these old-timers, is that the novel isn’t competing with new media. As the writer points out with the advent of radio the novel didn’t die, why? Because the do not compete directly. Maybe they compete for people’s time, but it’s not real market competition when taking a duece factors in.

The truth is that more people are reading today than ever before. There are also three thousand Dan Browns to every Philip Roth. I think the problem for literary writers today, is to educate a new readership in to appreciating art. Just as there are hacks writing novels, there are hacks everywhere else: on the screen, radio, and tv. The real battle for the novelist today is the battle to define art, and to make it important once again–as is the challenge of every generation.