Imagine a World

By Paul Bissett

Imagine a world where there are no books, there never have been books, the word ‘book’ doesn’t exist. Instead the traditional means of publication has been through blogs: people having free-reign to write about their topic of choice in a variety of ways and a variety of qualities. The great narratives are born on monitors. This is all people know. As a reader you have your favourite 10 or 20 blog writers whom you follow fairly closely, you regularly comment on them either starting a discussion or continuing one. You particularly like a couple of blogs that always link to other interesting unknown writers you also latch onto. The blog is not just text, but a gateway to community, an active discussion and a gathering of like minds.

There are also about 20 or so blog fiction writers whom you like, who write short stories and novels. You take these to bed with you and read them on your e-reader. Some nights you fall asleep reading, other nights you can’t sleep because you’re engaged in a fiery discussion about Chapter 3 – a real-time, online book group.

Then some tech-head comes up with a new concept in publishing. The S-Blog – or StaticBlog. A blog that comes complete and pre-written, produced in hard-copy - as is. You can’t change it, you can’t interact with it. What’s more, it’s linear. And no more clicks. The future of reading.

You go to a shop, choose it and it’s yours. Static, unchanging text on a page. Once you’ve read it, you put it on your shelf and dust it yearly.

Oh, and someone in a corner office of a large multinational publishing house decides what goes in the S-Blog - not the author, and not the reader.

Can you hear the crickets?

Would Steve Jobs get a 15 minute standing ovation for that? 

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