No one knows anything, and other dilemmas of the e-book eraWilliam Goldman, who wrote Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, is almost as well known for his coruscating portrait of the movie business, Adventures in the Screen Trade. This, in turn, is celebrated for its dictum about Hollywood executives – "No one knows anything" – a phrase that has a way of popping into mind whenever the discussion turns towards the future of books and newspapers.
I've noticed that whenever writers, publishers and journalists get together, sooner or later the conversation turns to The Way We Live Now, the ongoing IT revolution, usually with reference to manifestations of the latest innovation (lately, for instance, the Kindle and Twitter). Finally, the conversation usually culminates in a version of Where Will It End? or How Will It Affect My Livelihood?
It's at this point that "No one knows anything" comes to mind. Is that why this paradigm shift we're living through can seem so unnerving? Everyone is doing their best to make sense of a confusing picture, but still being blindsided by unanticipated change. And the situation is not helped by the mixed signals we are getting from the world of print itself, the everyday business of newspapers and books.
For example, the past two weeks has seen a lot of high-profile "old media" literary news: Annie Proulx, author of Brokeback Mountain, donating her papers; the likely sale of Siegfried Sassoon's manuscripts to the Cambridge University Library; the imminent publication of Vladimir Nabokov's posthumous novel, The Original of Laura, preserved on 138 index cards. All this stuff is pure gold to literary historians, and not one part of it exists in virtual form.http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2009/nov/09/digital-books-publishing-ebook-mccrum
