Book Matters: Gary Shteyngart @ Politics and Prose

Gary Shteyngart at Politics and Prose in Washington, DC on September 13, 2010

Super Sad True Love Story, Gary Shteyngart, Random House - Buy it wherever (e)books are sold.

After going through all the trouble of hosting Gary Shteyngart, I'm sure Politics and Prose disagrees with that last bit but after my experience there I doubt I'll ever buy a book from their store. Before I get to the reasons behind my personal boycott of Politics and Prose I would like to reiterate my first point; buy Super Sad True Love Story and more importantly read it. The book is funny, dark and smart. It's science fiction meets bitting satire with a dash of romance. Depending on your feelings about Facebook, Twitter, Kindles, iPads and other ways the internet and technology are rotting your brain this book will either terrify you or strike you as proof positive that the post-literate world it describes is far from being a reality. We could be approaching a post-book-store world if they are paralyzed by fear of new technology instead of inspired to adjust their business model to leverage new technology and promote great works of art.

Reading Super True Sad Love Story on my Kindle prompted me to think about how e-readers are changing the way people read. Ron Charles, in his Washington Post review of Super Sad True Love Story wrote, "I hope the e-book version contains a virus that melts your iPad."

Using Mr. Charles comment as a frame, I asked Mr. Sheyngart about his thoughts on how e-readers are a potential benefit or detriment to literature. His answer was conflicted and it seemed to be a mix of nostalgic longing and the cold hard facts of reality. He referred to physical books as sacred objects that are talismans that reveal a person's true self. But he quickly pivoted from this sentiment as he mentioned the fact that his last book, Absurdistan, was the #1 "accessory" book for young men on the "L" train to Williamsburg who would just carry the book, thereby gaining the credibility of having read it, whether or not they had and this didn't bother the author. He then reported that e-book versions account for about 25% of Super Sad True Love Story sales. Finally he conceded that there will most likely come a day when books are like LPs which are loved dearly by their ever dwindling fan base.

It's fitting that he uses advances in music technology as a metaphor for what's happening with books and e-readers. Recorded sound had a profound effect of music (read Mark Katz's Capturing Sound: How Technology Changed Music for more information) the most important being that it widened a musicians audience. More people could hear music than ever before and record companies got rich off the deal.

Music technology advanced in such a way that empowered consumers to make copies of music themselves. At each innovation record companies fought to keep the power to share music out of consumers hands. They built an entire industry on controlling the creation and sale of the physical object the music happened to be on. The artistic value of the music was always secondary to the economic value of controlling how the music was distributed.

When mp3s and P2P file sharing technology emerged the record companies first reaction was to attack the technology. In doing so, they lost billions as the world of music consumers banded together to become the distributors of the music. Had they embraced the technological shifts as a better way to distribute great art they could have figured out innovative ways to create a new business model.

Politics and Prose has not learned from the music industry's mistakes. I took my Kindle to the reading because my copy of the book is on the devise. I toyed with the idea of getting Mr. Shtyngart to sign it and after he said that he'd signed Kindles and iPhones on his book tour I resolved to let him sign mine. There were about 100 people in line to get their books signed and to make this process as efficient as possible, a Politics and Prose employee(?) was going to each person in line, asking for their desired inscription , writing on a post it note and and marking the title page with it. When she got to me she said, "You better hide your Kindle because they are not allowed in this store." I asked if she were kidding and she said, "No," and moved to the next person in line. I was furious and left the store immediately. Banning Kindles from their stores is the same sort of short sighted thinking that plagued record companies in the naughties and lead to stores like Tower Records to go out of business.

Update:

I've sent Politics and Prose an email asking them if this is their actual policy. Their response is below.

While we do not have a policy of banning people from bringing Kindles into our
store, Amazon IS our competitor; the Kindle is their proprietary device, which
does not allow customers to buy books from Politics & Prose – or our
website’s selection of electronic books, which can be read on the Sony Reader,
iPhone, iTouch, and iPad, and Blackberry.

We would prefer that our
displays, recommendations, and author events not be used as a “showroom” for
purchases from Amazon, and we are always happiest when our hard work and efforts
inspire customers to shop with us .

Of course, for us the most
important goal is that customers enjoy our events, and our in-store events
are always free and open to the public.

Thanks for asking, and we
do hope that we will come back and shop with us again

It seems like they have their head in the right place, but I still don't think telling customers they are not welcome is a great business strategy.