Posts filed under 'Observation & Musing'
It seems that everyone in cyberspace has been bumping the news about Craig Venter’s announcement of an artificial cell. So I suppose - given my interest in such things - I should pitch in my two cents worth. It’ll be clear to anyone who’s read Broken Evolution where my concerns lie. But the details from Venter’s own press conference I found truly shocking within the first minute, beyond what I could possibly imagine. Why? The essence of it is this: they have created the first artificial self-proprogating lifeform that … wait for it … replicates its own website address in it’s gene sequence. That kind of speaks for itself, and doesn’t need me to elaborate much. It reminds me of the wacky scientist sketches from The Fast Show that usually ended with the scientist saying “we don’t know why we did this”. They did it because … they can. But is the recent announcement funny? No.
I’m not a luddite. I applaud the technical skill and the long effort to acheive this. They spent 2 years evaluating the risk. The benefits in curing diseases in future could be immense.
But what about ethics?
This is man’s first contribution to the chain of life.
An organism versed in self-promotion from birth. Ready-equipped for the commercial environment. A self-propagating advertisement. A meme made manifest.
What message does that send about what we will do with this ground-breaking new technology? As Mr. Venter cited in his announcement: “See things not as they are, but as they might be.” That cuts both ways. Look ahead … remember how excited Oppenheimer must have been when he started work in his exciting atomic technology … and tread with caution into the future.
Broken Evolution has well and truly begun.
June 2nd, 2010
With my new year’s impetus I dived into my backlog of books to read. Top of the list (because it was thinnest) is a book I’d intended to read for a while, a book I’d heard much about: The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. I knew nothing about it, but was determined to find out what all the fuss was about. I still haven’t found out. I have, however, read the book. I can cross it off my list.
I can understand that it may have been controversial at the time it was published, especially in a time where the memory of the harsh sacrifices war was still fresh in the adult generation, and a time when the teenager generation had not yet been given their iconic advocate of James Dean in Rebel without a Cause. But today, perhaps a youth that is disillusioned, confused, and truant is no longer a worrying pointer of the future, but is now an engrained issue in society. When we hear regular news bulletins of happy-slapping, drug and alcohol abusing teenagers, teenage gangs, knife crimes, etc., then Holden Caulfield’s peccadillos seem tame by modern society’s standards.
The voice of the protagonist was certainly strong and convincing and of its time, but everything “killed” him. That killed me … after a while. While reading it, I wondered if a modern equivalent novel of disillusioned youth, laced with OMG!s and Whatevaar!s would attract as much interest as this book.
The biggest disappointment for me was, while the character voice was strong, the story was weak. It meandered. It went nowhere. Maybe that was the point. Maybe it was a clever way to show the lack of any purpose or trajectory in Caulfield’s life. Ok. I get that. But, I didn’t think it was very well done. Look at Karoo as an example. It had a similar type of meandering tale with a strong character voice. Karoo, in a way, is a middle-aged version of Caulfield’s character. I think the big difference was humour and irony. Caulfield’s was a humourless character. Karoo had a wry way of looking at the world and things happened to him. Aren’t things supposed to happen to a protagonist? Karoo certainly had a definitive ending. And something happened. Something that made you realise how much the character had grown on you. Holden Caulfield? I was glad to say goodbye to him. His story didn’t end, it just stopped, where it stopped. Not because it had arrived anywhere. It just stopped. So did I. It was a disappointment that (in my view) didn’t live up to the hype. Maybe it’s just not my taste.
So onto the next classic. I might try a little Dostoevsky this time.
January 26th, 2010
Sorry I haven’t been keeping up the blog this last week. I said I would have some articles to put up on it, but life got in the way. Work and illness.
2009 has been, without doubt, the second worst year of my life. I haven’t said much about it during the year, because I don’t like to complain, and it would be tiresome to hear it too. But I always look for meaning in even the bad things that happen to us. This year, I have learned to be sympathetic to those in pain, in a way that you can only when you’ve experienced pain. I hope to bring that sympathy with me through to 2010 and beyond.
As much as I can find purpose in this dire year, I really want a better one for next year. Come January, I plan to set about making it just that.
This year I learned something about my writing too. I’m not as talented a writer as I thought I was. Actually, it’s not that I thought I was hugely talented (in some vain way), it’s that I just always assumed I had what it takes to “make it”. In the end, despite what anyone will tell you, publishing, like life, is a bloody lottery, even though you do your best. What I do about that in 2010, we’ll see.
For now 2009 is limping to a close, and me right along with it. I’m exhausted. Blindsided by a bad year that came out of nowhere. And a stomach bug over Christmas too, just to see out the year consistently! But I’m looking forward to the new year of hope.
