The pram in the hallway

In a recent Guardian article, Frank Cottrell Boyce took on Cyril Connelly's famous quote "There is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hallway."

Boyce writes engagingly about being, simultaneously, a father of seven and a full-time writer:

For centuries, writers have sung the virtues of staying connected to the routine and the mundane. Real creativity should feel like a game, not a career. Having to hang out the washing or get up and make breakfast helps you remember that your "work" is actually fun. And for it to stay fun, you have to be unafraid of failure. It's very powerful to be surrounded by people who love you for something other than your work, who are unaware of the daily, painful fluctuations of your reputation. I discovered recently that my youngest child thought I spent my days typing out more and more copies of my book Millions, so that everyone could have one.

In another take on parenthood and reading, Lauren McIntyre interviewed Kat Falls for the New Yorker book blog at the end of June. Falls took her 14 year-old son as her target reader:

He has a short attention span with books. Back then, he would have the computer screen open while he read, and I’d hear the IMs pinging. I always knew it was a good book if he ignored the pings. Now he has a cell phone. I watch him reading all the time with his cell phone next to him, and it buzzes when he gets text messages. It’s the same thing. I know he’s into the book when he ignores his phone. So that was my bar. You have to have a bar to set and that was mine: no boy is going to put this book down to answer his phone.

Falls also comments that the layout of the book contributes to the feeling of reading it:

I kept it very white on the page, intentionally, because I think your eye moves faster when it’s got lots of white space and it adds to the feel of the speed. You can rip down a page fast. I just know that when a boy sees a giant block of description that’s the first thing he skips.

If I think of some of the books aimed at teenage readers I've enjoyed the most, this is true of them too, especially the innovative type-setting of Patrick Ness's 'Chaos Walking' trilogy.

The product of parenthood, of course, is children, who grow from little creatures who you read to, sharing the experience with them, into people who have their own, secret, interior relationship with the written word and fictional places, people and situations. Perhaps this progress - from knowing what's going through their heads to not knowing - explains why the topic of what kids are reading is often discussed with some concern. I thought of this this morning when, digging through my Instapaper folders for the above links, I found this old one for Jill Lepore's feature on Anne Carroll Moore, the doyenne of New York's children's libraries at the start of the 20th century. Moore wielded huge influence over not just what was stocked, but what was published:

She never lacked for an opinion. “Dull in a new way,” she labelled books that she despised. When, in 1938, William R. Scott brought her copies of his press’s new books, tricked out with pop-ups and bells and buttons, Moore snapped, “Truck! Mr. Scott. They are truck!” Her verdict, not any editor’s, not any bookseller’s, sealed a book’s fate. She kept a rubber stamp at her desk that she used, liberally, while paging through publishers’ catalogues: “Not recommended for purchase by expert.” The end.

The story of Moore is also the story of E.B. White, that - to me, anyway - curious figure who both children and grammar fanatics hold dear. As Lepore writes:

The end of Moore’s influence came when, years later, she tried to block the publication of a book by E. B. White. Watching Moore stand in the way of “Stuart Little,” White’s editor, Ursula Nordstrom, remembered, was like watching a horse fall down, its spindly legs crumpling beneath its great weight.

I'm currently reading a history of 20th century British publishing and - with the Second World War - women are finally beginning to figure (beginning with Eunice Frost at Penguin, and Diana Athill at Andre Deutsch). So to finish off this tangentially linked series of articles: a recent profile of Frost from the Telegraph.

Coincidence

I just noticed that the tabs I have open for my lunch-time reading from the Guardian site bear a striking resemblance

Simon de Pury: the Mick Jagger of art auctions, by Stuart Jeffries

Interview with author Philip Pullman: 'I hope the wretched Catholic church will vanish entirely', by Laura Barton

Interview with publisher Andrew "the Jackal" Wylie, by Robert McCrum

iPad opportunities 1: A new life for Art New Zealand

Over the next week or so I'm hoping to get out a series of three or more* posts on possibilities I can see for the visual arts world to use Apple's iPad in their in-gallery and publishing work.

Apple describes the iPad as a 'magical and revolutionary product at an unbelievable price'. Smart people who I've heard talking about it suggest that it's the killer product that will bring your dad and grandpop into the world of mobile devices, and will potentially tip us into a whole new phase of online publishing. There's screeds and screeds of commentary on the device; the Guardian has a good round-up. So let's run with the idea that the ipAd is going to skae things up for a couple of posts.

