THE WARRIORS OF PUBLISHING

You don't think of book people as warriors, but that's exactly what they've been for about 130 years. I thought it might be fun to examine why print on paper is losing the media battle. Until fairly recent times books held their own pretty well, which is remarkable when you consider how strong the competition used to be. Book publishing used to be a feisty industry and its battles deserve to be chronicled.

Here in three short paragraphs is the David and Goliath story of how publishing managed to survive and even thrive against fearsome odds for more than a century.

The first major hurdle that books had to overcome was newspapers, starting in the late 1800s. Newspapers improved rapidly in that time in content, presentation, and distribution, and an awful lot of people stopped reading books and read only newspapers.

Book companies fought back by sponsoring magazines, which were enormously successful.

Then came the double threat of film and radio, which threatened to sweep everything before them. Radio was free, and it's hard to compete with free. Print fought back manfully with the magazines about movie stars, the Golden Age of Pulp, and comic books.

Then came TV and LP records, and once again print fought back...

...this time with the cheap paperback revolution, which was so influential that it helped to create the youth movement of the sixties.

It also fought back with skin magazines like Playboy. Can you believe that a guy actually got rich by stacking a mansion with beautiful girls and then writing about it? Poor censored TV was powerless to compete! Man! Print people were gladiators back then!

So with a distinguished and combative history like that, how did it come about that the latest new medium, the internet, managed to do what film, radio and TV couldn't...namely, cripple the publishing industry? The short answer is that it didn't. Modern publishing self-destructed.

If you think about it, books should have had nothing to fear from the web. Book people were the natural providers of content for the web. Books had all the ideas, all the in-depth research, and a significant share of the recognizable public figures that people cared about. It was better than the net at providing fiction and fictional role models. The net, which even now is still primarily a reading medium, is potentially a terrific instrument for funneling people into bookstores. Of course this assumes that publishers are printing stuff that people actually want to read, at a price they can afford.

Sure the net is free and books cost money, but radio and TV were also free, and old-school publishing still managed to be competitive. With so many advantages at the starting gate, why did modern publishing fail to compete?

I can think of no other answer than that publishers in our era are less imaginative and less competent than their predecessors. Maybe we're paying for the anti-business attitude of the sixties. Older publishers stood up to film, radio, and television by innovating and redefining themselves. Our guys can't be bothered. Our best minds have either abandoned publishing or, more likely, been locked out of it.

I have my own ideas about what publishing should do to be competitive. I'd need more room to talk about it than I have here, so expect to see a pamphlet on the subject in the Theory Corner Store (...sorry for the delay in putting it up...I got side-tracked into learning Photoshop). In the meantime, I'm hoping that publishers jump on Amazon's offer to sell new top-of-the-line ebooks for $10, and on iTunes' offer to sell books by the chapter.

STILL THE BEST PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHERS

Hands down, Retro Atelier (link in the sidebar) is still the best portrait studio that I know of. A number of studios do first-rate work with models, but these guys seem to be out to prove that ordinary people can be made to look good in photography, and they make a good case for it.

Disclaimer: er...actually I don't recall that they ever explicitly declared that intention...but my near flawless intuition and ability to read between lines has confirmed that this is the case.

I'm guessing that a number of the photos here are of professional models, but the selection is mine, and I couldn't help myself.

Try to get this effect (above) from your mall photographer.

It must make a portrait photographer's day when a subject with an angular face (above) walks in the door. There's so much that you can do with people like that.

Delightfully and artistically seedy (above).

Wow! I imagine a lot of Photoshopping was done on this (above), but it was time well spent.

This man (above) looks like an old-time gunslinger but I like the suggestion that he's also a laborer.

Amazing! It's hard to believe that this photo (above) is a recent one.

Okay, I'm beginning to realize that all the photos I chose are probably of professional models.

Man! If you were a girl wouldn't you like to be shot by a photographer who could do this (above)?

I love photos that portray people as thinkers. What is she mulling over here? Revenge? Maybe she just realized that her husband has been cheating on her, or that he's caught her cheating. Maybe something puzzling has just been resolved, or maybe she's recalling the events of the day and coming to some realization. Maybe she's composing a letter of great importance.

Alright, alright....I'll concede that a lot of people probably aren't suited for this kind of picture, but I'll bet it would work with more types than you'd expect. I wish I had the time to experiment.

"PSYCHIATRIC"

PSYCHIATRIST: "Okay, tell me about this recurring dream that you just had. Don't leave anything out."

DREAMER: "Well, it started as it always does on a beach on a cold and overcast day. The place was almost empty, and I remember wondering where everyone else was. Even in the winter there should have been people walking their dogs. Where were they now?"



