I'm just back from BEA...and man was New York hot! I didn't get a chance to hear Malcolm Gladwell speak but PW gave a synopsis of his interview by Brad Stone.
Below is the excerpt from PW:
Malcolm Gladwell was
interviewed by Brad Stone at BEA's IDPF Digital Book conference on Wednesday,
billed as a conversation about the future of digital publishing but more a
discussion of his forthcoming book DAVID AND GOLIATH: Underdogs, Misfits, and
the Art of Battling Giants--and a selection of at least some misfit ideas.
Gladwell's main
thought on digital publishing is that people should be able to buy a book’s
content and receive it in every format, from print to digital to audio. Not
only did he have little guidance, but he showed little regard for the digerati
in the audience: "People involved in the digital world always like to
pretend they’ve invented more than a process. They want to believe it's a way
of life or a philosophy, as if they're Schopenhauer. The only people who are
good for the book business are people who produce great books. Amazon is just a
place where people can find books. Amazon has 'solved' a problem that was never
a problem in the first place."
Nor does he like the
solution itself, suggesting unlimited selection is a problem. "You do not
want everything you want, that's terrifying. You don't want a restaurant with a
menu with 10 pages, you want three choices. The best experience as a consumer
is someplace intimate and manageable, where someone with taste has given some
consideration to what's being sold--like a good bookstore."
And Gladwell has no
desire to communicate with readers except through the media he already uses. He
does not Tweet, for example, and said, "It's weird for me as someone who
writes for a living, that you would come home at night and write."
He suggested "that would be assuming that the more of me the better,
but not everyone wants more of me."
Another controversial
swipe was aimed at the New York Public Library's main branch: "The massive
money sink of a mausoleum on 42 Street should be sold to support all the branch
libraries." Gladwell supports libraries and their primary mission:
"Libraries are also safe havens for people who are not from privileged backgrounds,
who do not have access to books and where there is no quiet space to
work."
But in his view,
"the New York Public Library should be focused on keeping small libraries
open, on its branches all over the city." He said, "Every time I turn
around, there's some new extravagant renovation going on in the main building.
Why?" (His distaste for property expenditures extends to colleges, too:
"Students are funding mechanisms for the construction of new real
estate.")
