Libraries, Gentrification, and Amazon's Crowd-Sourcing Evil
Last edited Wed Feb 4, 2015, 07:24 PM - Edit history (2)
I was renewing my UC Berkeley library card today, and I walked past a framed quote from Michael Chabon that's been given pride of place in the Main campus library for a couple of years. I can't remember the exact quote, but the gist was that Chabon couldn't have written his Pulitzer-prize winning novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (2000) without access to all the research resources of UC Berkeley's world class university library.
Berkeley is a city brimming with authors and wannabe authors. I don't have many friends, but most of them are at least fellow-travelers in writerly circles. I've had drifting thoughts about writing my own novel...until I look at the large box that contains many shoe boxes with scraps of paper and random notebooks of notes. Naw, never going to happen. But in Berkeley, one can dream. It's easy to publish an ebook these days. I have world class research skills and access to a world class research library.
And, of course, the key way I fit the "writer's life style" is I'm extremely poor. Yes, there are many notable, prize-winning, wealthy authors in Berkeley. But the majority of authors are struggling authors who hold down a day job in some other field.
In recent years, mainstream publishers have dropped almost all pretense of being of use to authors, and they now only seek to be middlemen forcing themselves between the author and their dreams of being lauded as the writer of the Great American Novel. For instance, authors used to regard publishers as rather paternal figures: they managed the awful legal business, they paid for the book tour and perhaps a few conferences, they hosted the parties. Today publishers shift the marketing burdens on to authors and simply try to exploit the benefits of a book's popularity. Authors pay for the book tour themselves and throw their own parties. The publisher does high level distribution in bulk if the author managed to drum up that much interest - and that's about it. If the publisher does any editing, it's desultory. If the author does "move units", perhaps they can get a royalty advance on their second book or start negotiating a marketing budget for ads. Otherwise, the publisher is just there to get the gravy. In short, authors should not expect to actually make a living from writing books.
Amazon has taken the crass money-grab from authors to a whole new level. Because Amazon has a monopoly on the only distribution system that means anything on the Internet - the Amazon catalog - Amazon has the means to "encourage" people to use their content-creation tools exclusively as well. Amazon's ultimate goal is to CROWD-SOURCE BOOKS. Since it is so hard to get published, the vast majority of writers will offer their books for free, or for a very low price. The author makes next to nothing. Meanwhile, Amazon benefits from consolidating millions of these books and monetizing them in other ways - cross-advertising, running ads, etc. The main point is struggling authors who just want to publish their work naively end up providing free content for Amazon, just like all those people who "crowd-sourced" Wikipedia gave their efforts for the greater glory of Jimmy Wales all those years ago. Now Amazon has added insult to injury with Amazon Unlimited - "Netflix for Books". So all that free content provided by crowd-sourced authors becomes Amazon's instant mega-content library for their "Netflix" to give people plenty to browse next to what they might rent/purchase.
Circling back - most author-wannabes are poor and getting poorer. And a lot of authors live in Berkeley.
Now back to the library. Berkeley has many amazing historic and cultural resources besides the UC Berkeley library, including easy access to San Francisco and all of its historic and cultural resources. But the library alone is worth its weight in gold to writers. There is not only the main library: there is the Bancroft special collections/archives library, many specialty branch libraries including one dedicated to Asian literature, and several university museums. These are resources that authors should have. Research assets are OXYGEN to authors! They need close geographical proximity to such resources. Those poor authors belong in Berkeley.
Tech hipsters who just want to strike a pose in a cool coffee shop do not NEED to be in Berkeley. They are displacing poorer Berkeley residents because they can, in what they seem to regard as the Divine Right of the Market. They do what they can get away with, and Berkeley's political establishment is not remotely inclined to stand in their way: they are rolling out the red carpet and holding out their grasping hands for mo' moolah. The authors can go elsewhere. But they can't pack up the University's world class research library and bring it with them.
I wonder how many great novels and other cultural works will be lost to this process of ruthless class war gentrification?
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