The Digital Scholar

[W]e have to rethink our conceptions of literary forms or genres, in view of the technical factors affecting our present situation, if we are to identify the forms of expression that channel the literary energies of the present. . . . [W]e are in the midst of a mighty recasting of literary forms, a melting down in which many of the opposites in which we have been used to think may lose their force.

. . . [This] mighty process of recasting . . . not only affects the conventional distinction between genres, between writer and poet, between scholar and popularizer, but also revises even the distinction between author and reader.

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An author who teaches writers nothing, teaches no one. What matters, therefore, is the exemplary character of production, which is able first to induce other producers to produce, and second to put an improved apparatus at their disposal. And this apparatus is better the more consumers it is able to turn into producers–that is, readers or spectators into collaborators.

–Walter Benjamin, “The Author as Producer,” 1934.

In writing the above quotations, Walter Benjamin was interested in identifying the qualities that mark a properly Marxist literary work. Even though the politics behind the writing of his article isn’t very popular nowadays, I am surprised that his essay doesn’t receive more attention than it does, given its seemingly prescient description of communication that is now possible with new information technologies.

At this point, I probably do not need to re-document how websites, blogs, and the ability of readers to share and respond to them have been recasting the way that popular media is produced and consumed. Traditional media outlets are struggling to figure out their role in this new economy of ideas and entertainment, and some media forms, such as newspapers, may not survive the recasting.

Instead, I am interested in how information technologies are recasting the author/publisher divide. New technologies have essentially reduced the costs associated with publishing to near zero, creating a situation where authors can cheaply and easily distribute their own work. Authors can make their own blogs, produce an e-book for sale or giveaway, or publish a printed book using print-on-demand (POD), and they can do all of these things for free.

Of course, some of these free publishing venues have catches to them. While it is possible to create a print-on-demand book for free, the printer will take a fairly big percentage of any sales of the book. And some free blog hosting sites will insert their own ads onto the pages of authors. The larger point, however, is that traditional publishers no longer hold exclusive keys to the production of creative works.

Nor do these publishers hold a monopoly on distribution and marketing. Blogs, of course, are available to anyone with an internet connection, but even independently published e-books and POD books can now appear on Amazon.com and other popular online book sellers, right next to titles distributed by big publishing houses.

There still may be good reasons for authors to publish their work through third-party publishers, but the line that used to keep author and publisher apart is beginning to blur. We are beginning to enter the age of the “Author as Publisher.”