Magazine publishing is a place where I can see the iPad fitting into my life. The argument for magazine publishing on the iPad is that it's likely to hit the sweet spot between an enjoyable reading experience (beautiful design, large, well-lit screen, improved interface for browsing and page turning) with portability and enhanced opportunities for advertising (an ad that plays a movie, or that links you straight to the relevant offer on the company's website) and bonus lower cost.

Here's my current magazine reading situation:

I have a subscription to the print version of the New Yorker that I am unlikely to give up. This subscription has great value to me. I read nearly every article. It fits into every bag I have. Looking at a ratio of weight to interest factor, a print copy of New Yorker is the best thing I could take with me on a one-day trip to another city.

On the other hand, I have a subscription to the print version of Idealog. Although I only really enjoy a couple of the articles, and find the advertorial annoying, I have it because it was offered at half price on Twitter, and $20 a year is apparently what I'm happy to pay for this content.

Everything else I either read online (if I want the information right now) or rent from the Library at 50 cents a copy (if it's for recreational reading). Wired is one of these cases - and they've already announced that they'll be publishing to the iPad in the northern summer.

Would I change my habits if I had an iPad? Would this take the place of the haphazard online and borrowed reading? Possibly, especially if, as some predict, the iPad triggers a new wave of niche or limited-life serials.

1. A new life for Art New Zealand

Art New Zealand, to my mind, is the kind of niche publication that should be eyeing up the iPad.

I might once have had a subscription to ANZ. We certainly have a huge back-run at home, but once you hit number 100 it starts to get a little sketchy. Either ANZ gets more valuable in hindsight, or my interests are largely historical (I was a heavy user of back issues while studying), or the content doesn't ring my bells any more. I think this last is most likely. There are various blogs and websites I can follow to get more timely reviews or updates as to what's on show, and the longer format writing is only occasionally of interest to me.

But I still think I'm part of the target market for intelligent (but not theory-laden) art writing. I was, for example, an avid reader of Art World Magazine, the Australian art publication that unfortunately went under last year, and never protested at the cover price.

It's important to bear in mind that ANZ is hardly a large corporate endeavour. Rumours of its demise or sale circulate regularly. I have absolutely no inside or official information, but I just wonder how long it will be able to continue on the way it does.

So - why switch to online publishing? First, there are cost savings. Obviously, no more print or distribution costs. No more storage costs. On the iPad, the number of colour pages required won't matter, because they won't cost more - so your mag looks better (loads of big, juicy, zoomable hi-res images of artworks). Design and layout costs may be reduced; I reckon companies are likely to spring up who will do what Wordpress themes do for blogs and Newspaper Club does for newspapers.

But where will the money come from? Almost all the advertising in ANZ currently is by galleries - many of whom have websites, and who would presumably benefit from being able to link through (especially those whose exhibition programmes aren't locked in in time for print deadlines).

Some content could be offered free; deeper content (maybe introduce quarterly auction reports?) could be offered at a subscription cost. Or - don't charge any reader. Offer benefits alongside the content, but working with advertisers to do cool stuff. Brighter minds than mine will be at work on this.

Of course, Art New Zealand is only an example of an existing publication that could turn iPad. John Hurrell's CNZ-funded reviewing blog (currently being redeveloped on a different platform) is another. And then there's the publications that don't exist yet - the most exciting contenders of all.



*Three being how many ideas I have right now. You never know, I may find some extra ones along the way.

All about the story

In yesterday's post I mentioned journalist and blogger Julie Starr, which reminded me that I've been meaning to post about a new venture Julie is involved in - AllAboutTheStory.com

AllAboutTheStory is a marketplace for writers and publishers. Writers upload news features, stories, opinion pieces etc, and put a price on their text. Buyers can then browse the site to find pieces for publication. The site has cannily been launched in the lead-up to the slow part of the news year, giving editors a place to find interesting copy to fill the summer break.

The business model sees AllAboutTheStory taking a percentage from the sellers whenever an article is sold. Idealog has already signed up to the site.