I won’t wish you all a happy new year, because we can’t know what will come our way. However, I wish that you learn to have a good 2010, in all its sorrows or joys.
December 26th, 2009
Dealing with corporate clients, handling their last minute rush requirements that absolutely have to be done by Christmas (happens every year!) got me thinking about the megacorps of publishing. The megacorp of publishing - Amazon. Ok, so bear with me. I’m have a suspicious mind. It comes from reading and writing all those thrillers.
When I first considered self-publication a year ago, BookSurge was the candidate. In the meantime, it has been subsumed into the great belly of the Amazon beast. Not long after, Amazon stated that the only vanity press they would list on their site was … BookSurge (CreateSpace as it has recently been renamed).
There’s the rub. And a portent of the future. That was a clear case of Amazon leveraging it’s online market dominance to push out other vanity presses, and so maximize its profits from that sector of the market. It is a common strategy of all megacorps, like Tesco and Walmart. Suppliers are so glad to get into chainstores like those, that they will take a financial hit for the sake of wide exposure. And the megacorp will squeeze them financially, because they know they will take it.
In the Internet age, if we are not vigilant, we will live in an age of monopolization of the distribution channels. The companies who control the distribution channels set the rules of the game, and can squeeze suppliers.
So who are Amazon’s book suppliers? The publishers? Yes and no. Mostly no. Because it is the authors who actually make the product. Amazon knows this. This is why CreateSpace makes such sense for them, especially in the long term, as I will explain shortly. If they capture the huge volume of vanity published authors, it doesn’t matter if they sell only a few books on each. Amazon aren’t fussy, because one person’s buck is as good as any other. Multiply a few book sales out by the volume of vanity authors they can capture (remember, they control the main distribution channel). And they can charge the author for the privilege of using their vanity services too (the willing supplier will be squeezed gladly for access to the distribution channel).
Publishers aren’t really the suppliers. They are the middle men in Amazon’s paradigm. Amazon need publishers for now, of course, because Dan Brown’s latest will drive browsers to Amazon in droves. But in the future … who knows. Apart from squeezing supplier’s profit margins, the other strategy megacorps use to maximise profits is shortening the supply chain. On the Internet, this is known as disintermediation. The middle men are kicked out, because the distribution costs are kept low, and the Internet company can connect supplier directly to customer. Authors linked directly to customer, by Amazon alone. Internet companies will use and tolerate any intermediary only so long as it makes financial sense for them. With Borders bookstores closing daily, will Amazon grab some high street pick-up points for their consignments on the cheap in a recession? If Amazon become the distribution channel for books, what’s to stop them signing contracts with Dan Brown once his contract with his publisher expires? What’s to stop them from setting up an X-Factor book site to crowd-source the next Dan Brown from the ranks of all the CreateSpace authors?
Publishers beware. And watch what Amazon is up to. Gradually, Amazon’s interests may be to push the publishers out of the chain and deal with authors directly. Small shifts, inexhorably, over time. Too suspicious for you? It’s not just me: Publishers need Amazon - but do Amazon need publishers?
The big worry, in such a doomsday scenario for publishing, is who would be left to fight back against the megacorp in the author’s interest?
But, for now, we’ll all happily use them. They’ve got the biggest, best distribution on the Internet. Right?
December 14th, 2009
Here at Optimistic Future Publishing Enterprises we are always on the look-out for excellent candidates to fill our job opportunities as fiction novelists.
The successful candidate must have the following:
- An original manuscript, already completed, to our satisfaction.
The successful candidate should also display some (but not necessarily all) of the following:
- Work well alone
- Work well in a publishing team
- Self-starter
- Self-finisher
- Imaginative
- Observant
- Attentive to detail
- Patient
- Persistent
- Ambitious
- Withstand criticism
- Self-motivated
- Can work to a deadline
- Deliver long-running projects with no management intervention
- Avid reader (hundreds of novels in your genre ideal)
- Mastery of at least one major international language
- Word processing skills
- Proof-reading skills
- Editorial skills
- Research ability
- Psychologist
- Philosopher
- Good people interaction skills
- A large social network of friends
- Tireless self-promoter
- Knowledge of the latest marketing strategies
- An active blogger (a back catalogue of many years worth of blog posts is ideal)
- Frequent twitterer
- A keen observer of publishing trends
- A keen observer of social trends
- Media savvy (some training preferred)
- Knowledge of libel & slander laws
- A high public profile (celebrities preferred)
- Public-speaking experience
- Loves to travel
- Young
- Attractive
- Interesting
- G.S.O.H.
- A strong arm (whichever one you sign with)
If this sounds like you, we want to hear from you! For the right candidate, renumeration is negotiable(*).
* Renumeration is on sales commission basis only. No salary provided. Overtime will be required. Second income recommended.
November 16th, 2009
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