Recently I sent my novel to a publisher for consideration. I try not to think about it too much but I’ve got my fingers metaphorically crossed they’ll accept it. The key is to keep expectations low.
However, I can’t not think about the future. It’s sort of what I do.
To do that, I think about the past and what I thought the future would be. At some point I (and a lot of others) thought sure that the future would be filled with chrome and jetpacks and flying cars. Even silly things like The Jetsons gave us ideas, like video phones and the three-day work week.
In every version of The Future, there were things that were a lot the same as they were then, or now, if you prefer. There’s always food, almost always entertainment of some sort and always relationships. There are always corporations, too.
Since I’m a writer, the particular corporations I’m interested in today are the ones that publish stories, entertainments. Like the one I sent my novel to.
In the last thirty years, entertainment has changed dramatically. Gone are the 12”, 33 1/3 Long Playing records of my youth in favor first of cassettes, then CDs and now digital formats like MP3. Gone are the four networks and their summer rerun schedules in favor of first VHS, then DVD and now cloud-based streaming on smaller screens. Not gone, but certainly less prevalent are the bound books made of paper that are migrating to a computer cloud where one can read but doesn’t necessarily own anything any more despite paying for the privilege.
Books in particular come in multiple formats: paper, audio, digital. Some are from major publishers, some from smaller presses and a great many more are self-published. (more…)