Kindle 2: Kindle Harder

The Boston Globe recently published this article about the clamor surrounding the new Kindle. As the article notes, "Seldom has a new product that isn't really new created such excitement." Increased thinness and decreased weight are among the improvements the new Kindle has upon its predecessor. Fueling buzz for the product are endorsements from names quite familiar to our class: Stephen King (looking rather extraterrestrial in the photo) and Oprah Winfrey.

The article really isn't about the Kindle, but rather what it represents - the future of publishing, and more specifically, books. I think the position the article presents is probable. "Will the convenience of electronic reading make the experience of curling up with a book a thing of the past? Most authorities on the place of books in society doubt it." As is noted in the article, new technology often doesn't completely replace old - the comparison drawn to the emergence of photography technology and its effect on painting was very fitting, I thought.

Another issue raised by the Kindle and other electronic book devices is the question of royalties for authors. Electronic books sell for much cheaper than print books, and if royalties stay at present percentages, authors won't be making very much at all. A resolution to this is not clear at present. If the industry becomes mostly electronic, production costs should go down, allowing authors to stake a higher royalty. With enough fame, fortune, and tech savvy authors may even be able to go it alone without publishers - a la Radiohead and "In Rainbows." As for print books, maybe book contracts will come standard with separate sections for the two mediums, and a proportionate royalty for each.

A final interesting note about the Kindle 2: Stephen King has written a short story specifically for the device, and in that story, a character uses the Kindle. Could we call this product placement? I would say so. A clever marketing move? Maybe. It raises an interesting question about advertising in literature, a subject which has been mentioned by others on this blog. I don't think that we will ever see banners or pull out ads in our books, but I do believe product placement has the possibility for wide prevalence in some areas of fiction and non-fiction. Something tells me that the avant-garde won't take to it (without irony, at least), but I could see genre fiction and non-fiction using it. Obviously, product placement treads a fine line and must be used sparingly and with precision. Assaulting the reader with a tirade of real life products would probably have the same effect as the overuse of adjectives and adverbs has on the pace and feel of a story. But a few spots here and there - why not? Many popular authors have inadvertently done this in attempts to provide realistic detail: for example, Tom Clancy's novels are quite specific about vehicle and weapon brands. The appearance of the iPod, as opposed to the generic mp3 player, in many pieces of popular writing is also technically product placement.

Foreword and There After (Response on Stephen King’s "On Writing")

I tend to never read the Foreword (or Preface, Prelude, Introduction, etc.) of a book because most of them tend be daunting, long, tedious and very boring. Sometimes as a reader you do not quite understand what is being talked about until you read the actual book. Sometimes these beginning are just spoilers and then your not motivated to read such a book. And I was ready to do just that skip the Forewords (yes, more then one) of Stephen King’s On Writing because that is just something I do sadly. However, while skimming past the Second Foreword I noticed the word bull@#$! Mention a few times and decided well now why would the author go and swear in the beginning like that, and so it began the reading of the forward.

King wrote in his Foreword (his first one) that as a writer “he care[d] about the language…and care[d] passionately about the art and craft of telling stories on paper” (King 9) and it is because of this idea he choose to write this book. Expecting this book to be more textbook then memoir-esq I was prepared to be told how I should write and how I should display my thoughts on paper but I ended up being intrigued by a different idea once I began to read:

Right away, King states that a writer is a person who has a nature to express their creativity and imagination differently. Much like being gifted at a certain type of sport and excelling far better then those around you. Everyone through practice can choose to play any sport of their choosing but sometimes there are people who just achieve skill naturally. From my analysis it seems that King is saying that everyone can be a writer and in fact that he imagines that many people are but not everyone can excel at being an author. I use the word author because it is separate from a writer. If you can sit down and write short story after short story then you’re an author. If you can take the time and write a critical essay or a scholarly journal then you’re an author. It is what separates you from just being a writer. College students, high school students and work professionals write things every day, but usually for assignment. There is no sense of imaginative creativity involved that an author would use to write a critical essay or a short story because you are already given the idea of what write.

The build up of personal events to the one important even helped give me a sense of who King was before he became a writer and an author. His childhood was colorful to say the least and through his creative childhood he was allowed to develop his skills as a writer. His mother encouraging him to stop copying the comics he loved and create his own stories was a great novelty for King. His mother was the first person he wrote his stories for and she was the first person to buy them. It seems to me to be a very good lesson that a parent should encourage their kids especially if they have potential. King’s mother never told him to try to do something else, but she helped him understand the importance of his own words by showing him that they mean something. That is why it “was the first buck [he] made in [the] business” (King 29).