What is a book today? What remains of a book, as Kevin Kelly asks, when we take away the paper? An idea? An opinion? Nothing at all?
Talking non-fiction for a moment, the appeal for me about books, the thing that blogs and newspapers will never be able to take away, is the fact that you have authoritative, quality information, that has been considered for months and years by the author before going through a rigorous editorial process. I’m not saying that books are coming down from on high with the Definitive Answer to Life’s Questions - there are still bad books out there, and books I disagree with while I’m reading them - but the format of books lends itself to this longer process in a way that blogs, which lose audience if they aren’t fed every week, or newspapers, with tight copy deadlines, can’t do.
Canongate’s new iPad-only publication Why the Internet Matters, and Touch Press’ The Elements are impressive ventures in what these new books could look like. Then we have the Simon Pegg app, the graphic novelization of the first chapter of his memoir that I’ve blogged about before. This latter is an example of how you can create something new and fun and interesting in conjunction with a book, but that stands up on its own as well. Beyond all the videos and the spinning pictures and the live-updated info is a core message: get a good writer to create a quality product, and build everything else around that.
I don’t know if in five years time this is the kind of thing publishers will be commissioning, but it’s going to be a hugely interesting time. Publishers are looking to define what a book is, and from there, define what their role is in creating them.
