The New York Times just reprinted John Updike's sprawling rant against web publishing. You should read the whole thing..."In imagining a huge, virtually infinite wordstream accessed by search engines and populated by teeming, promiscuous word snippets stripped of credited authorship, are we not depriving the written word of its old-fashioned function of, through such inventions as the written alphabet and the printing press, communication from one person to another — of, in short, accountability and intimacy?"
I think the New York Times is setting up a false debate here. It's not an either/or kind of situation. Even as the web becomes more important for publishing, good writers will still get published. Good writers will still be celebrated, it's just that the forms are changing.
Nobody is trying to steal Corynne Steindler's "promiscuous word snippets" on her blog, and the web doesn't diminish realtionships between writers and readers. Claire Zulkey has a very intimate relationship with her readers.
I've said this before: it's fine and dandy for a writer at the end of a dazzling career to criticize this industry shift, but we fledgling writers aren't so lucky. If we want to eat, we have to cope with the Big Changes going on around us.
For a more productive conversation, check out Holtzbrinck Publishers and Carl Lennertz's links to ground-breaking books that cross his desk at HarperCollins. Both these publishers are striking new balances between the web and paper-bound books.
What do you think? Should we be arguing?
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