For once, not about a book I have read, but random thoughts provoked by a book I have published. Couldn't really let it pass unmentioned on this self-proclaimed book blog, could I?
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What’s so special about a book? If I were to tot up the words I have written, at school, at university, in notes taken, in letters (yes, I remember those…), in exams, in birthday cards, emails, blog posts, facebook updates, tweets, and, of course, in the workplace in myriad reports, administrative notes, drafts for others to sign, brochures, the website… the quantity would surely be War and Peace hundreds of times over. And yet, alongside this humungous mass of verbiage, the 70,000 or so words I have written for a single purpose will be marked out as special.
Are these words somehow of greater merit or profundity? Did more effort go into their production? Did they take greater efforts to produce? Well, maybe the latter. They certainly cost their author more energy than the average shopping list. But that is most certainly not what makes them different. What matters is that these words are published. They are in a book.
Aren’t books supposed to be on the way out? Not just in the sense that – so they say – those physical objects of bound paper between covers are rapidly being supplanted by downloads to battery-powered devices, but also insofar as anyone can publish to the whole world at near-zero expense on a website or on a blog? Who needs books? Why, frankly, would anyone go through the rigmarole of book publication when there are such cheaper and easier ways of getting other people to read your words?
And yet…
Books lend credibility and endorsement to words, deservedly or not. And thus, similarly, to their authors. This is true whether or not the book sells. To be published is an end and a result in itself, at least for an author. Would I put on my CV the fact that I have written 54 previous posts on this blog, or 109 on this one? Would anyone be impressed? No. Will I put that I co-authored a book, even on the most arcane subject? You betcha. Would anyone be impressed? Probably, yes, actually, even those without the slightest intention of ever reading the said tome.
Why is this? Let’s face it, there is a lot of published drivel out there, and a lot sage wisdom to be had online for free. Three things come to mind.
It’s not free
Human psychology: if you have to pay for it, it must be worth something. If it’s free, well, it’s free. Price and value are not always the same thing, for sure, but we have got into the habit of thinking that way, and it’s not entirely untrue either.
Some-one thought it was worth publishing
It takes a fair bit of effort to produce a book, beyond the writing of it, I mean. Some-one, a publisher (or authors themselves when self-publishing), has spent money to do this. Some-one believed it was worth their while to edit it, set it out, design the cover, write the blurb, have it printed and distributed, invest in a launch event, promote it… All this presumably on the assumption – at least in the case of a commercial publisher – that there is a market for the book and a reasonable prospect of some return on the investment. In other words, some-one other than the author, believes it was worth publishing.
It’s a book, innit?
I know I am not alone in having been brought up to respect books. I mean books as things. My dad was always telling me that I should treat a book properly, with the effect that, to this day, I cannot for example bring myself to write on a book – other than one made to be written on – fold down the corners of pages, or bend the spine backwards. I wince when I see people do these things. I can rationally sympathise when people say they throw books out, or even – horror of horrors – tear pages out as they read them to lighten the burden on a journey, but would be more or less physically incapable of such heinous deeds.
All this to say that books have a special place in the culture. Maybe this is owed to their historical status as the repository of knowledge, the guarantor of civilisation. Societies that burn books are those that descend into barbarism, right?
It could be, what with e-readers and the internet, books will cease to occupy this favoured position, and the leading intellectuals of the future will just have really big hard drives. But, for now, books still bring kudos.
Words worth two on the web?
Not really. Not as such. But in reality, fairly or unfairly, a book still lends its contents a status they would not otherwise enjoy and, right now, that’s fine by me.
The 70,000 words in question are in “Europe’s Parliament” People, Places, Politics”, co-authored with my former boss, Sir Julian Priestley. He, at least, knows what he’s talking about…
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