My take on First 5 and Book Business

The First Five Pages has been as painful and tedious to read as a grade school grammar book. While I begrudgingly admit that I have already started to incorporate some of Lukeman’s tenets into my writing, despite the academic rather than creative nature of my writing, I have struggled to finish this reading. Lukeman gives advice similar to King when he instructs the writer to approach the craft with an, “unshakable confidence to leap forcefully into the realm of creation” (15). This echoes King’s admonition to not approach the blank page lightly, but King manages to weave his principles of writing into the narrative of his life while Lukeman provides a bone-dry index of proscriptive measures for the aspiring author. To use their own vocabulary, King shows the reader/writer how he became the literary entity that he his, and Lukeman is telling us what to do or not do. As readers, we learn that one must never staple manuscripts from both texts but unlike the story of King’s first hand-written response to a submission, we simply receive a directive from Lukeman. In addition, the examples Lukeman provides are such extreme examples of his talking points that it becomes more difficult to recognize and correct more subtle occurrences of “bad writing” in my own writing.
So far, The First Five Pages is the lest favorite of the books we have read. On Writing was a quick read because I enjoy King’s fiction, so getting a glimpse into his creative process was a treat. I have not gotten very far into Book Business yet but I have been intrigued by this aspect of the publishing business for some time. I agree that the publishing business, like many other industries, is going to undergo a drastic change in the near future because of advances in technology. I found an interesting parallel between the music and publishing industries during the last class discussion. Similar to the transition from vinyl records to digital files, books have evolved from stone tablets to e-books. I find some of Epstein’s ideologies a little naïve though. His idea of book-printing kiosks springing up across the globe seems far-fetched. His view that people will download a text and then print and bind it in their homes appears ludicrous. Again, I see a parallel between the music industry. Before mp3 players were on the market, I burned downloaded music onto CD. iPods have made this unnecessary, as technology like the Kindle may make books printed on paper. I would not be surprised if, in twenty years, books are published exclusively in a digital format. To accommodate for people like Epstein, who simply must have an actual book in their hands to enjoy the reading process, people will be able to get printed copies of the book, most likely at smaller ‘boutique’ retailers. Another solution for these people would be, in essence, a book-tailor. One could send a digital copy of the book you want printed to this book-binder and receive a custom printed copy of the book. Such a store will probably never come into existence, I’m guessing for reasons relating to profit, but its an interesting notion. Aside from Epstein’s depictions of things like the ideal book store, I anticipate this being a quick and interesting read.