Attention spans are getting shorter in the internet age (I figured this out by grandiosely assuming I'm representative of the internet generation. My attention span is shot to hell). Even though I love reading, I have trouble making it through a whole book by itself. Usually, I read multiple books, reading sections from one and sections from the other throughout the week.
In the Victorian era, novels actually appeared first as monthly installments in a newspaper. Dickens and Dumas's most famous novels were originally published in this serial form.
Stephen King recently revived the serial format by publishing The Green Mile in serial form. He published the book in six parts, each part being released as a paper back and sold seperately. Each part made the New York Time's Best Seller list at the same time: he occupied the top six spots simultaneously.
Why aren't more authors publishing in this format? Is this a better way to make money than selling one huge book every couple years? Would you be willing to pay $.99 for a chapter every couple days of a really good book?
I don't want to pay for books. I'd rather download them or steal them from a library & upload them to the internet (the internet is chosen due to its popularity, and of course because it is easy). I don't have all books in mind; only those who are technical. For instance, a book on mathematics, on gardening, on philosophy. I'd rather send a cheque to the authors address, I don't want printing houses to make a penny out of me. I would do this only if I knew or at least suspected the money would aid the author in writing more stuff I can read.
As for every other book that is not included in the aforementioned category, I'd rather have the whole book and read as much of it as I want each time I pick it up.
I don't like Stephen King. Then again, I haven't read anything from him, but I can speculate from his fanbase that he's either someone who the majority completely misunderstoods or someone who doesn't write stuff I'd want to read. In the former case, it is a mistake of mine that I haven't taken more time to read his stuff, but it's highly unlikely, and I already know of better (=stuff I'm more interested in) things to read than SK.
I don't think the internet has affected my attention span; if it has done so, it's either too small therefore unnoticable or I'm unable to realize the damage. I don't really care which it is because I can read books fine. My attention span is ruined in other ways. (I need drugs to keep myself able to read and actually understand what is being read)
There's my answer. I don't know if it's helpful to you or if I really answered any of your questions.
>2
>I don't want to pay for books.
I'm not sure you're really the audience for modern literature, then. Authors write to make a living, in order to make money, so therefore they write what is most appreciated by those who will actually pay for it.
Basically, if you don't pay for books, your opinion and tastes have no relevance.
> Basically, if you don't pay for books, your opinion and tastes have no relevance.
That's a weird thing to say. I consider yours even though I might disagree with them wildly, why don't you consider mine? If authors write to make a buck, they surely will aim for the most profit. A masterpiece of literature won't do; a masterpiece might be misunderstood and recognized years after ones death. When you write to make money, you're looking to appeal to the most possible, and that is only achievable when everything but your skill to dress a story with words is mediocre.
That's not only true for literature; take a look at films and you'll notice lately there's much more attention paid to the visual part of a movie rather than its story, its character development, et cetera, which are just enough to go unnoticable.
> A masterpiece of literature won't do; a masterpiece might be misunderstood and recognized years after ones death.
It is pretty hard for me to believe that we may have such masterpieces appearing today in the times of Internet. Do you know how many short stories, books written by some God forsaken authors appear? Right, most of them are pretty bad, but if there are masterpieces they will just sink in the sea of mediocre and probably will be never revealed. Of course there could be exceptions but looking at how it goes, it is more possible to make good profit from bad book (I am tempted to mention one book about vampires now...) than to see a masterpiece recognised after years. Not today. Sadly.
So I do agree that opinion of someone who doesn't pay for books is irrelevant, unless it is some quite important and/or recognised person.
> So I do agree that opinion of someone who doesn't pay for books is irrelevant, unless it is some quite important and/or recognised person.
Then I'll let those who pay (and thus have valuable opinions) to talk with each other. au revoir
(who is important? how does one get recognized and by whom?)
> Then I'll let those who pay (and thus have valuable opinions) to talk with each other. au revoir
Nah, your opinion is irrelevant to publishers, not to few other people, so I apologise if I ofended you.
> (who is important? how does one get recognized and by whom?)
Just someone who's people opinion people will follow. Those might be even some dumb celebrities. But then, tell me by whom author of a masterpiece, is recognised after years?
> Just someone who's people opinion people will follow.
What I gather: My opinion of books is irrelevant because I don't pay and my opinion is not followable (deceptively?). I had not understood that I'm talking to a publisher (?). At least the OP might've been one. In that case, you're right and I agree, my opinion is not relevant. It was a misunderstanding from my part, so I apologise.
> But then, tell me by whom author of a masterpiece, is recognised after years?
Let's just say a good deal of the philosophers until the contemporary era (you might not recognize all these works as gems of literacy but consider, for instance, Plato's writings, or Aristotle's (whose writing style is better than Plato according to some quotations, ie Cicero), whose brilliance was accepted only by certain circles of the time, and only recently was added to the general consensus. As for novel/etc authors, mayhap exceptious, but with a web search, which unfortunately I do not have the time to conduct, some names would hopefully be revealed.
I'm terribly sorry for misunderstanding, I just assumed that when we were talking about relevance of an opinion, we were talking in global scale. Then, as I think, opinions of someone who doesn't buy books, are irrelevant. And here, I think that everyone's opinion is important.
Not too many people were writing then (times of Plato and Aristotle) which is different to today's times. Of course there had to be just simple entertainers and it is not that all the art then was noble (BTW, there is an essay by Wilde which touches the idea of art, relationships between artists and critics and also shows that, what people may say today, that we live at the end of art, where nothing else can be invented and even shocking value of art has worn out and becomes just more of a shock than having some art values). And philosophers were recognised back then. Maybe not as they are today, but still. And then they were forgoten and then taken out from the past. I know couple of names from XIX century that were praised only after their death and probably we could tell many more names in these days (now talking not only about literature) but in these days, I believe that people are more likely to follow artists recognised by critics but who died tragicly, it is easier for such artists to become icons. I just don't believe that someone can be now recognised after many years after death by larger group of people just because he/she was a genius. Or maybe to put it in other words. I don't think that this is rule. Many really good artists who were not famous when they were alive, will be just forgotten. Maybe even most of them. There are and will be few exceptions from that, the exceptions that will make us think, that everyone, who was very good at something, will be praised during their life or after death. It really doesn't matter when, but it is important that such person will always me recognised. But again, I believe that such people are exceptions and more of them are just forgotten.