DREAMER: "Across the water I marveled at what appeared to be glaciers, but I also wondered how that could be. I mean, there weren't supposed to be glaciers this far South."

DREAMER: "Unable to take the cold any longer, I walked over to a nearby hotel, hoping to get warm in the lobby."

DREAMER: "An employee came to the door. He had a mocking, impudent face, and I could tell that he was going to turn me away, but a voice from inside told him to let me in. He reluctantly opened the door."

DREAMER: "Inside a man with a fedora beckoned me to get into an elevator with him."

DREAMER: "We went to the top floor in silence, and when the door opened...we were in a ballroom! People were dancing lethargically, as if they'd been doing it for a long time."

DREAMER: "The man in the hat pointed to a window."



DREAMER: "I looked outside but didn't see anything special. It was daytime and kids were playing in the street."

DREAMER: "I turned to ask the man what I was supposed to be seeing, but he was gone. It looked like he'd escaped onto the roof."

DREAMER: "I turned to the window again and this time everything had changed. It was dark outside. Somehow night had fallen, and the impossibly thick and expanding glacier I'd seen out at sea was now right outside the window, slowly and inexorably pushing cars and debris ahead of it. At the speed it was going it would only be a matter of hours before the town and everybody in it would be crushed. "

DREAMER: "In a panic I shouted to a man who was on the phone nearby. Nothing I said seemed to matter to him."

DREAMER: "I called to an old woman too, and got big belly laughs in return. She thought it was hilarious."

PATRONS: "Hey, quiet down over there! If you want to shout, go outside!"



BAND LEADER: "Yes, why don't you go? Nobody wants you here."

DREAMER: "I knew it wouldn't do any good to argue, so I made for the stairs."

DREAMER: "On the way down it occurred to me that I might not be the only person who didn't know about the glacier. I thought I'd warn the other people in the hotel, so I frantically knocked on doors. One opened by itself revealing a fat man screaming on a couch. I tried to reason with him but the more I talked, the louder he shrieked."

DREAMER: "Another door opened into a room of people who appeared to be waiting for something. They were indifferent to what I said about the glacier, and seemed to resent my presence."

DREAMER: "Other people just stared."

DREAMER: "The final door opened and revealed...revealed what? What kind of crazy place was this?"

DREAMER: "Out on the street it was dark and there was snow on the ground."

DREAMER: "No use trying to get my car. It was somewhere under the glacier now."

DREAMER: "In the distance I thought I heard a humming and churning noise. I didn't pay much attention at first."

DREAMER: "After a while the sound was deafening. Holding my ears I noticed a shaft of light methodically zig-zagging its way over the sidewalk. When I looked up to find the source I saw it... a round, mechanical thing in the sky, with a searchlight in one eye. It scanned the street, apparently looking for people. I hid behind a pillar til it passed."



DREAMER: "It's a good thing I did because round flying things were soon all over the streets, incinerating every human who couldn't hide fast enough."



DREAMER: "As if that wasn't bad enough, groups of predatory human spotters began to emerge from nearby buildings and joined the hunt. Whenever they spotted a fleeing man they blew a whistle, which summoned the killing machines. How could people do that to their own kind?"

DREAMER: "I saw a group of men on their hands and knees looking at something, and ran over to them to warn them. I did everything to get their attention but to no avail. They were absorbed in watching something in the ice right under their feet."

DREAMER: "I looked down, and sure enough there really was something down there. I know it doesn't make sense, but there were...there were live women under there... and they were beckoning to the men on the surface. "

DREAMER: "These were no ordinary women. Most were stunningly beautiful and they flirted like sirens. A few had the sentimental appearance of beloved and long-dead mothers and sisters. Every man saw the unique woman that he yearned for."



Finally one of the men, unable to restrain himself any longer, reached out and clasped the hand of one of the women.



DREAMER: "He was immediately pulled under the ice and drowned..."

DREAMER: "...as I was a moment later. I remember looking up at the hole in the ice as my lungs filled with freezing water. As it always does in these dreams the hole filled with light as killing machines leaned down and watched me with impersonal interest. I guess with all that thrashing around I put on a pretty good show. "

DREAMER: "And that's it! That's the point where I always wake up. What does it mean? Am I going crazy?"

PSYCHIATRIST: "Crazy? No, no. Not crazy. We'll talk about it next week. I do have to remind you though, that the magazines in the waiting room are for all my patients, and if you continue to take them home I'll have to charge you for them."

THE END

BTW: Many thanks to the excellent blog, "Shadowplay," which is where I got most of these pictures.

http://dcairns.wordpress.com/