Ilkley Literature Festival review: Writing and Reading in the Digital Age
More from New Writing North this evening, as Claire Malcolm chaired a discussion on connecting readers and writers in the era of the internet. Book blogger/podcaster Simon Savidge, author and book vlogger Jen Campbell, and Rachael Kerr from Unbound (crowdfunded publisher) shared their views on reviewing books, the dominance (and distance from modern reality) of mainstream publishers and national newspapers, and lots more besides.
An important point made about blogs/vlogs (incidentally, vlogs and vlogging are hard to say and ugly to write - is there another term out there?) is that the reader/viewer can get to know the personality and taste of the writer/presenter in a way that's not possible with sparse (often faceless) book reviewing in print media, and in this way come to know which recommendations to trust. This can help people read out of their comfort zone, which is probably a good thing.
Despite dire predictions, people are continuing to read print books, children are reading more than they have in years, and book sales are up lately (though no-one on the panel mentioned that that might just be a result of closing libraries...). Jen offered the interesting snippet (from her new book on the history of bookshops) that a late medieval bookseller in Florence declared the advent of printed books 'the death of the book' and shut up shop, so basically there have been dire predictions for about as long as there have been books.
The other part of the discussion (though really everything melded together quite well) was about crowdfunding, and that direct link between author and readership. On the face of it (having not had time to look into it at all) Unbound sounds like a great idea: authors submit a manuscript or book project idea, if Unbound decide they like it they set a funding target (the cost to print X number of copies, or for instance the cost to print plus the cost of giving the author a couple of months off the day-job so they can finish the thing) and interested readers pledge money. Anything made over the funding target gets split fifty-fifty between Unbound and the author, and they've already had some critical and commercial successes like The Wake by Paul Kingsnorth.
I came away with many things to think about, some of which I may write about here soon. Or perhaps I should branch out into podcasting. Don't expect me to make videos anytime soon, however.