change Archives - Andrew Knighton Writes

How Innovative is Too Innovative?

People are a paradox.

We crave the novelty of the new but also the comfort of the old. You can see it any time a superhero gets a revamp – some people will love the bold new direction, others will cry out against it, and some will take entirely different views on the next controversy over.

One of the publishers I work for is trying to adjust its output. They want their content to be more modern in its style and more diverse in its content. But when they say this to me as a creator, I face the implied question – how much do you really want to modernise? How much do your readers want? How much will they take before they feel that they’ve lost something familiar and comforting?

I would be happy to play around with different story formats and to fill those stories with characters who aren’t white, male, straight, cis, able-bodied, and neurotypical. That would be a lot of fun for me and much more in line with how I want my culture. But if this publisher’s style moves too far too fast, it’s going to lose the audience. I want to change things up enough to keep readers entertained but broaden their horizons. I rely on the publisher to guide me in this, just as they rely on me to do it well.

Creatives and marketers face this problem every day. When asked, they’ll get lots of responses asking for new things. But if they actually deliver on that, they’ll often find that their audiences miss parts of what they had.

Captain Marvel looking badass — Oh no, she’s going to get lady cooties all over your man space!

Of course, some people will complain no matter what you do. You can see that in the pre-release complaints about the Captain Marvel film from entitled men who think that a trailer featuring a female superhero is feminism gone mad. To them I say, you can fuck the fuckity off. Superhero films currently have more white male leads played by guys called Chris than they do female leads, there will still be plenty of what the whiners want. Asking to be represented is fair. Asking for everything to be about you is bullshit.

But when writing for the rest, the question remains, how much challenge and change do people really want compared with familiarity and comfort? How much innovation is too much innovation for this audience? And that’s a question I face when I sit down to write.

Amazon, Hachette, coffee and the psychology of change

I’ve written several posts here about how wonderful current changes in publishing and modern technology are. But not everyone sees those changes like I do, and if we’re to discuss them with any intelligence then it’s important to think about why.

The devastating loss (of coffee)

My favourite local coffee shop closed down this weekend. As a working writer this is a terrible blow. Nowhere else that close combines wifi, plug sockets and friendly service. I’m going to have to walk at least ten minutes now if I want to work out of the house. Laura’s also sad about it – the staff were friendly, they knew what we liked to drink, the cakes were top notch, it was a lovely place to relax.

I loved Barbican coffee shop, but I suspected it was doomed from the start. It was an up-market coffee house on a street of discount stores and the cheap, cheerful cafés favoured by the working (and unemployed) English. It was an independent business following a model dominated by big chains. It was bold and beautiful and I hoped rather than expected that it would last.

Alas, poor coffee, I knew you well... — Alas, poor coffee, I knew you well…

If such an expected inconvenience can put me in a grump, even though it costs me nothing directly, imagine how it must feel to have your whole working life threatened. Not just the income, or the stability, or your corner cubicle that’s handy for the coffee machine. The very credibility and value of the model you’ve invested your work in for years. That’s what the rise of indie publishing and disputes like the one with Amazon represent to the employees at big publishers like Hachette. Their working lives and personal identities are built around believing that what they do creates value for readers and writers, that their service is a good thing. And now innovators are coming in and stomping all over that.

It doesn’t matter how good the evidence is. It doesn’t matter how much they normally like innovation. They are going to be predisposed to believe and defend the viewpoint that says ‘you are right and Amazon is ruining everything’.

The frustration of facing denial

I used to work in business improvement, trying to help employees save themselves time and effort, trying to help clients get a better experience. I was constantly faced with people who would prevaricate or refuse to act on evidence clearly showing that changes would benefit everyone. They didn’t want to take the risk of changing, and it drove me insane.

That’s how it must look from the other side of the indie/traditional dispute – that of innovators like Amazon or hybrid author Hugh Howey. Their lives and identities are built around the value of moving forwards, trying new things. They find this incredibly exciting. They can see the benefits it will bring. They have the evidence. They have the logic. And yet still people dig in their heels against them.

Like some kid trying to win an argument in a YouTube comments thread, they aren’t thinking about how their argument makes people feel, just whether it’s right. But just being right won’t change people’s perspective unless you take into account their emotional response too.

So what?

So what does this mean in the end? Right now it means that no-one’s going to ‘win’ this debate. Publishing will change, and in the long run I believe the innovators will win out, not through better arguments but by providing better access to books in the way that readers want. The Amazon/Hachette dispute – which despite all this rhetoric is really just a contract negotiation – will be decided by power and profits, not who’s right about the future of publishing.

People will move on, but you can’t force them. And if you want to have an intelligent discussion about these changes then you need to think about how they make people feel.

Think of the children – e-reading’s messy future

Have you thought about where e-readers are taking us? I don’t just mean emptier shelves round the house and less weight to pack for holidays. I mean the bigger changes that they’ll bring, as change ripples out through the institutions built on old technology.

Yesterday’s post provoked some interesting responses about publishing, and I’ve written before about why kids will still want old style books. But there’s so much more to it than that. Because our default concept of reading is based on privately owned paperbacks, but the reality of books is far more complicated.

Textbooks

Glenatron mentioned textbooks in response to yesterday’s post. And he’s quite right – they could be vastly improved by using the benefits of an electronic medium. They could be repeatedly revised and updated, colleges and schools buying into the updates instead of whole new books. No more battered, out of date books with notes in the margin and penises crudely scribbled onto the photos.

But getting there is very complicated. Because for schools to use e-books in classrooms they first need e-readers, but to justify the e-readers they first need the textbooks to go on them, so there’s a tricky circle to be broken. Not to mention the risk of e-readers going missing – schools will probably need them cheap and sturdy.

Then there’s a bigger academic issue, because part of how we legitimise knowledge as correct and of value is by publishing it through established academic houses and then keeping that edition of the book set, unmoving and easily referenced for years. That’s an approach that doesn’t work so well with the changes going on.

E-readers have the potential to radically change both education and the knowledge economy around it. But it’s going to be a tricky thing to do.

Libraries

This was another point raised in response to my post yesterday, this time from Sheila. Our model of publicly shared books – which is to say the library system – is built around books that are trapped on the physical page. New lending models and legal frameworks will be needed to cope with lending e-books. Those new models could make books more accessible than ever, or shackle the electronic age with assumptions from the paper one.

And what about libraries as public spaces? If we start borrowing and referencing by download from library webpages, how will those centres of communal activity be supported, never mind the experience and wisdom of the librarians?

Copyright

When a book’s published electronically it’s much harder to stop people copying it, just like with music. And that has huge implications.

I could go on for hours about this one. Suffice to say that old models of intellectual property are poorly designed for the modern age, but big companies insist on wielding them to hold back their profits against the inexorable tide of change. It’s not just copyright – look at the pharmaceutical companies getting outraged about life-saving knock-off medicines, or King’s battles to protect its dubious gaming trademarks.

The best companies will respond by innovating to appeal to customers and by finding ways to profit in an age when you can’t realistically stop low level copying. Others will continue on the defensive, keeping the lawyers busy as they go down fighting. The end results should be innovation and a richer culture, but the journey there may be messy.

What have I missed?

What are the other implications to the shift to electronic books? What angles have I missed? Leave comments, share your wisdom.

Just don’t try to stop people copying your opinions – that one’s a losing battle.

Picture by Mike Licht via Flickr creative commons