This post by Tom Abba originally appeared on Futurebook on 8/27/15.
How easy it is to keep replicating the same old same old. Want to stop replicating print in digital? “Lock your marketing department away for six months,” advises narrative theory specialist Tom Abba in today’s manifesto. Lamenting, as do many others, the “books under glass” disappointment of most ebook efforts to date, he writes: “Print is kicking and the novel is breathing. Writers are poor and you are squandering opportunities.” We should, he tells us, take better advantage of “this chance for change, for real disruption.” — Porter Anderson
This is not good enough.
Repeat after me.
This.
Is.
Not.
Good.
Enough.
What are we building? What is it we’re making?
The best we have are books under glass, enhancements with video and clicking and audio. Imprisoned and ridiculed and not what was promised.
The book is not dead. Print is kicking and the novel is breathing. Writers are poor and you are squandering opportunities. This chance for change, for real disruption.
Repeat after me.
This.
Is.
Not.
Good.
Enough.
Digital is different and digital’s new.
It’s going to break you, or it’s going to ignore you (as it’s already done). If you don’t engage it, nothing will follow. It can remake your business, but only if you let it.
Read the full post on Futurebook.