At the moment, stories on offer cluster around technology and business. I'm interested to see whether any art writers take up this offer & start populating the Entertainment section (and setting their own value on their effort).

Oh, how punny!

It's an interesting name*, and an even more interesting business model. New Asshole is an online visual arts journal coming out of Philadelphia. You can download issues as PDFs for free, but the editors have put a Donate Now! Paypal button on the site with a suggested donation of $1-5 to help support the magazine.

This is a little like This American Life soliciting donations to support the broadband that makes their (extremely popular) free podcasts available. Small acts of philanthropy might be the future ....


*and quite an awesome pun for their blog - New RSShole

The future of the essay anthology

One of the most thought-provoking things that happened to me at Foo Camp was being given a print-on-demand (POD) copy of the Best of TOC writing anthology from O'Reilly Media.

TOC stands for Tools Of Change For Publishing, a division within O'Reilly Media that "seeks to connect the people, companies, and organizations asking and answering the questions that will define the future of publishing." The TOC anthology brings together a couple of dozen blog posts from the past 12 months on this topic, drawn from the TOC and other blogs.*

I love anthologies. When I was a kid, it was fairy tales - remember the Blue book and the Orange book and the Red book of fairy tales? As an adult, it's the 'Best American Science Writing' and 'Best American Science and Nature Writing' series.

Over the past few years, I've used the bookmarking site Ma.gnolia to create my own anthology of blog posts on various topics that interest me. These are usually article-length pieces that I refer back to and refer others on to. As some will know, Ma.gnolia recently and very regrettably fell over, and while I've extracted my bookmarked sites , they're currently in the form of one very long HTML page, and I'm reduced to searching it using the Ctrl + F function until I get my act together and reload them elsewhere.

But even before that, I often wished that I could compile my own printed manual of those blog posts, a physical reference that I could flip through faster than I could keyword search my bookmarks. Of course, I could print off all the posts and spiral-bind them, but that wasn't quite the elegant solution I was looking for.

Over the past few years, I've also had a subscription to the New Yorker. Back copies of the magazines sit in piles around the house; every couple of issues there's an article that I so enjoy, that so changes my thinking, that I can't bear to recycle them. At the same time, there's no easy way to collate the bits I want, so I can get rid of the bits I don't. Yes, I could rip them out and file them, or bind them, but again - not the elegant solution I want.

POD publishing would seem to offer this elegant solution for both my dilemmas. If the blog posts were correctly formatted and Creative Commons licensed, or available at a modest price (say, a dollar per item) I could bundle them into an e-book and, using POD, easily print off my manual. Likewise, if the New Yorker made its online articles available for download in this way, I could make my selection of my favourite 20 or 30 pieces for the year and treat myself to a customised collection at Christmas time.

Now let's mash this up a little. Hendrik Hertzberg writes for the print edition of the New Yorker, and has a blog on their site. His reporting on the US presidential election was quite amazing; what if I could make an anthology that combined the best of his his print and online pieces?

And another step further. What if the New Yorker entered into an agreement with some other publishers whose magazines I read, so that I could make a cross-title selection. Then I could pull together all the really seminal pieces of reporting on the election into one mega-anthology, or create a selection of great book reviews, or aggregate pieces of social and tech reporting that are relevant to my job.

Then let's add a social element. Let's make it so that I can share my anthologies online. People could look up the Best of 3 account and download and print anything that interests them from the list of books I've compiled. Or, even better, let them use my list as a starting point, taking out the items that they're not interested in and adding new pieces. If you want to get all cool and Web 2 about it, you could add some ranking tools (so people can vote up popular anthologies), commenting and tagging, and maybe a couple of algorithms that surface titles automatically based on measures of popularity and timeliness.

I see this as a win-win situation. Publishers are trying to figure out how to make money off the digital versions of their print publications, and exploit their back catalogues more efficiently. I'm wanting to make physical versions of my favourite online things.** Everyone's happy. So - who do I talk to about making this happen?


*You can download the TOC anthology from the Reilly site for free; but you can also find links to all the blog posts collected in the book here; I really recommend this great interview with Derek Powazek on the 'evolving relationship between print and web content' and John Siracusa's extraordinary piece 'The once and future ebook'.

**A Webstock workshop that I went to yesterday had some really interesting reflections about the way online activities and communities filter out into real world objects, events and relationships.