Clay Shirky on the Future of Publishing

Jacob Grier commented on my previous post, and mentioned Clay Shirky -- of whom, I have to say, I'd never heard. (But I don't get out much...) Anyway, I strolled around the web until I found what Jacob was referring to, and it's worth reading. And I agree with Shirky's comment about the future of publishing:

I think the big revolution is going to be print on demand. Imagine only having one browsing copy of every book in a bookstore. You could say "Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers looks good", and out pops a brand new copy. Why does a bookstore or a publisher have to be in the shipping and warehousing business?

As both a reader and a writer, I've thought about this a lot, particularly in terms of e-books (which I favor): I like to browse among the bookshelves, but if there's no physical object anymore, how do we "browse" as we do now in bookstores and libraries?

Not saying it can't be done; I'm just not sure HOW it will be done. And I'm not sure we can expect the publishers to provide that one copy, unless and until the publishers re-think the idea of a "book." One of a publisher's biggest costs is the initial print run; the cost of printing goes down the more copies the publisher prints. So if there's a switch to e-books, or mainly e-books, how will, say, Barnes & Noble provide "samples" of available books?

More to the point, would B&N even survive? (My bet: probably not.)

n any case, although I love the idea of e-books, it's clear that we're a long way off from figuring out the logistics of such a system. (Well, no surprise there! No one's yet come up with a truly viable e-reader. The Kindle comes close, but I still think Steve Jobs will come up with something better.) All part of the great web of uncertainty that is 21st century life.

Kudos to Shawn Connelly and The Aleuminati

Speaking of comments functions malfunctioning, the other day I tried to post a comment at Shawn Connelly's blog, Beer Philosopher, and his comments function was also haywire. (What's up with this anyway? That meteor shower is over with, and there's no full moon, so what gives?)

Anyway, I wanted to comment on his post summarizing and surveying the 2008 traffic at his blog and his site, Aleuminati. The stats are impressive. They're even more impressive when you know that Shawn has a fulltime "real" job, and running his blog and Aleuminati are sidelines. Labors of love, you might say.

But as I've noted before, the beer world is full of people like Shawn: decent, generous people who are passionate about beer, and want to share that passion with others. (And yes, the Aleuminati site breaks my rule of NO BLACK BACKGROUND, but I gather that Shawn is in the process of giving the site a facelift, with the intent of shifting to a easier-on-the-eyes appearance.)

So three cheers for Shawn, and for Alan (see this post), and all the other folks out there who work to make the enjoyment of beer a communal venture.

As always, one way to find many of those other beer-lovers and their sites is through Jonathan's really simple BEER syndication.

My Absolute Last Comment on the 2008 Yule Photo Contest

But this is worth mentioning because it's (a) cool; and (b) relates to my previous post about beer folks being good folks: Alan of The Good Beer Blog, who co-hosted the contest, told me that Lew Bryson, wh

o had offered a copy of one of his books as a prize, offered to deliver the prize to the winner in person at a nearby pub. The winner was, as Alan put it, "gobsmacked." (That's one of those pricelessly descriptive British words. How come we don't have an equally juicy equivalent in American English?)

But I wasn't surprised: That's precisely the kind of generous act that beer folks are prone to commit.

So -- one more contest "hoooorah," this time for Lew. (Who, by the way, helped me out when I was writing the book: When I was unable to track down a copy of an interview he'd done with Fritz Maytag in the 1990s, Lew sent me a copy of the document.) (You can find all of Lew's books at Amazon.)

Pints for Prostates on Facebook

Speaking of good guys, Rick Lyke is surely one of them. He's the founder of Pints for Prostates, which now has a "branch office" at Facebook. You'll find that here. On a related note, more praise for the folks at Aleuminati: toward the end of 2008, they hosted an online fundraiser for PfP -- another example of the generosity of the beer community.

The Yule Photo Winners

By the way, while my blog was "indisposed," Alan and Jeff announced the winners of the 2008 Yule Photo Contest. The photo I thought should Win Big did indeed win the UK grand prize. Anyway, you can see winning photos and their prizes here, here, here, and here. Those are all at Alan's blog.

For the UK winners only, visit Stonch's blog: Here (this was the photo I wanted to win). Here, and here. The photo that won the prize I offered is in this entry. Click on the thumbnail for a larger image. And congratulations to Nathan Fong and all the other winners.

Just In Time For New Year's Eve: Getting The Blog Back To Normal -- And Stocking Your Home Bar

I'm obsessive about saving, backing up, etc., and so I've been able to reconstitute some of the blog entries that got demolished in the Big Crash of '08. They're below, back-dated to their original posting dates. See here, here, and here.

Two shorter posts that vanished were holiday-connected, and so I'm reposting them in this entry: advice for the home bartender from Jacob Grier. Jacob, you may recall, is our resident drinks expert and, as important, our man-on-the-beat for cogent, up-to-the-minute rants-and-reporting about the nanny state. (*1)

For tips on bartending hardware, see Jacob's entry here. For his tips on the well-stocked bar, see this.

As I type this, it's December 30. You've still got time tomorrow to shop for tomorrow's celebration tomorrow.

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*1: Jacob is joined in these tasks by Jeffrey Morganthaler and the folk(s) at Cocktail Revolution.