Borders collapse

The biggest “thing” to happen in 2011 re writing/publishing/books/what have you was the collapse of Borders. Full disclosure: I was a Borders employee back in the late nineties, so I have some familiarity with this erstwhile colossus. Like lots of folks, I was never very sanguine about these mega-chains crowding out the mom and pop stores. Looks like Borders fell under its own weight–and hubris. A David didn’t have to slay the foundering beast.

Yet, during their long liquidation, I walked into my local Borders and found myself wistful about their downfall. It signals a changing of the guard, in some sense. It remains to be seen whether bricks-and-mortar book stores can survive in an increasingly digital environment. I have my doubts. Of course, this malady is afflicting newspapers/magazines/etc. Content (or what used to be called articles/pieces/literature/etc.) is now becoming digitized at breakneck speed. I’m a lover of hardcopy books, don’t let me lie, but I’m not a thoroughgoing Luddite. It’s a bit ridiculous to fortify the levee when raging waters threaten total evisceration.

Actually, the Borders collapse is symbolic of a zeitgeist change. It has given us space to breathe again. Space to imagine and create. It’s open a whole wide world of indie publishing that didn’t exist a few years back. It’s given me a chance to vault over those New York gatekeepers–and what a rush! The establishment (whatever establishment you care to isolate) is mortified by bloggers, on-line scribblers, indie writers, etc. because they have no way of controlling the content (there’s that word again). It must really suck for them. The major problem with the world is that we have so many gatekeepers and poobahs who want to restrict our information, or our access to information. Information itself is radical. If no one can control it, think of the possibilities. Here’s hoping that 2012 will liberate more and more “content.” Happy New Year!

A little on creativity

The one disconcerting aspect of the consolidation of media (and which I mean, specifically book publishing) is the slow, inexorable slide toward homogenization. Everything is vanilla and bland now because these large corporations (all of publishing, really) have packaged “art” into neat little boxes for convenient consumption. Hence, what we are seeing now is the winnowing of creativity, a move toward a totally market-based model.

Okay, I know what you’re thinking. Yeah, well, it’s always been that way. Sure it has–to a degree. Yet, the Borders collapse for me sends out alarm bells. I’m sure everyone has their own particular take on it. You hear, mostly, that the proximate cause was the burgeoning eBook phenomenon. I agree with that, to a degree. There was a stubborness about Borders refusing to change with the times. Yet, there was something else going on.

I think we are going to see a colossal paradigm shift. The creation of on-the-fly content, sans the corporate gatekeepers, will open up an avalanche of creativity. Of course, there will be a lot of badly written books published. Yet, writers will be free to explore narrarive avenues and flights of fancy once verboten and forbidden because the “vaunted market” (as I like to call it) disallowed quirky, countercultural subject matter. And there will be readers! Lots of readers. Trust me on that.

People are yearning for new stuff. They are sick of vanilla. I know I am!

So, I guess what I am saying is that the publishing giants can’t harness creativity forever. Human beings find ways to express themselves outside the accepted parameters of polite society. And I’m glad of it. That impetuous harnessing of creativity has doomed them in some ways; technology has just sped up the process.